Zapfino is one of the most spectacular typefaces you’ll ever get to use. It’s a calligraphic tour de force, a typeface designed by the prolific Hermann Zapf, the man responsible for Optima, Palatino and a great many other well-known fonts. Zapfino is specialit’s a swash-rich design with a range of styles and options beyond almost…
I got a new printer the other day. It was unexpectedly heavy – it took two of us to carry it from the car – and it isn’t the fastest of devices by any means. When I say ‘new’ I mean new to me, as really it’s rather old; as far as I can tell,…
According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, the organisation that gives the official tally of who sold how many, the digital version of a magazine isn’t a version of its print sibling if it has ‘five percent less content or fifteen percent more content than the physical edition’. I see the logic behind this –…
I bet at least some of you experimented a little with invisible ink when you were young. Lemon juice was my chosen method, because it was easy, but mainly because I didn’t really know anything else. It dried clear, but heating the paper brought out the writing or drawing in brown. It was good, schoolboy…
Back on August 23rd (note: this was written in 2012) Microsoft announced something new. It wasn’t software, and it wasn’t hardware: it was a new corporate logo, launched officially as it opened its new store in Boston, Massachusets. Technically it appeared in July on new keyboards and mice, but a slight fudging of the unveiling…
What’s the future of text? I’m going to be talking about this at a seminar in October [Note: this was written in 2012], and it’s a fascinating subject. But right now I’m thinking about something a bit different: as things go increasingly digital, will video take over traditional magazine content? Strange question. Here’s where it…
Would I get a tattoo? I don’t have a specific thing in mind, but the concept is an interesting one: can I come up with a design that I’d like to apply to my body? Something that I can’t change, at least not at all easily? That’s a tough one… as a designer I’m used…
Skeuomorphism is probably not a word you’ve heard much in your life. Not until summer 2011, anyway, when it took the Mac world by storm, thanks to Apple’s design retro-realism in key parts of Lion and iOS5. A skeuomorph is, in a nutshell, something that retains ornamental design cues to something that was necessary in…
Where are you going? I don’t mean in the metaphysical sense, that’s too deep for right now. I mean do you know what direction you’re facing, where you should be heading, that sort of thing? When did you last glance at a sign or a map? Some people have what’s called a ‘good sense of…
I love what’s possible in digital design and production, but the truth is there’s something that digital products lack when compared with print. This missing quality is tactility, the effect of touch and physical behaviour as a part of the overall experience. Even in print this is all too often forgotten as a part of…
