Pop a Small Cap in Your Ass

A bit ago we talked about Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style. Like every other facet of typography, he offers an exhaustive treatise on the proper use of small caps. A breezier and generously illustrated explanation can be found on the i love typography (but apparently not capitalization) blog.

While it might seem a trifling matter, small caps with improper proportions are a huge eyesore. I've seen many documents that have a poorly metered word screaming out for undue attention. For something that's supposed to be diminutive, a bad small capped word can stick out more than its bolded cousin. Heck, you may as well use the fake highlighter and paint it yellow. Can't wait to read what Bringhurst has to say about that.

When Captchas Go Wrong

Huh? Did a 3 year old make this? Does your keyboard have these letters?

The Shapeshifter

It's nice to mess with your perspective once in a while.

While many artists prefer to chalk their 3-D trompe l'oeil works on city streets, Felice Varini takes his to buildings. From one vantage point his installations look like someone has taken a photo and overlaid a perfect geometric shape. But as one moves through the space, the object becomes distorted. What was once a perfect circle now is a twisted gaggle of arcs in varying thickness.

It's a disarming way to think of geometry like Felice does: each pure shape is really a jumbled mix of line, perspective, angle, and fragments. The sheer complexity of making something appear so simple is what's so enticing about his work. Kinda makes that geometry class we took in high school seem downright easy.

Picasso Lino Prints

Swann Galleries' latest auction offers a tremendous selection of 19th and 20th century prints and drawings. These 3 pieces are among the nearly 700 lots to be offered this Thursday, and are superb examples of Picasso's skill with lino a block and a restrained palette. Since the auction estimate is steep -- upwards of $5,000 for each piece -- we've got a plan B for you: a signed copy of our Bob Ross prints for just half that price.

Feeling a Bit Dirty?

Your friends at Fred Flare have just what you didn't know you needed: 3-D type soap. Though I doubt anything with a "crushed ice" scent is going to do much about that ink underneath your fingernails, at least you'll look cool scrubbing up.

The letters on this soap don't appear to spell out anything in particular. If you were to make your own word soap, what would it say?

Birfday Card

What kind of card do you make for this sweetie who's celebrating her 5th birthday with a "Princess Castleway Tinkerbell Butterfly" party? Yeah, we had no idea either.

So we made this:


Paper is Crane Lettra (110#, pearl white); type is handset wood; 5.5" x 4.25" folded

Tiki Time, Part II

The tikis have found a new home. When last we left them, they had just taken a bath and were awaiting deployment. They've landed in a prominent spot in the front hall, filling the glass display case formerly occupied by some ephemera from the Squished Penny Museum. We updated the lighting in the case and the mugs seem to be enjoying the warm glow of their new digs. They did request some little umbrellas, though.

As always, click for a larger image.

Test Sheets

At the start of any job, printers run a couple test sheets through the press to check registration, ink coverage, spelling, etc. This process is commonly called make-ready, and ensures that a good print will be made. Basically, we make sure everything looks swell before we insert the good (ie. expensive) paper and print the job. Since we reuse the test sheets from job to job, they tend to collect bits and pieces from many different projects.

Every once in awhile, it's nice to step back and evaluate these test sheets as individual design pieces, rather than just as purely utilitarian devices. Oftentimes they look like a random jumble of overlays, but sometimes they end up having a rather pleasant aesthetic rigor. Pictured here are some of our favorites from the past year. (Click on images for better view.)

Below is detail of the upper left sheet. If you look carefully, you can even pick out portions of jobs that we've featured on this blog. Recognize any of them?

Tiki Time

Behold the annual Washing of the Tiki Mugs ceremony at Duckpin HQ.

We decided it's time for a changing of the guard on the living room mantle. Our collection of thrift store tiki mugs has stood sentinel over the firebox for the last few years, growing in number as we acquired new soldiers. But by midsummer they were spilling over and we had to search for a new home for them. We'll post a photo when they get situated in their new digs.

In the meantime, enjoy some tiki-inspired type. Mahalo.

Typedia: A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces

The latest -pedia recently landed, and it has touched down in our little design constellation. Typedia aims to be "a community website to classify typefaces and educate people about them."

Each typeface in the as-of-yet comprehensive listing includes a sample, the designer(s), foundry, release date, etc. There are several ways to classify and organize faces, and should be of help to those seeking a window into the universe of fontography. For those of you already in that universe, your contributions to filling out the site are most welcomed.

Supersized Linocut

Linoleum is a favorite medium of many printers, and we count ourselves among them. But few printers would conceive of a project of the magnitude that Mark Andrew Webber has. Above you can see him working on 5ft by 6ft typographic map of Paris. He finished the carving after two full months of work, but can't find anyone to print the cut. Why? There's no press large enough to print it. Oops.

Maybe the answer to his quandary is steamroller printing?

Thanks to James for the tip.

Ampersand Cufflinks

For the well-dressed printer, Veer is offering ampersand cufflinks. While the dress code at Duckpin is what you might term "industrial casual" or perhaps even "lazy," we'd welcome these smart accessories anytime.