It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Pantone

Now that Columbus Day has passed, it's time to decorate for Christmas!
Get a colorful jump with these Pantone-licensed "Xmas Balls" from Seletti.

(Hat tip to Santa James)

Yer Old

Happy Most-Common-U.S.-Birthday Day!
According to all the smart people on the Internet, today is the most popular birth date in the United States. Fittingly, Duckpin Press' own mom -- always part of the popular cowd -- is celebrating her birthday today. That gives us an excuse to show off the above piece we made earlier in the summer on the Pilot press. Enjoy. And happy birthday, Jackie!

Paper is Crane Lettra; Gray text is 24pt Ombree; orange text is unnamed wood typeface (well, unnamed to me, anyway -- suggestions, anyone?); 4.25" x 5.5"

Magazine covers

We usually feature sites that are heavy on inspiration for type or poster design. In this post, we feature a selection of magazine covers taken from nascapas. The Brazilian site captures the best magazine covers from around the world, posting up to a dozen different issues a day. Covers often include captivating photos, lively type treatments, and intelligent conceptual illustration. (Plus some funny-looking words from countries that don't talk American.)

Click on covers for a larger view.

Duckpin Goes Duckpinning

The Duckpin Press staff of two has just wrapped up our summer duckpin bowling league. In honor of the workhorse typeface, our team name was the Zapf Dingbats. We certainly lived up to the second part of that moniker. A total of 18 teams took to the lanes, and we finished.... uh, let's just say we didn't finish in the top 17. But when you're out on the town throwin' ducks with the love of your life, who cares what your record is?

There's always next year...

Sophia Stationery

My how they grow up fast. Seems like just yesterday we were making a 5th birthday card for Duckpin's youngest printer. Fast-forward a year and and half and she's now a full-fledged intern. To congratulate our newest assistant, we made her her very own stationery. She did us the favor of adorning it with a self portrait. Thank you, Sophia, for spicing up our refrigerator door art collection.

Click on photos for wicked big versions.

Siding Signage

While traveling through the small town of Aquasco, Maryland, this summer, we spied this old building embalmed in it's own kudzu. Fittingly, it advertises various undertaker services -- including embalming.

Also fitting is that this phenomenon of faded advertisements is referred to as ghost signage. There are several collections of images out, and we sometimes visit them for typographic inspiration. Perhaps the most apropos one we've stumbled across is a ghost sign advertising Casper Beer. Boo!

Ink-scented Wretches

Sniff your screen.
That's right, sniff up here close and tell me what you smell. What? Nothing?

That's right. As much as this blog might stink, it doesn't stink. Absent in electronic communique is the familiar scent of ink on paper, a nasal elixir for us printers. For those missing the olfactory experience of reading, enter The Times of New York candle. Combining “hints of guaiacwood, cedar, musk, spice, with a powdery note and velvet nuance," this candle will emit everything you love about your morning paper–except the ink.

What'll it cost you to capture that ol' smell? Just $65. (Or you can subscribe to the real thing for $7.40 a week.)

Look: A Book on Curling. Oh, Wait...

New to the annals of "don't judge a book by its cover" comes this gem. Available from Amazon, the book purports to teach you all you need to know about bowling. So what kind of expert is teaching us about bowling? Well, according to the book's description, "this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing..." So it's basically the internet borrowed and reprinted on paper.

You'd think that the "author" of the book would be able to borrow a better image for a book on bowling. You know, one that actually pictures bowling.

Cashspiel Smackdown

Since you did such a great job last time, we're again turning to you readers for some design feedback.

Above are two possible designs for a poster. The task is to create an announcement for the National Capital Cashspiel at the Potomac Curling Club. Basically it's a tournament for seasoned curlers to compete and maybe make a few bucks. The design brief that the poster should be "very DC".

I decided to take two design paths. To the left, the political convention design, celebrating 19th century broadsides that advertised political party gatherings. On the right is the monument design, with a nod to the federal architecture of DC.

Since we can only use one, do you have a preference—convention or monument?

Click on image for larger view.

Yeah, When Monkeys Fly Out of My Butt

We love a great combo of letterpress and die-cutting, so we had to highlight this promo piece for A Hundred Flying Monkeys, an outfit based in California. Funky illustration, beautiful printing, AND it'll put your eye out.

Slots Are Our Friends

Is anything sacred with slot machines?!?!

While traipsing around Las Vegas, we stumbled upon the slot machine above. Now, we've seen some oddly-themed slots before, but this one caught our eye. (And not just because the whole premise of this machine is built around one really bad pun.) Pictured above the "Easel Money" marquee are a series of fictional painters, including the requisite dude with beret. But are those characters really fictional? Seems one of them is heavily inspired by our favorite painter ever, Bob Ross.

And that's no happy accident.

Patriot Paint

Ever wonder what it would look like if Uncle Sam threw up on your car?

Fans can now choose from three potential paint schemes for Kevin Harvick's Budweiser Chevrolet, two of which are pictured above. The winning design will run at Daytona over the July 4th holiday weekend. While the summer Daytona race has always had a dose of Independence Day fever -- from the '60s through the end of the '80s it was known as the Firecracker 400 -- has there ever been a paint scheme that has been so yea-rah-rah America?

Perhaps not. But don't let that stop you from trying to top it. Now's your chance to create one even more Americantastic! The Toyota Sponsafier is back, allowing you to design your own paint scheme from scratch! And what can be more American than slapping your red-white-and-blue on the side of a Japanese car?

Plumbing the Depths of Typography

How easy is it to get information these days? As easy as turning on the tap, according to Richard J. Evans. To illustrate that, he completed the installation informationleak_part two (pictured above) as part of his studies in Birmingham, England. For those letterpress purists out there, don't fret: no vintage type was hurt in the making of this art. The wood type used was cut specifically for this.

And if you're wondering, yes, there's an informationleak_part one.

City Maps in Lettering

If I ever get lost in a city, I want it to be this one. No, not Washington, per se, but a city that's built entirely from type. Axis Maps has created a series of five city maps that weave together nothing but letters to shape the city form. From waterways to the street grid, the posters aren't only accurate, they're distractingly compelling. So much so that your mind might actually get lost just looking at them. Finally, a map that you get more lost the more you look at it.

Pictured above is DC. You can also find Boston, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York City on their site.

Modernist Poster Sale

It's time again to salivate over Swann Galleries' annual Modernist poster auction. As always, it's packed with treasures from the heyday of avant garde graphic design. Though the catalog is wide-ranging — from wartime PSAs to sporting events to film debuts — pictured above is sampling of travel-related posters we culled from the 200+ posters being offered. You have until 1:30pm to wipe that drool and start your bidding.

Click on the images for a jumbo view. Bib not included.

May Flowers

From Luis Vega and Alberto Cerriteño, here's a beautiful letterpress reminder of springtime's bounty. They've created a 200-edition print of an umbrella-toting elephant. (Betcha didn't know elephants used umbrellas, huh? Well, umbrellas sure use elephants!)

The print is available at their Grinket site.

Rest Stop Frames

The ol' dogwood tree in front of Duckpin Press HQ is blooming and that means summer is just around the corner. And summertime means road trip time.

Do you have any road trip plans? Lizzy Oppenheimer sure does. She plans on photographing what many folks overlook. Namely, overlooks. (And picnic areas, rest stops, and roadside shelters.) She's been at it since 2009, but has a long way to go. You see, she plans on photographing every rest stop in America. That's going to be one long trip.

Her photos so far have a great open-road feeling to them (three appear above). If they're any indication of what's to come, this is going to be one terrific journey.

Happy travels wherever you may be headed this summer. And while you're on the road, why not check out a rest stop or two?

The Bullring

NASCAR rolls into Bristol this week, in what is one of the most entertaining tracks on the circuit. The high-banked, 1/2 mile oval always makes for tight racing and hot tempers.

This week Denny Hamlin will be running his FedEx Express paint scheme, one of four schemes he normally runs for FedEx. Given my penchant for orange, I'd say it's the baddest ass one of them all. Since Denny joined Gibbs racing, the one constant has been FedEx on his hood. But the paint schemes have changed throughout the years. Here's a run down of the "Express" schemes:

2011:


2010:
2008:

Have a favorite one? Put it in the comments below.


And now, for bonus paint scheme coverage from 2006:


This last one has got to be one of the most original paint schemes of the modern era. It ran at Atlanta to promote FedEx's sponsorship of the PGA Tour Fed-Ex Cup. Though it looks like they took a mallet to body work to give it its dimpled look, it's all an illusion done with paint and vinyl. NASCAR, meet trompe l'oeil. (I'm pretty sure this is the first time those two words have appeared in the same sentence.) Just imagine what they could do if a breast implant doctor ever sponsored a car...

Enjoy the race!

Rock Star

We revived an old linoleum block we cut last year for a new curling poster this year. Combined with (mostly) 16-line Clarendon wood type and lead stars, this 6-color concoction was printed in an edition of about eight. Maybe ten.

ED. NOTE: The type in upper right -- a nickname for curling -- was originally going to read "hurry hard", but I didn't have enough Rs in the proper size. I figured this out only after cutting the lino for the blue splat which the type sits on. While "hurry hard" fits neatly inside the splat, "the roaring game" is a bit snug for my tastes.

Various color papers are from the French Paper Company; assorted wood type; handcut lino blocks; lead ornaments; hand inked in 5 passes on the cylinder press. 12.5" x 19".

Type Nerd App

Unless you're obsessed with type—or like to chide those who are—stop reading now.

Now you can think about type 24-7 via the iPhone app "KERN". The idea is to score points by inserting missing letters into design-related words while maintaining optimal letterspacing and avoiding unnecessary ligatures. (If you have no idea wtf this means, remember, you were warned.)

Since I haven't actually downloaded the app, below is a mix of user reviews and my own snarky commentary. Guess which is which:

A. "This app should come with its own black mock turtleneck!"

B. "What may be the first and only video game in history with the potential to get typographers all hot and bothered.”

C. "The iPhone's first design-nerd game."

D. "Better than a girlfriend."