Font Conference video

A few screen shots above from the Font Conference video from CollegeHumor.com. Click here to watch it for yourself. I won't give away the ending, but I'll tell you I was a little surprised who saved the day—I suppose that's the biggest joke of all.

Illustrator Crash Course

If you haven't seen this already, check it out. Four weeks worth of lessons will introduce you to the tools & basic tricks of Adobe Illustrator CS3.

Click here to be redirected to www.vectordiary.com.

I love ampersands!

I wanted to share a little love regarding my favorite personalities in a font's character set. The ampersand has been around since the first century A.D. where it began as a squared "Et" and has since become more connected and curved in many modern serifs and sans serifs ("&"). Ampersands to me have the most personality & flair as compared with other characters—if you agree here are a few things you might appreciate.

"More than just a pretty shelf sitter, these heavy ligatures can be deployed in a wide variety of household and office applications such as bookends, door stops, paperweights, dumbbells for power-walking or self-defense mechanisms."

Cast Iron Ampersand Sculpture from House Industries
www.houseind.com



Ampersand Organic Shirt from Service
www.serviceisgood.com



Beautiful Ampersand Plate from Cul de Sac
www.culdesacdesign.com



Hoefler & Frere-Jones' post "Our Middle Name" This article gives history of the ampersand and details some of the foundry's favorites.

"Ampersands with Attitude" article from Smashing Magazine that details 10 different styles of ampersands from different fonts


"The Funkiest Ampersands You've Ever Seen" from Spoon Graphics Blog This post includes some of the recognizable, some of the most beautiful and of course some of the funkiest ampersands out there. It's inspirational & fun.



The Ampersand Blog features every incarnation of ampersands that you can imagine. Hours of fun for ampersand lovers! Many images above were submitted to the blog by readers.


What are your favorite ampersands?

What does your kerning style say about you?

Communication designer, Valérie Madrill, applies graphological interpretations to digitally-typeset text in this intelligent & entertaining graduate project. With academic precision Valérie identifies the psychology of users of differing styles of margins, leading, kerning, tracking and even font choice. 

Widening left margins mean an "obliviousness to economic necessities", while narrowing left & right margins mean a "conflict between fear of people and inability to remain alone" and overlapping lines of text means "sign of mental disorder."

So, what does your typographic style say about you? My small even tracking says I'd make a "good homemaker" while my irregular right margins say I have "unwise thriftness" and "reserve alternating with loquacity." :-)

Check out the whole "Graphology vs Typography" project here.

A few snippets of her project below. Visit her website for the full project and other design treats (my favorite is the rabbit poster): www.valeriemadill.com.

TRACKING

LOWER CASE i
LEGIBILITY

CAPITAL LETTER M

Farm-fresh prints

The summer season is upon us here in NY. That means so many delicious fruits & vegetables on the farm and at local farmers markets. I have been eating my fill of sweet cherries, green beans, sweet corn and fresh salsa. To celebrate the eating season I've tracked down some of my favorite prints on Etsy that pay tribute to edible seasonal delights and have them here to share with you—even though I'm jealous that some of them come from kinder hardiness zones & longer growing seasons than myself. :-)

*Click on the images for a little more detail.

Hand screen-printed calendar featuring delicious fruits for each month—
you definitely don't need to live in California to appreciate this one.
"Seasonal Fruits of California" $35.00 www.clairenereim.etsy.com

Vividly-colored modern seasonal screenprint from modern manifesto
representing one of the four humors: sanguine.
"4 Humors Screenprint- Sanguine" $16.00 from www.modernmanifesto.etsy.com


Just some of Rigel Stuhmiller's hand-carved block print
reproduction notecards inspired by veggies.
"Vegetable & Fruit Block Notecards" Set of six, $16.00. www.drenculture.etsy.com

Beautifully illustrated limited edition book with original Italian text and English translation.
"The Fruit, Herb and Vegetable of Italy" $180.00 from www.angelaliguori.etsy.com

Fun retro-flavored letterpress poster with positive message for kids. :-)
"Eat Your Peas" $45.00 from www.pantrypressinc.etsy.com

Three Red Hens giveaway on This Old Hen House Blog

Three Red Hens is excited to be featured on a fellow poultry-lover's blog: This Old Hen House's today. You can also enter to win a set of my farmy cards. :-) Click here to read the interview and enter to win.

Field Trip! A little inspiration for me and hopefully for you

I take so many photos for work, but it seems like I never get an opportunity to take them for myself! For some reason NYC cityscapes just don't do it for me. My husband finally took me to the Bronx Zoo yesterday and amongst the hordes of kids I was able to snap a few good shots. Unfortunately my memory card is mostly full of blurry monkey pics but these animals were able to stay still for long enough... Getting out and about with camera in hand gives me so much inspiration for new work. I hope these pictures will brighten your day too!

Not the pinkest flamingo in the pond, but the closest.

Endangered/rare kingfisher.

Lemur in the Madagascar exhibit.

Penguin feeding time! I think I was more excited about this than the kids in attendance.

Another lemur in the Madagascar exhibit.

Siberian tiger at Tiger Mountain. For some reason the zoo was misting in the viewing area. I had to get out of there quickly before my hair exploded.

A dwarf mongoose—one of the cutest things I've ever seen. I have a sneaking suspicion they bite, though.

Kookaburra. A very funny looking bird.

Where do you go to find inspiration?
Any recommendations in the NY area?