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DO contributor and all round graphic all-rounder* Adrian Shaughnessy (that book, this place and other stuff) is coming to Belfast.
Friday 9th November sees Adrian alongside Andy Stevens of the brilliant Graphic Thought Facility and Andrew Summers of Design Partners at the University of Ulster. That's the Design Futures event. Brilliant!
It'll cost you a tenner (or a fiver if you're a student). Sign up here.
* Perhaps that's a horrible way to describe him.
I thought I knew a thing or two about type and stuff but before Saturday I'd not come across the term "CamelCase" before. Sure, I've unknowingly used CamelCase but until I stumbled across the short article in October's CamelCase headed NewScientist, attracted, predictably, to a photo of a case of metal type used to illustrate the piece, I didn't know the technique of bunching up words together without spaces and distinguishing each word by its capitalisation actually had a name. Well it has, infact it has several: medial capitals, BiCapitalisation, CapWords and InterCaps, as well as the afore mentioned which is derived from the way the capitals create "humps" in the composite.
Of course, as the article illustrates, it's very popular nowadays: BlackBerry, MySpace, YouTube etc but has, surprisingly, been around for ages with examples stretching back the the fifties (CinemaScope).
Coincidentally, I'd used the technique only the day before. Software engineers use it loads apparently, and it is they that have defined two versions: UpperCamelCase and lowerCamelCase (like "iMac").
A quick Googling of the phrase reveals it to be a reasonably well known idiom.
Well no one told me!
Update: More InterCapping from Jonathan Hoefler. Thanks Jonathan!
Fairly frequently we go on a Boys Big Day Out, that's me and our two boys (2 and 4). They're always good: the Transport Museum is a favourite; W5 is another; Various parks, forests or beaches suit the purpose perfectly when the sun's shining (actually this is Northern Ireland so the best we can hope for is that it's not raining).
Last Saturday we went to the Ulster Folk Museum and had a brilliant time. Unfortunately my camera was being seriously flaky but managed to snap quite a bit of stuff nevertheless.
It's an excellent museum, beautiful even. There's a reconstructed town complete with period bank, post office, sweet shop (2oz of mint humbugs please sir), hardware store, drapers, pub and appropriately for NI, loads of churches. There are various workers cottages, a great school house where Seth (aged 2) had to stand in the corner and not come out until he was sorry for what he'd done, a police station and bicycle repair shop; even a picture house that shows Chaplin films, the boys loved that. There's a fully working print shop, how exciting is that? I have secret plans to infiltrate and exploit (but shhh! Don't tell no one?).
Then you can go off down country lanes and find mills, orchards and a scattering of psuedo-poor people wandering about (usually on their mobile phones). All it needs is some period brigands for that authentic bygone-days mugging experience.
Lunched on sausage rolls eaten in this standing room only stone watch tower. Don't ask me why.
Back into the town we sat for a while in a thatched weavers cottage, warmed ourselves by the fire and chatted to the old guy, who was just brewing up, about weaving etc.
Hope to go back next week for the Hallowe'en events; bobbing for apple, burning virgins in wicker men, that kind of thing. There are more pics here.
If you'd like to contribute to FTF, please do. Send stuff here.
Because I was a boy scout the name "Ordnance Survey" provokes all sorts of memories. To my ultimate shame (but not without a naughty schoolboy-like snigger) the strongest OS-related memory I have is of me scrutinising a sheet inorder to work out just how our group (pack? troop? patrol? I can't remember) could short-cut the gruelling hike our glorious leader had sent us on. That's probably about as rebellious as I got as a teenager.
Yes, I was a lazy child but they told us we should expect to be back by 3pm and we knew that that didn't stack up; that the only way we'd keep to that schedule was to cheat...and we were damn right: back at three on the dot, the rest weren't back for hours. So really, I'd say we showed unprecedented initiative that displayed an admirable respect for deadlines and for the need to meet them no matter what.
Our leader didn't see it that way.
I soon left to pursue an adolescence full of long hair, Black Sabbath and Purple Parachutes.
More modern editions of OS maps (yet to be posted) seem quite sanitized when compared to older publications like this one which still has loads of charm and character. But then, of course, charm and character is no good to you when you're half way up a mountain and the cloud's coming down fast, you're out of Kendal Mint Cake and one of your party is whinging about his twisted ankle. What do you do? Carry him or leave him for the goats to pick over his remains?
Incidentally, is it just me or does anyone else see a rotund, cigar smoking Spiekermann with a floozy on him arm?It's a backlog clearing Found Type Fest!
Brad's in the finely named West Texas town of Clarendon. The place to buy your top-soil.
Ages ago Loïc sent me shots of his favourite cook book, l'antisteak, "The food is as pop as the pictures...and sometimes the author gives the advice to throw the meat away and drink the wine that was supposed to be used for the sauce. It was published in 1970, and Gösta Claesson did the pictures."
Gray's been to Corfu.
Claas in Copenhagen explains these, "Rummaging through a box of old books at my girlfriends' parents, we took some paperbacks from the 60's/70's with us...The publishing company dtv is kind of "the German Penguin" and they still keep with the same concept for the covers, only the text layout itself has recently undergone some treatment (not only to the best, i dare say)...all covers "to this day" are designed and illustrated by the same person, Celestino Piatti."
Mike from Hayward explains his love of this type, "In March, 2002, I was in England on business and stayed in a hotel near Heathrow for two of my six nights in the country. My first day there was the only one which allowed any "tourist" time, so I took the Underground into London, rode the red double-decker buses around, then got on the train headed back to Heathrow and my hotel. The train broke down and we were forced to walk through Hounslow East to a bus stop, then take the bus back towards Heathrow. This big gray building with chrome type was my landmark because I had passed it getting the the hotel in the first place. I just love the type and the name of the place." (By the way Mike, my apologies, last week I referred to you by your last name).
And finally, Vicki's been on a barge, "I went on a canal trip recently (in Rugby - oh, the glamour) and managed to take a few pics of the passing boats' panels that weren't too blurry (those things seem to suddenly speed up when you're trying to auto-focus)...none of them are too perfect, they must be one of very few signs that are still routinely hand-painted. And 'Electron' has to be the geekiest name for a boat ever."
Very big thanks to everyone for taking the time to send your found type.
If anyone else would like to contribute, send stuff here.
Continuing the casual survey of map design here's a, just 3-colour, Geographia of North Wales. No date. Pre-decimal. 2 an' 6 to you guvna'.
When I was a fledgling graphic artist this beige space helmet appeared in our studio. It was a new fangled thing called an Apple Macintosh...SE to be precise. "Ooh, la-di-da", we all thought, "ain't it posh". It'll be silver suits next, food in tablet form etc before we know it. The future had arrived.
Only problem was, we didn't know what to do with the future. Someone else had always taken care of all that for us. But the word was out: inhouse was the way to go.
So with less than zero computer experience, I volunteered to be the guineau pig. Like Laika, I would be the first dog in space. That space being a corner of our studio where the space helmet had been installed. Life would never be the same again, I was now no longer a mere Rotring weilding graphic artist, oh no, I was a bloody typesetter as well. So, using the mighty 20mb power of my shiny new Mac, I typeset.
And low, it was shit.
It was a revelation: the future was, well...shit.
"No", I said, "it just can't be. I'll buy a book, that'll do it. I'll buy a book and learn how to be not shit". So I bought Ruari McLean's Manual of Typography. And it was good and I became slightly less shit. But Ruari said, "you are a mere underling, servant pig dog to the designers what are much more clever than you. Bow down before their mighty creativeness".
"No", I said again, "this can't be so either, for I am clever too. Cleverer." So I ventured forth into the wilderness and searched the countryside for more. Only, all I found was stinging nettles and cow shit. Back to the town I went and after many days, in a secondhand bookshop, I found what I was looking for: my grail. A modest, dog-eared paperback volume on the outside, wisdom and encouragement inside. And most importantly, some of the vital know-how that leads to being less shit.
I know very little about John R Biggs. There's nothing of any value online, but his book Basic Typography, as well as providing essential technical knowledge needed to be a good typographer, showed me what a rich and creative occupation a typographic designer could be. I'll always be grateful for the encouragement and insight his humble little book gave me.
Cheers Biggsy!
P.S. I don't actually know if Mr Biggs is dead so, if you know him, don't presume you just haven't heard the news yet. If by chance you happen to know anything about the great man, please pass it on.
Update: Great suggestions coming in, please keep them coming. I'll keep this post at the top for a while so if you're looking for anything else, scroll down.
Update: Thanks for all the suggestions. Brilliant!
So we're just thinking about our now annual big day out to the smoke. Last year it was easy, we had Fletcher to see. This year, it's not so obvious. There's the Turner Prize Retrospective, but what else?
Friday 14th December would be a good day to pop 'round to nick all our Macs because that's the day we're closing down and clearing off. If anyone has any suggestions for what would be good to do in Londinium on that day, please let me know. Big things, little things. Places to eat, places to avoid. All and any suggestions gratefully received.
I've got a backlog.
I've seen a doctor and nothing can be done, I've just got to work through it. No ointment or medication can help. So Loïc, Vicki, Gordon, Brad, Claas, Gray and anyone else who's sent me stuff: I can only hang my head in shame and apologies. You've made the effort; I've got the log. But I'm doing all I can, please bear with me and thanks for the stuff.
Meanwhile, Keith has a surprising number of strangely eerie type-on-door images which he'd like to share with us all.
Many thanks to Keith and for everyone's patience.
Regardless of that backlog, please send contributions here. Grow that log.
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