Ace Jet 170

Found Type Friday #31

Only just made it this week, with just a few hours to go.

I've been off work for most of the week because it's the end of the summer holidays and we thought it'd be fun to do fun things with the kids, which it has been. Yesterday it was Belfast Zoo. On a good day it's pretty good but on a dull day, like lots of old zoos, it can be a little depressing. Also, unlike London Zoo which is lovely and flat, Belfast Zoo is built onto a hillside so it's hard slog at times.

Thankfully, we had a great time, highlights being the sub-aqua views of cheeky penguins and the downright show-off sea lions.

Of course, I secretly hoped for some good found type. But alas, other than the very sad Floral Hall, a derelict dance hall that greets you as soon as you walk in, there's little to be had. Microgramma? No, lower-case, so Eurostile?

Then, just as we were leaving I spotted a pile of telegraph poles.

Contributions to FTF gratefully accepted here.

Paris – Normandie etc.

Of the many things I don't understand, some I like nevertheless and, of course, some I don't. This package thankfully falls into the first category. It's by regular FTF contributor Loïc from Bureau l'Imprimante. Sadly, I don't speak French, so I'm not off to a good start.

Now I don't precisely know what Loïc does, he's never told me (or at least I don't think he has) but he has a keen eye for a nice bit of type and has a generous nature. And a new blog, through which I bought a little booklet that I thought would be interesting which he'd had printed on the reverse side vintage of wallpaper.

When the package arrived I got more than I'd bargained for with the afore mentioned booklet accompanied by a variety of postcards, flyers and another booklet.

I suspect I got preferential treatment - perhaps not. Either way, I'd like to say thanks to Loïc, yet again, for some very interesting French stuff, which I don't understand but really like anyway.

Found Type Friday #30

It's like some kind of Eurovision Found Type Contest...

Loïc's got a new blog and some more stuff for FTF: "These are trophies I brought back from the holidays in cities like Dieppe, Fécamp, and Rouen (where I live actually)."

and Maria Luisa Garcia sent: "Graffiti found in a Spanish bus station, a German balance found cleaning [her] late grandma's house last spring and a number 19 stenciled on stone from a Spanish small town."

Lovely stuff. Many thanks Loïc (again) and Maria Luisa!

If anyone else would like to contribute, please email me here.

Found Map Thursday?

No, just John Furnival's favourite map: a modern British Admiralty map of the North East coast. He also sent me this link to a diagram that shows how such maps use colour.

Herts and Bucks

Andy Welland sent me this Bartholomew map which was really nice of him. It occurred to me, following that last map post, that I'd touched on something interesting: Specifically, how the different publishers have such different styles.

Expect there's someone out there who knows much more about this kind of thing than me, someone really into cartography, but in their absence I thought I'd post some photos of Bartholomew's rich hues.

Coming soon: Boring old Ordnance Survey.

Wake with...

It's an old clock in a box. That's all.

Uncommon knowledge: 007

I haven't done one of these for ages (perhaps for good reason) but then this one just popped into my head so I thought I'd share it. I've been thinking about universal rules and how certain principles can work for all sorts of graphic design stuff and I think this is one of them.

(Yes, there's probably exceptions, but then there usually are with rules.)

I've heard and read this expressly applied to advertising but I think it can work for almost anything, like the student magazine I'm working on (hence simple headline with photo of hamster). It's a basic principle, at times ignored: creative heading with creative image - idea overload; "straight" heading with "straight" image - idea underload*.

So: Really interesting image goes with simple words; Oh so clever copy line with straight forward picture; Si Scott typography over...er...nothing probably; that kind of thing. But you probably knew all that.

* Not sure if that's a word.

"It looks good and it makes the world a better place"

Essay 67 in Michael Bierut's book was written for Design Observer nearly two years ago but I'd never heard of a blog back then and had also never heard of the article's subject: ClearRx, designed by Deborah Adler.

Perhaps it was well reported over here and I just missed it (that wouldn't be the first time) and if that's the case then go and read something else (like Design Observer!). If, however, you're like me and hadn't seen ClearRx before, then go and read Mr Bierut's article here. It's really good.

Spured on by the essay I wanted to see the thing and found this brilliant demo.

Found Type Friday #29

Last weekend me and my oldest boy, after dipping out of film part way through for reasons I won't go into, took the opportunity to go looking for more material for my Belfast Harbour Flickr set. There's so much down there and I'm dead keen to get as much as I can before it's flattened to make way for what promises to be a very exciting Titanic Quarter development.

Contributions to FTF gladly accepted here.

Michelin Man

I think it's quite clear by now that I'm a sucker for a good map.

The other week I picked these up: Published by Michelin's Tourism Service in 1960 and 61 they have a distinct French feel; I'm not sure if it's just the colour scheme or the sans serif, or all of those dots (I think French cartographers really like dots). Of course, it's likely to be all of that stuff mixed up.

I guess I grew up with cool, clinical Ordnance Survey with only an occassional once (but no longer) richly coloured, clearly British Bartholomew to peruse, so these feel quite exotic.

Found Type Friday #28

Well, these have been a long time coming but these mighty fine 3D letters, sent in by Loïc from Bureau L'Imprimante, were worth the wait.

Irregular contributor Ian Fermor loves cars and type:

And Michael Mulvey from NYC sent me a link to his brilliant Flickr sets, with lots of images of my favourite place in the world. Couldn't resist that graffiti shot:

Many thanks to Loïc, Ian and Michael.

If anyone else would like to contribute, please email stuff through.

Ace Bates: Anti-brand?

This week seems like a good week to bring this one up...

But before I say anything else I have to make it clear that this entry is totally and completely based on an idea by my mate Warren, from Radar.

We were having a very, very, long chat (oh it was long) about graphic design and branding and stuff. It was really interesting. We were on branding and Wozza said something about Ace Bates skips and how he thought they'd created this kind of anti-brand. Unlike almost every other skip hire company who invariably stencil their logo onto their skips, Ace Bates just spray their name and phone number on, usually in red, freehand. I saw a truck load of new skips the other day, all shiny and dayglo yellow but still with their name and number sprayed on each side.

Since we had the chat I've been seeing Ace Bates skips everywhere and I've been finding their handy work compelling. That catchy name and such a distinct style - surely that's the starting point for the visual manifestation of any brand?

So, it occurred to me that it's perhaps not so much an anti-brand but an accidental brand. And I thought that was interesting.

Making stuff look shit etc.

OK, perhaps it's very uncool to say this but I really hate graffiti. I know, I know; it's a youth/sub-culture thing and I'm just about as far away from that now as I could be, and I know there are some very talented people out there graffiti-ing (or whatever you'd call it), and yes, I know, everyone loves Banksy. But on the whole, the vast majority of it is just moronic and habitual daubing of "public property" with shitty looking "tags". (God, that sounds so like my dad!)

I expect that there are many urban, derelict and just generally shabby spaces that are made to look no worse by graffitied embellishments - not so much "you can't polish turd" as "turd is turd" or something - but I'm not talking about all that. I'm talking about the stuff I see driving to work or walking down the street with my children.

Graffiti adds nothing positive to our landscape unless you're "in the club", it just makes stuff look shit.

And yet, lately, I've become strangely intrigues by these little boxes. It's the colour, the damn colour that does it, then it's that texture or whatever it is, then once you start noticing them you can't stop.

What does it all mean?

Found Type Friday #27

Before getting into this I'd like to apologies to Loïc who's sent me some brilliant 3D lettering a few of weeks ago. They'll be up next week and worth the wait, I just feel the need to get this one out of the way while it's still topical...

This time last week we were just finishing our family type finding trip to the north coast of County Donegal, Ireland, which oddly is more northerly than where we live in Northern Ireland.

The north coast of Ireland, or so a scientist friend of mine tells me, has particularly excellent beaches thanks to the strong waves which make extra fine sand. He wasn't wrong. So coupled with just the right amount of cumulo nimbus and blue we had a bleedin' marvellous time, frolicking on the beach, swimming in the briny and hunting rock pools for non-existent crabs.

And, of course, tracking down type, wherever it lay.

The harbour at Greencastle came up trumps with almost all of these images (and more on flickr). I love a good fishing harbour and at Greencastle there's even a ferry across to NI; couldn't resist the 10 minute crossing.

Looking up

Everyone's got a sky collection, right? Well I've put mine in Flickr now. If anyone needs a bit of sky, help yourself.

Buses run daily on all routes unless otherwise stated

I have mixed feelings about buying things on ebay.

On one hand it's brilliant. All that stuff and some it is dead cheap. Because I like all sorts of stuff it's kind of perfect for me and I can go mooching (almost) whenever I like. But then, on the other hand, the element of chance has been considerably reduced. And it's that element of chance that makes finding something interesting in a secondhand bookshop or at a car boot sale so exciting.

Still, with limited time on my hands, the urge to mooch takes over and an-ebaying I go.
See more here.

Greta

Thanks to a recent purchase on the Typotheque website I'm now on their mailing list, which is great because things like this turn up out of the blue. A really nicely designed and informative type specimen for the newly released Greta family of typefaces.

Designed specifically "for the demands of newspaper printing" by Peter Bil'ak (although, it must be said with wider potential applications) it's available in a mighty 160 variations and won a Type Directors Club Certificate of Excellence.

The booklet is ace.