Through Lines 100

This animated video from Illo (from a series of four) presents a straightforward and clear message of our human impact on the planetary home and the interconnectedness of everything. The question: what are we willing to do about it?

• Fascinating and maybe also a little terrifying — How Saturn Got Its Rings. The images from the Cassini satellite are something to behold.
• Barry Keogan’s Joker, now revealed through this deleted scene from The Batman is a wild departure from every other version we’ve seen before — and a terrifying monster.
• It would have been tragic had Wilco succumbed to their label at the time when Yankee Hotel Foxtrot came out. It may not be an obvious commercial hit, but it’s an enduring musical masterpiece.
• Adding Counter-Print’s new volume, Big Type, to my design book wishlist.
• I need to find time to do more variable type exploration. Scott Kellum lays out a cogent case for how to improve type on the web.
• Emigre just released a new mobile app offering full access to type specimens, and the entire archive of Emigre magazine in their original layouts that made it beloved and reviled. Next they need to make it compatible with desktop devices.
• “Even if you work inside the system, you don’t have to let the system work inside of you.” Something I’ve long tried to manifest to bring some level of balance in my own working life. It starts by saying no.
• Related to the above — “The problem is there’s not enough time for them to happen. In other words, we’re talking to fewer people not because we’re working from home, but because we’re working too much.”, an assessment I 100% agree with based on my own experiences over the last two years, but even going further back than that.
• Just discovered the Cevallos brothers whose sign designs are something special.
• The metaverse truly is A New Medium for McLuhan's Message. That message is one to pay attention to as our “media now subsumes the body.”
• Love the Trash Compactor set.
• RIP Taylor Hawkins. This one hurts. Seriously, go watch this.

Notable Type Releases

• Colophon’s new Fold type family, a neo-grotesque, sits comfortably in a matter-of-fact, neutral design space visually while also capturing something that feels very obviously European to me.
• E8888 No. 1 from Feedtype maybe wins for one of the most unusual names I can think of. It’s scientific and almost feels like a monospace without being one. What it lacks in weights and styles, it makes up for in the breadth of its character set.
• Slussen Stencil from Blaze Type, a part of the Slussen super-family adds yet more variety to an already impressive family.
• I’m not entirely sure yet what to make of Monument from Forgotten Shapes with it’s high waist, small counters, and particularly the wavy arches of the h, n, m, and u, but it’s one whose extensive origins will make for good reading.