Through Lines 155

I suspect most of my American friends will not know Hayden, but he’s been a Toronto staple for me since the 90s. The video for this unexpectedly upbeat third single from his new album Are We Good features not just Leslie Feist, but also Steve Buscemi and The National’s Matt Berninger.

• The musician in me is fascinated by the drumming in The National’s music because it’s so unusual even if the songs themselves follow somewhat conventional structures. Your Mind is Not Your Friend is no exception.
• i/o [Dark-Side Mix] is the fourth release from Peter Gabriel’s forthcoming album and it’s easily my favorite so far — and perhaps one of his best, period. It has a similar joyous energy to Solsbury Hill. The Dolby Atmos mix is also particularly great.
• Twitter is all but dead. If we should have learned anything about who’s earned the right to manage our online social experiences, the answer is not for-profit corporations. Spread Mastadon.
• See also this long read from The Verge on the potential next big thing-ness of ActivityPub and distributed networks as an unexpected path forward.
• Of course the Future Materials Bank Archives originated at the wonderful Van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands. Brilliant, forward-thinking folks there all around.
• How to take advantage of boredom, the secret ingredient of creativity. It’s not dead time, but the time in which we’re open to new ideas and forces us to look for novel new ways to engage ourselves in the world.
• Learning a thing or three about developing B&W film with coffee. Neat.
• Octopuses are weird and fascinating as hell and now we’re one step closer to understanding how their mind(s) work.
• The RTO Whisperers Have a Plan. It’s not going well…
• 50 Questions to Reimagine the Future. I need this right now.
• The Fictional Brand Archive. Love it.

Notable Type Releases

• The East London origins of the lettering from Hackney Village formed the basis of the versatile, ornamental Vilaage whose styles range from a light sans through a bold slab with generous proportions and a distinctive drooping crossbar.
• Borel is Rosalie Wagner’s highly rational, upright connected script typeface aimed at French primary schools. Although I might say this is utilitarian, it also has a particular charm to it that wouldn’t surprise anyone if it was used as a logotype.
• HAL Twins owes its origin to the 1960s design of Gemini by Franco Grignani. Its stark contrast and idiosyncratic industrial charm signals technology and perhaps also architectural building blocks.
• The sweetly delicious curves of Positype’s Ice Cream scream summer. Dollop might have been a good alternate name for it.
• Chikoria from Cast Type Foundry is a delightfully jaunty, disconnected display script typeface whose characteristics are built on calligraphic traditions and tools.