Handcrafted Eco-Friendly Font Puzzles For Typophiles Hand Made in Italy.

above image is cropped

Fan of fonts? These beautifully designed and crafted painted plywood puzzles from Looodus are laser cut and hand-finished in the hills of Trivero in Piemonte, approximately two hour’s drive from Milan, Italy.



The puzzles are a true collaboration between designer and artisan, exploring the possibilities of computer aided design and hand finished products. A marriage of new technologies and pride in a craft handed down from father to son. Each puzzle goes through numerous checks to ensure a product which is precise and modern while being unmistakably artisanal.




Extreme care has been taken by Looodus to use a manufacturer who shares their values with attention to craft and quality while ensuring that the product is as environmentally friendly as possible. The process begins with the selection of wood used to create this beautiful piece. All the plywood is FSC (Forestal Stewardship Council) certified Poplar from the surrounding Padana Plane. This is where the majority of Poplar is grown for Italian paper and the carpentry sectors.




The concept for the Puzzle, like many of Looodus’ products, is born from observing the designer's baby daughter and her real life experience of being a first time parent. The Fonts were selected to be appropriate for their shape and size but also have a special place in the world of design. The colours have been checked and tested to offer a harmonious range across Green, Blue and Red.




“There are opportunities which arise every day to be creative and make quick fun toys for her, using the most rudimentary materials and sometimes these mini prototypes can become more refined products,” explains Kurt Stapelfeldt, Co-founder and Looodus Chief Designer.

NOT SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN UNDER THREE YEARS OLD



buy them here

House Industries and Hugo Guinness Goodies From Chronicle Books.

Chronicle Books has just released two terrific collections for lovers of typography and contemporary art. Affordable, functional notecards, notebooks, postcards and journals.



Having teamed up with hip font foundry House Industries, Chronicle Books is offering a fabulous boxed postcard collection, a sticker and label book and a set of four mini eco-Journals.



House Industries 100 Postcards:




The boxed set of 100 postcards has an impressive range of letters, numbers, symbols, and patterns (including two full alphabets!) and is printed in bright, bold colors and silver metallic accents. Highlighting House Industries’ cache of typographic treasures, the postcards measure 4 3/8 x 6 1/4 x 2 3/4 inches and come in a cool hinged lidded box.
Link to buy:House Industries 100 Postcards

House Industries Labels & Stickers:




This will hip up scrapbookers everywhere! This handy portfolio contains hundreds of stickers adorned with House Industries’ one-of-a-kind fonts. Including full alphabets, numbers, and symbols galore, these colorful labels are kissed with metallic flourishes and are perfect for personalizing packages, labeling books, decorating goodies, and more. The kraft paperback portfolio measures 5 3/8 x 6 7/8 inches and has 30 full-color sticker sheets and metallic silver ink.
Link to buy: House Industries Labels & Stickers: Over 299 Typographic Stickers for Decor and Design

House Industries Four Mini Eco-Journals:


A set of hip mini eco-journals (1 graph, 1 lined, 1 blank, 1 dotted) feature enticing patterns with classic type elements, all drawn from House Industries’ collection of cool fonts. Featuring splashes of metallic ink and bold designs, these eye-catching journals are as covetable as they are portable. 4 notebooks, each notebook: paperback with stitched spine, 3 3/4 x 5 1/2 in, 48 pp, 100% recycled paper, 1-color interior, bellyband and polybagged.
Link to buy: House Industries Mini Eco-Journals: Four Mini Eco-Journals

Hugo Guinness Journal and Note Cards


Hugo Guinness, is a London-born New York-based artist, illustrator, model and writer. He is known for his illustrations in the New York Times and his bold, graphic black-and-white block prints, many of which have appeared in films and publications. Known for his fabulous lino cuts, Hugo Guinness has created a journal and boxed collection of notecards for Chronicle Books.

Desktop Objects Journal:




Five favorite pens lined up in a row—it’s an image that writers, artists, designers, and students will appreciate. Within, this sophisticated journal features striking linocuts of desktop objects, inspiring planning, doodling, note-taking, or dreaming. The journal measures 5 x 7 1/8 inches, has 192 pages with various 1-color illustrations and has a lay-flat binding making it easy to use.
Link to buy: Desktop Objects Journal

A Curious Collection - 20 Different Notecards and Envelopes:


An inkpot. A keychain. A vintage car. A dog. In this handsome and eclectic collection, 20 unique cards feature classic linocut prints from Hugo Guinness depicting all manner of things, ideal for all manner of correspondence. Measuring 4 3/8 x 5 9/16 x 1 9/16 inches each, the lidded box contains 20 cards (20 designs) and 20 envelopes.
Link to buy: A Curious Collection: 20 Different Notecards & Envelopes

Full disclosure: these items were sent to me for review from Chronicle Books, with the understanding that if I did not find them of interest, I would not blog about them.

Pentagram's Custom Signs Make Picking Up Dog Poop A Religious Experience At Manhattan's Famous Cathedral Saint John the Divine.

Michael Bierut and designer Jesse Reed of Pentagram have created a series of heavenly signs for New York's well known Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine that gently remind visitors to curb and leash thy dogs on Sunday, Oct. 6 (today) for its annual St. Francis Day Blessing of the Animals.



Funerals of many notables have been held at St. John the Divine, such as Soprano's star James Gandolfini, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, writer James Baldwin, inventor Nikola Tesla, musician Dizzy Gillespie and puppeteer Jim Henson.



Visitors will encounter a new set of commandments designed for the institution, which employs the custom font Divine, a redrawn version of Frederic Goudy’s 1928 Blackletter.


above: The font, St. John The Divine, was created exclusively for Pentagram to rebrand the Cathedral by typographer Joe Finocchiaro in 2009.




Throughout the past few years, Pentagram has been refreshing the identity of Manhattan’s Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. Their relationship with the Cathedral, an extraordinary New York institution, goes back fourteen years. They designed its previous identity in 1999.



Shortly after 9/11, the Cathedral was severely damaged by fire; a painstaking seven-year restoration followed, and the interior was reopened to great acclaim last November. The updated identity, which has been slowly introduced over the past years, builds on the success of the reopening.


above: The updated identifier pairs a drawing of the Cathedral's rose window with the name set in Franklin Gothic.

The Cathedral’s identifier juxtaposes a drawing of the rose window (shown below) that dominates the building’s western wall with asymmetrical sans serif typography. The signature is complimented with a new version of Frederic Goudy‘s blackletter text from 1928, which Goudy had based on Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible.



In a process that paralleled the Cathedral’s detailed interior restoration, typographer Joe Finocchiaro “repointed” Goudy’s letterforms to ensure crisp reproduction at large sizes.


above: A comparison of the letter P in Goudy's original blackletter, left, and redrawn by Joe Finocchiaro for the custom font Divine, right.

The signs will be a permanent addition to the Cathedral grounds, a popular spot for walking dogs in the neighborhood.


above: The church also holds many exhibits. Dog Bless You: The Photography of Mary Bloom, opened there last month and will be on view through winter 2013. For more information on the exhibition and photographer Mary Bloom's evocative portraits of Cathedral friends both four- and two-legged, visit here

Related links:
Pentagram
Joe Finocchiaro
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
Architectural history and images of the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine
Construction of the West Rose Window

The Helvetica Hotel, From Soap To Signage - And A Little History.

For an independent study, Jung Hwan (Albert) Son, a senior communication design student at Parsons the New School for Design, decided to create and brand a hip and trendy hotel - inspired by the Helvetica font. Below are the elements he designed for his concept of the Helvetica Hotel.


Room keys, signage, wall clocks and stationary:






Toiletries, hangers and minibar items:









The clean sans serif font has been a favorite of designers since its inception, used for many recognizable logos and even inspiring a full length film.



History of Helvetica:
The Helvetica font was developed by Max Miedinger with Edüard Hoffmann in 1957 for the Haas Type Foundry in Münchenstein, Switzerland and quickly became an international hit in the graphic arts world. With its clean, smooth lines, it reflected a modern look that many designers were seeking. At a time when many European countries were recovering from the ravages of war, Helvetica presented a way to express newness and modernity.



“First learn a proper trade.” These were the words with which Max Miedinger’s father put an end to the debate on the future career of his 16-year-old son, who longed to become a painter. Instead, in the autumn of 1926, Miedinger junior began an apprenticeship as a type setter with the Zurich printing company Jacques Bollmann. Four years later, he knew for certain: “I want to be a designer, not spend the rest of my life fiddling with columns of type in galleys”. Evening classes with Johann Kohlmann at the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts confirmed his interest. Finally, in 1936, Max Miedinger was able to put his talent to professional use – as a typographer in the advertising studio of the Globus department store chain. There, over the ten years that followed, he created posters, newspaper advertisements, the corporate lettering and printing for in-house use.


above: just some of the brands that use Helvetica for their corporate identity (image courtesy of typophile.com)

Once Helvetica caught on, the typeface began to be used extensively in signage, in package labeling, in poster art, in advertising—in short, everywhere. Innumerable corporate logos such as those of Lufthansa, Bayer, Hoechst, Deutsche Bahn, BASF and BMW use the font. Inclusion of the font in home computer systems, such as the Apple Macintosh in 1984, only further cemented its ubiquity.


above: the poster for Gary Hustwit's documentary about Helvetica.

In his own words, designer Albert Son says "Essential theme of the branding is based on the visual attributes of the typeface, which is neutral, clean, simple. As it is most beautiful when it is by itself, focus of the overall branding was on keeping everything simple and clean in terms of typography as well as use of colors. While reinterpreting essential hotel products in 'Helvetica' way, the brand also introduces bunch of unconventional items in a range of categories."

Albert Son on Behance

Books, DVDs and other Helvetica related items: