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Please visit the active Ultrasparky blog to browse the for the content that has accumulated since this all began in 1996.

August 2007

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

This is what my typeface and some of my graphic design work looks like when it's rolling of the printing press:

Busy Bee

Progress on my dissertation has been an uphill battle against two very demanding design projects I’ve been plowing through at the same time. One, thankfully, is on its way to turning out very well after a few hiccups on press preceded by lots and lots and lots of passionate input from the authors/clients. It's been a lot of work, but the end result is very exciting for us all. (I hope. Oh god, I hope we're all equally excited at this point.)

The MATD Group Specimen is underway

The other is a horrorshow of trying to polish a turd for a client who doesn't quite know what they want, can't quite agree about what they're trying to do, wouldn't give me any time to help them figure it out, and has reduced the budget to just about a bag of peanuts and a glass of tap water. But I care, so I can't just let myself blow them off.

Meanwhile, there's still a ways to go on my acutely insightful analysis of typefaces for mathematics that I need to finish so I can graduate.

The Single Hauz

A while back I wrote about my fondness for prefab teeny houses. I’m always on the lookout for new variations on the theme, and they seem especially appealing right now, as I’m running out of steam and feeling really desperate to finish off my dissertation and hole up somewhere for a while and recharge. The latest concept to get me salivating is the Single Hauz by Front Architects:

singla_hauz.jpg

So pretty. So teeny. So sleek. I want one on a glacial lake somewhere, and another rising like a pretty, rectangular flower over an urban factory or something.

The Matter of Anti-Matter

Oh, and in my free time time this year I designed a book, too. It's also my first design project to get its own MySpace page, since it's about indy music stuff and the music folks apparently use the MySpace once in a while. It's by my good friend Norm, and you should buy it.

Anti-Matter

Seriously, though, it's a fantastic read, especially if you have any interest at all in hardcore and post-punk bands of the 90s. (If you do, you probably know who Norm is anyway.) Anti-Matter was a zine he published that featured these amazing, insightful, totally natural interviews with a bunch of great bands. Norm had (well, still has) an amazing ability to get past the party line and get people to really talk to him, and that honesty is what makes these collected interviews so engaging, even if — like me — you might only be familiar with a few of the bigger names included.

And the photography! I haven't seen the book in print yet, but if they reproduced the photos well then this is even more of a must-have for anyone into that era's scene. Seriously, just buy it.

Surprise!

My pal Dave moans all the time about how dull and unoriginal he is. The truth is, he's amazing and always has been — even when I first met him 19 years ago, when he still had a mullet and acid-wash jeans — and it's totally in character for him to pull off a caper like this. Mazel tov, my trusty sidekick!


The Reading Mafia, West Coast Edition


20070803-DSC01007.jpg
Originally uploaded by Joe Pemberton.

Spotted in the photos of Typecon Seattle: future and former tenants of my flat, and members of Gerry's international shadow army. (Plus, of course, the charming Miss Tiffany, adjunct operative of the shadow army.)

Oh, and is it painfully obvious that I’m procrastinating this morning? I mean, it's not like I have a lot of leisure time to browse around Flickr right now.

14 Faces

...but enough about me. You should check out what my obscenely talented classmates have been up to this year. 14 dazzling type families that cover scripts like Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, Devanagari, Gujurati, and Tamil — and we're all just getting started. It's hard not to bubble over with pride right now.

14_faces.jpg
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