"I'm Comic Sans, Asshole"

While I was doing research on Helvetica for a speech I was going to make about it for another class, I discovered this really funny monologue written from the point of view of Comic Sans. Apparently in the graphic design world, Comic Sans is the most hated typeface ever created, aside from Papyrus. The monologue is witty, hilarious, and makes fun of all the snobby and elitist graphic designers. Everyone knows at least one graphic designer like that and this monologue pokes fun at them.




I'M COMIC SANS, ASSHOLE.

BY MIKE LACHER

Volkswagen-Sell Your Car Campaign

This post isn't really related to typography, but I think the most recent Volkswagen print advertisements for their new vehicle-the Polo is pure advertising genius. The strategy in the campaign was to target people looking to sell their car.

Volkswagen then published a double sided print advertisement where you could cut out the side that said for sale and it has a space for your price and contact information and on the back there's an image of the Polo-the car that the viewer has already decided they want to get because they exerted the energy of cutting the ad out and pasting it on the inside of their car.

Volkswagen in turn, transformed every car-non Volkswagen cars included, in to a piece of ad space.

In terms of typography, the for sale portion of the advertisement featured a sans serif typeface for easy readability from long distances and to catch the attention of the viewer. The simple and minimalistic spread for the for sale portion also aided in getting the idea across.

I think it was a good idea to not include any other information about Volkswagen on the for sale portion because it would take away from the validity of the sign and in turn do the opposite of the purpose of the sign-not sell the car.

Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

This wine bottle label effectively uses the typographic element hierarchy. At a brief glance, one can tell that it's a 2009 Red Wine. Then with closer analysis, one can observe the many different pieces of information that forms the humorous idea of the brand. That it's Australian, totally rad, enjoy it.

The stacking method, as well as the variation in typeface and typeface that the designer of the label used for the copy in a way creates layers of interest for the reader. Although we're discouraged against using two or more typefaces in a layout this label successfully uses the three different typefaces in a way that they compliment each other without competing for the attention of the viewer.

Retail Alphabet Game

While I lurking on the internet, how I normally spend my free time, I discovered this game on the many blogs that I follow and check daily. The game, called the Retail Alphabet Game, tests the player's knowledge of logos for popular companies and brands-Lucky Charms for example.

Although it seems easy at first, there are no hints-just photos of an isolated letter of the company's logo or brand.

You must type in the correct name of the company or brand. Beware this game is very addictive and the answers are not given until a new version of the game is published. This game is on it's 5th version right now.

Here is the link- Retail Alphabet Game

Fail Harder

This post is somewhat related to typography but in a sense, not really. While watching a documentary called- Art&Copy, a documentary about advertising and the creative revolution of the 1960's there was a part in the movie where the crew visited Wieden + Kennedy's Portland, Oregon Offices.

Wieden + Kennedy is a very well known advertising company that's long list of clients includes: Nike and Oldspice.

While Dan Wieden, one of the founders of the company, gave a tour of the office in the documentary he talked about a wall that was decorated completely with pushpins. The pushpins in the wall spelled out "Fail Harder"-according to Wieden, "You're only good to me after you've made three tremendous mistakes." "Fail Harder," implies that Wieden wants to stress the importance of making mistakes during the creative process so his employees can learn from them and better improve their work.

The wall took 361 hours to complete and over 100,000 pushpins. I have included a video of the process.



Here are some photos of the wall:

Univers VS Helvetica

During my research on the typeface Univers for Project#2 I stumbled upon this project made by a graphic design student named Sonraya Kramer from New York. In a very Illustrative and easy to understand way, the artist demonstrates the many differences between the two similarly designed typefaces. Here are a few screenshots from the project.



The first screen shot explains the differences in the heights of the capitals as well as the stroke weight differences. The second screen shot describes the roundness and perfect circles the numbers in from Univers attempt to include in their making.

Univers/Akzidenz/Helvetica

Again, while doing research on the typeface Univers for project #2, I found a chart that depicted the differences between Univers and two typefaces similar to it. Anyone that's familiar with the typeface Univers, should be familiar with the typefaces Helvetica and Akzidenz Grotesk.

Univers was created by a French foundry in 1954. Helvetica was created by a Swiss foundry in 1957 and Akzidenz Grotesk predates both typefaces because it was created in the 19th century long before lineale typefaces became popularly used(During the 1950's and 1960's).

In fact, the creater of Helvetica based his typeface on correcting the problems that he found in the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk. Akzidenz Grotesk is known as one of the oldest known sans serifs in typographic history.

Although to the untrained eye, the differences if noticeable at all seem miniscule- the chart illustrates where the most distinguishing elements exist between each typeface.