What is a Pylon?

pylon.jpg

Interesting concept by the folks at FWIS. The purpose of their initiative is to establish a new typographic term that defines the missing areas of a stencil typeface. They call it a “pylon”. I do appreciate the effort but I have to agree with Steve who commented:

The named typographic parts or details (serifs, crossbars, etc.) refer to the actual form of the letter and not the white space around it with the only exception being a counter. If white space were considered a physical thing then a pylon, which also is a physical object, could be an appropriate term.

He’s right. There is no reason to name this area because it’s just part of the white space surrounding the letter form. It already has a name, it’s “white space” or “negative space”. Counters are different because they’re completely surrounded by the letter form.

What does everyone think about this? I’d love to read your comments.

Via Jason Alejandro        

Inge Ketelers

ingeketelers.jpg

I’m absolutely loving the work of Belgian graphic designer, Inge Ketelers. Ultra simple and clean. Minimalism in its purest form. No distracting elements, just well composed text and images. I wish more design was like this, back to the basics. It’s refreshing to see such design being created, a nice departure from the mind-numbing Photoshop gradients and lens flares.        

Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman

juliusshulman.jpg

Visual Acoustics is a documentary film by Eric Bricker that explores the career of the extraordinary architectural photographer, Julius Shulman. His aesthetics, composition and style create timeless photographs that epitomize modern architecture. Shulman is easily one of my favorite photographers.

Unfortunately there isn’t a good online gallery of his complete work, you have to do some searching to find most of it. But there is an amazing book set titled Julius Shulman, Modernism Rediscovered that catalogues his personal archives. Gotta get my hands on a copy.

The film is being screened in limited cities, one of which isn’t NYC, which I don’t understand. Shulman himself will be speaking at some of the screenings and if you’re lucky enough to be in one of these cities, definitely check it out. It’s should be a good one.        

Objectified Poster

objectified_poster.jpg

The exceptionally talented Michael C. Place has designed this damn sexy poster for the new Gary Hustwit documentary Objectified. Sized at 27″ x 39″ and lithographed, it features illustrations of objects created by the designers in the film. The poster will be one sale very soon at the Objectified store.