Design Museum x State of the Obvious

Posted on Posted in Design, International Typographic Style, MerchTagged , , , 2 Comments

Mash Creative and Design Museum have joined forces to develop a collection of products under the State of the Obvious S/O/T/O brand. The collection is exclusivity available at Design Museum and includes an iPhone 3 & 4 and iPad 1 & 2 GelaSkins, Staedtler Marker Pens, USB Sticks, Travel Card Wallets and Keyrings.

Creative Director, Mark Bloom explains:

Extending the philosophy & thinking behind our branded State of the Obvious collection, we have designed a set of products exclusively for the Design Museum.

The design of these products has been heavily influenced by the International Typographic Style from the 50’s and 60’s & shows an evolution from our original S/O/T/O collection. It has been designed to appeal to typography and design lovers alike.

At S/O/T/O we design and produce products which not only look good but also have a useful function.

Eight:48 Issue 05

Posted on Posted in Books, Design

Eight:48 Issue 5

The latest issue of the excellent Eight:48 covers a topic that I’m obsessed with: Books. Their design, the collecting and the storing of them. There are also essays from Simon Armstrong (TATE), Greg D’Onofrio and Patricia Belen (Display), and Alex Johnson (Bookshelf). I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Greg’s and Patricia’s book and poster collection in person and I can tell you that it’s simply jaw-dropping. You can see some of it on their site, Display.

The issue also features the entire archive of books that has appeared on Counter-Print since its inception in 2008.

Looks like a good one.

Pages: 80pp
Format: Quarterfold Newspaper
Print: Four Colour

Codex: The Journal of Typography

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Codex Magazine

Codex is a promising new quarterly magazine on typography by John Boardley of I Love Typography. It’s going to feature articles, book and type reviews, interviews, tips, type history, new and notable faces, essays and more. I’m definitely looking forward to this.

The magazine consists of 164 full-color pages, is approximately A4 (about 8″ x 11″) and makes use of Lyon Text & Display, Knockout, & Akkurat Mono.

Issue #1 will include Christian Schwartz and Paul Barnes, Paul Shaw, Stephen Coles, Erik Spiekermann, Dr Paul Dijstelberge, Craig Mod, Luca Barcellona, and more. You can pre-order the first issue on the website.

Rolf Harder

Posted on Posted in Design, Design Legends, Grid Systems, International Typographic StyleTagged , , , ,

Rolf Harder

Sometimes I wonder why certain designers are lost to history. Maybe they didn’t hang out with the right people, who knows. Good thing we have sites like the MoMA Collection. If not, we’d probably never get see the great work done by Canadian designer Rolf Harder. He was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1929 and studied at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts. In 1959 he moved to Montreal and opened his own firm, Rolf Harder Design. You can read his full bio here.

His work is masterful. A prime example of the International Typographic Style. Harder’s work also highlights his superb understanding of color. I’m a big fan, especially of this piece he did in 1968.