Don’t forget your [insert modern essential here] December 15, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, Etcetera, FFFFOUND!, Laughing, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether, Typography.Tags: Apple, Decal, eyePhone, FFFFOUND!, iPhone, Mantra, Memory, Snellen Chart, Steve Jobs, Typography
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.
This…
… is a brilliant idea. Before Leaving Check List vinyl wall decals by Hu2 Design.
{ Public Poster Project by Egor Bashakov on Behance Network, via FFFFOUND! }
I abhor, loathe, and dread the niggling feeling that you’ve left something behind somewhere. Even when it’s just a completely unjustified twinge at the back of your mind all day. But especially when it’s true!
*Things gets more complicated with music players and reading glasses of course. Though I have yet to encounter said technicality, because music lives in the eyePhone, thus killing two birds with one apple seed [it's worth your time clicking that last link, for technological comparison with this, for example]. And these young eyes are working perfectly well, thank heavens**.
**Although if they weren’t, I could always test them out on this awesome type-lovers’ Snellen Eye Chart).
Screen vs. Paper ~ Bookworm vs. Social butterfly November 30, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Etcetera, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether, Words.Tags: books, Hitchhiker's Guide, Holidays, Nerdgasm, New Scientist, Reading, Scientifica American, Study
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{ Evelin Kasikov, via FFFFOUND! }
Now that I have broken free from the manacles of full-time study (and settled into full-time desk work, for the nonce) I am readily able to indulge my desire to read Readables Of My Own Ready Choosing. No more Textbooks Which I Cannot Afford To Purchase and Do Not Wish To Read Anyway. And, hopefully — depending on my willpower — more printed matter, fewer blogs. I want to touch what I read (and not just on the eyePhone* screen).
Exhibit A:
Hyde Park.
Eoin Colfer (who is NOT Douglas Adams, but is trying VERY hard).
2 minutes later, a ladybird landed on me.
Then I had a nap.
Exhibit B:
Dotingly aware of my studious predicament, (LECTURES! THESIS! ASSESSMENTS! EXAMS!) Father saved a 3-month cache of my favourite nerd magazines.
I took delivery last week.
Nerdgasm.
Now, if only I could find the time to sit and read! [Not looking likely]
Maybe the outside world could stop being so remarkably interesting? [No thanks].
Oh, my library for a quantum life! Or alternatively, it may be time to start reading as a social activity. A bookworm with wings? Sounds nice.
* Secret tweeter’s tip: Never tweet about “iPhone” lest you suffer an instant inundation of DMing, @-replying macspambots. Choose an appropriate pseudonym, and tweet away.
Chess Letters, Book Letters, [Bachelor of] Legal Letters. November 9, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Design, Etcetera, School, Typography.Tags: Bookshelves, Chess, Exams, Law School, Letters, Stress, Study, University
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No time to blog.
Too busy studying.
Would rather be playing
{ Type Chess Set by Wary Meyers via The Jailbreak }
Or maybe choosing a Book That I Actually Want To Read, from
{ Letters Bookshelf by Pieter de Leeuw via Design Milk }
Instead, there are only four letters on my mind right now:
B. LLB.*
*…Okay, technically it’s B. Comms/LLB. But in the final 5 days of 5 years’ study — having secured the “Comms” bit last semester, and now with only 2 exams to go — those 2 Ls and Bs are my only (very significant) academic concern right now.**
** If I had more free time I’d throw something in here about blubbing, study lbs, and curious palindromes. But I haven’t, so I shan’t.
Sweet (Caramel) Typeface; Sweet (Almost) Freedom October 26, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, Pretty!, School, Typography.Tags: caramel, dezeen, Font, sugar, thesis, Typeface, Typography, University
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…
I have finished my honours thesis.
And after an amuse bouche of post-thesis antithetical freedom, now all that stands between me and the end of 18 years of study (at this end, 5 years of University: 2 undergraduate degrees) is… 19 days, 3 assessments, 2 exams, and a whole lot of study.
Until then, I’ll satisfy my sweet tooth with this delectable caramel typeface.
{ Karamel Sans CE by Marta Maštálková, via dezeen }
OH how I adore caramel.
But I would still give all the toffee* in the world for the impending freedom flitting sweetly on the near horizon.
*Even coffee as well. Seriously.
Through The Looking Glass: Where Coffee = Sleep October 10, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Etcetera, Laughing, Words.Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Caffeine, Coffee, Douglas Adams, Macchiato, Sleep, Starbucks
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Comparing coffee preferences to sleeping habits is probably the most ironic analogy ever made. But outside the asylum, through the looking glass, only the nonsensical truly makes sense. And so, I propose the following theory:
If coffee = sleep, then…
A) A macchiato (a shot of espresso with a mere dash of foam) is the coffee equivalent of “a short but intense nap between 12:30am and 6:30am, as popularised by yogis, yoginis, truck drivers and insomniacs”.
B) A Starbucks Venti Mocha Frappuccino (20 ounces of cream, caffeine & chocolate) is the “persistent vegetative state” of the coffee world.
Somewhere in between lies CATATONIA, which is what happens when you have an incurable weakness for both A) and B) (as regards both the coffee and the sleep).
“Patients with catatonia may experience an extreme loss of motor skills or even constant hyperactive motor activity. Catatonic patients will sometimes hold rigid poses for hours and will ignore any external stimuli. Patients with catatonic excitement can die of exhaustion if not treated. Patients may also show stereotyped, repetitive movements.
They may show specific types of movement such as waxy flexibility, in which they maintain positions after being placed in them by someone else, or gegenhalten (lit. “counterhold”), in which they resist movement in proportion to the force applied by the examiner. They may repeat meaningless phrases or speak only to repeat what the examiner says….
Catatonic excitement is a state of constant purposeless agitation and excitation. Individuals in this state are extremely hyperactive, although the activity seems to lack purpose.
…The only way to cure it is to keep the patient constantly active and the activities must have an end goal or they will not work. Stress must be reduced by not pressurising, keeping life predictable and by limiting choice as making choices is very stressful for catatonics.”
— Wikipedia (of course)
And on that note, I REALLY have to get back to writing this thesis. 13 days and counting…
{images via smh.com.au and wikimedia commons }
Elvis + Helvetica? Hellsvetica yes! October 4, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Cinema, Earworms, Etcetera, FFFFOUND!, Helvetica, Pretty!, The Ether, Typography, Videorama.Tags: Elvis, FFFFOUND!, Helvetica, Helvistica, Music, Rockabilly, Typography, youtube
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Firstly: Elvis + Helvetica = brilliant.
{by Hulk4598 on flickr, via FFFFOUND!}
This girl approves.
Now, for a bit of waffle. (Err… waffle).
Note Exhibit A, above. Young Elvis* all dolled up for the film Roustabout, in too-neat leathers with too-tidy hair . Movie tagline: “Elvis Presley as a Roving, Restless, Reckless, ROUSTABOUT”. [Insert sceptical looks here].
But also note Exhibit B:
{also by Hulk4598 on flickr, via FFFFOUND!}
Young Elvis in a rather naff suit, with an acoustic guitar that he never really played much, and a messed-up coiff that looks like he’s just come off stage after this:
(Skip to 1:00 and press play. Watch to the end. DO IT. Honestly. Just trust me on this, okay? You won’t regret it.)
Now isn’t it ironic that despite the extra “L” in Exhibit A ["Hell for leather[s]“, anyone?] Elvis was actually at the peak of his corrupting deviance not as a “Roving, Restless, Reckless, ROUSTABOUT”, but as a cheeky, messy-haired rockabilly boy?
Clearly, the 1950s were hella good for the Rebellious Youth, in music and typography.
*[as opposed to Old Elvis: let's just not go there, okay?]
PS. Much as I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not such a fan of Helvekitty.
PPS. Whatever happened to Elvis movies on Sunday afternoon TV? Oh well, at least we’ve still got:
Venn Redux September 14, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, Etcetera, FFFFOUND!, Laughing, Pantone, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether.Tags: Art, Behance, Cake, CMYK, Cool, Design, FFFFOUND!, Narwhal, Nerd, Pantone, Unicorn, Venn diagram, Whale shark
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Okay, remember when the internet started leaking a steady supply of hilariously reworked periodic tables and I developed a tiny obsession (then revisited it) despite a distinct lack of real scientific knowledge?
Well, it’s happened again, this time with Venn diagrams. Usually, I try to avoid anything remotely mathematical (unless of course it’s Craig Damrauer’s New Math).
But there are Venn diagrams, and then there are Venn diagrams. These are the latter:
{ Douglas Adams loved giant, spotty, placid whale sharks, and so do I. via Behance }
{ I love both unicorns and narwhals, and this is genius. My original favourite, by ArgyleWhale via horkulated }
{ I’m also a fan of colour standards, so CMYcake is my new favourite, via FFFFOUND! }
There’s also something rather nice about memes that are gradually exuded throughout the ether like this. As opposed to those high GI memes that burn twice as bright but half as long, before hitting maximum saturation and maximum irritation at almost precisely the same moment (see also: Rickrolling, Squirrel Crashes, and — as much as I hate to say it — Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat).
PS. For a permanent source of often puerile, seldom unfunny, and not at all mathematical diagrams and graphs, you might like to bookmark GraphJam:
…but only if you can afford to fritter away vast swathes of time on a regular basis)
PPS. This one is conclusively prescient:
{ Enough said! via BuzzFeed }
The multifarious meanings of ‘Momental’ September 12, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Pretty!, The Ether, Words.Tags: Etymology, Momental, Obscure words, OED, OED Word Of The Day, random, randominity, Words
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Today’s email inbox Oxford English Dictionary Word Of The Day is…
Momental
As far as ‘knowing thyself’ goes, momental is a fickle creature, caught seven ways between obscurity, rarity, statistics, maths, and philosophy. Behold:
1. Lasting only a moment; momentary.
2. Of or relating to momentum.
3. Of or relating to moments of time.
4. Of or relating to a moment or element, especially of a conceptual entity.
5. Of or relating to a moment of inertia. [see #2, smirk at the complete contradiction]
6. Of or relating to the moments of a random variable.
7. Momentous; of value or importance.
Now I know it’s been a while between OED Word Of The Day musings, but momental is so unexpectedly interesting that I couldn’t help but share. For though it is an unassuming word, its multifarious (and muddled) definitions give it that je ne sais quois that some like to call randominity.
Randominity is a specialised neologism, not entirely unlike The Dirk Gently Navigation Method:
“My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it is going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be. So what do you say to that?”
“Piffle.”
“A robust response. I salute you.”
{ Yes cheers, [Saint] Douglas Adams ( The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul) }
Now, momental clearly doesn’t know what it wants to mean. But all its various definitions are so nice in their own way that it hardly matters which one you intended to express in the first place (Ephemeral? Moving? Inert? Random?). Odds are you’ll be saying something of value or importance. Momental even.
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Verdana is IKEA’s font of the futura. August 25, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Design, Helvetica, The Ether, The News, Typography.Tags: Font, Futura, Helvetica, IKEA, Typeface, Typography, Typophile, Verdana
3 comments
03.09.09 UPDATE:
- Great coverage of the issue on idsgn.org, which, I have just discovered, is a Bloody Brilliant Blog (BBB).
- You can sign the anti-Verdana “IKEA please get rid of Verdana” petition here.
- And TIME.com has even cottoned on to the debacle: The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume Over Verdana.
{ from Please Copy Me, via user Raumschiff on Typophile }
After 50 years, IKEA is changing its font from Futura to Verdana.
{ Follow through for the full story & discussion on Typophile.com }
I love IKEA. I can honestly attest that almost every item of furniture I have ever owned (since childbirth) has been from IKEA. IKEA is the Helvetica of the furniture world. It is a blank canvas. A neutral. Sufficient character to stand up on its own (pun intended), but muted enough that it doesn’t drown out what you’re really trying to say * .
I also love the kooky IKEA language, and the crazy nomenclature around which it is built. A mirror known as FRÄCK; a tiny plush owl toy called SOT; a computer table that answers to the name DAVE. Every book I’ve ever owned has lived on a BILLY bookcase.
Part of me worries that none of these will look or sound quite so Scandinavianly edgy when printed in Verdana…
*Probably something along the lines of “I like low prices, simple lines, white-on-white, and am handy with an Allen key“.
More On The Moon July 22, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Etcetera, Pretty!, Technobabble, The News, Words.Tags: Apana, Ashtanga, Lunar, Moon, Moon Day, New Moon, Solar Eclipse, Twilight, Yoga
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More on the topic of lunar loveliness…
Ardha chandrasana: Half-moon pose { via lenayoga.com }
For Earthlings, today is New Moon (the lunar phase, not the teen vampire popfic phenom). For Ashtanga yogis, today is therefore Moon Day. Traditionally, this is a day of rest, or at least, non-practice, associated with apana: a grounding force that renders us settled, but also less inclined to physical exertion. Personally, as an Earthling and an Ashtangi, I feel out of kilter if I don’t rise with the sun and meander to the mat. So my Moon Day began with lots of beautiful, earthing asanas — parighasana, krounchasana, gomukhasana and supta padangusthasana — woven into my practice, followed by a long, deep savasana, pulled downward by the firm hand of gravity.
ALSO…
The longest solar eclipse of the 21st Century happened today:
{ via The Age }
In parts of India, the sun even rose in partial eclipse, the moon edging further and further in between Earth and Sol with every passing dawntime minute…* I can only imagine that saluting to a partially eclipsed surya must be a truly wondrous experience. Can you think of a better way to feel like an infinitesimal animated visitor in an incomprehensibly mysterious, miraculous universe? I can’t!
* The Beeb has some nice photos here.
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