That was fast: 2 more graniph stores pop up on either end of Orchard Road less than 5 months after the first store at Bugis Junction.
Ah well, more people wearing graniph t-shirts can’t be a bad thing π
(earlier post on graniph in S’pore)
Category Archives: typography
“Austerlitz” and Eric Gill
I managed to get a copy of W.G. Sebald’s last novel Austerlitz via BookMooch
(I suspect this will be one of the last I mooch. Many books I want aren’t available through the site. And of the ones that are, their owners often aren’t willing to ship them outside their countries. (Bookmooch members have set up a Bookmooch Angel Network to try and get around this, which is nice of them but still a clunky solution.) Simply, I’m unwilling to spend money on expensive postage to get points I can’t use.
Besides, there is no lack of good books in this country.)
Anyway, this paperback printing of Austerlitz is set in Perpetua and, more surprisingly, seems to follow Eric Gill’s rules for page layout.
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei οΌγγγͺγη΅Άζε ηοΌ
Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei (So Long, Despair Teacher) is irreverent, sarcastic and crammed with anime in-jokes and otaku references.
What I like the most is the old-style nostalgia that the series unashamedly uses, especially in the title cards and the kanji. Another subversion there!
Try the first 8 minutes of the first episode on Youtube:
The reference to Osamu Dazai in the Episode 3 opening cracked me up.
The Episode 4 opening. NSFW (some disturbing bits), but graphically brilliant.
Jenny Holzer at the Venice Biennale
Protect, Protect, 2007
More on we make money not art.
I saw her work for the first time at the Singapore Biennale last year while passing the Padang. All I had to take a photo with was my handphone.
(Flickr won’t let me blog my own photo so a link would have to suffice.)
I’ll let the critics decide if she’s “good” or not. It’s just that I usually take note of giant type. Stuff by Barbara Kruger, Ed Ruscha etc.
Morinaga caramels
I’d never seen these before, but I really like the antiquated aesthetics: the box illustration, colours, type and the old Morinaga logo.
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Only $1.20 a box, so I got two: traditional milk caramels on the left, more modern green tea ones on the right.
UPDATED — as requested by Mayann:
PS: I like the matcha ones better. The milk ones are too sweet.
Randomness #54x
Still alive! Too much working and reading, not enough writing.
– All the cool stuff happens after I leave. Chicago now has a Festival of Maps. That’s a small version of a 17th century Map of the Nile on the site. Big version here.
– Detailed satellite surveys show that Angkor was probably as big as modern-day LA, adding credence to theories that people eventually deserted the city because its surrounding environment couldn’t sustain it.
– If you’re too lazy to search for clips of the Helvetica documentary on YouTube (like me), World of Kane kindly provides a selection.
– Radar finds out how desperate some folks in Second Life are for virtual sex (Funny, but NSFW photos):
Radarette: Very good! Ready for something a little … HARDER?
Student: Yep.
Radarette: Haretown and Tortoiseville are 50 miles apart. A hare travels at nine miles per hour from Haretown to Tortoiseville, while a tortoise travels at one mile per hour from Tortoiseville to Haretown. If both set out at the same time, how many miles will the hare have to travel before meeting the tortoise en route?
– Speaking of sex, The 50 Greatest Sex Scenes in Cinema
– The 12 Sins of Chopstick Use (in Mandarin script)
Graniph to open in Singapore – 7/7/07
(UPDATE 9/7/07: t-shirts at graniph Singapore priced much closer to the ones in Japan. $35 for one, $60 for 2. )
Maybe their T-shirts won’t cost so much now, but my guess is that it’s a franchise-like arrangement. Sidewalk 10 sent the mailer out, and they’ve been bringing in Graniph tees for a while now at a significant mark-up.
Anyway, great to browse. #02-20 Bugis Junction, open 11am to 9.30pm.
The Serif Fairy
From the CR blog:
The charming tale employs just four typefaces to create all the pictures in the story: Garamond, Zentenar Fraktur, Futura Book and Shelley Andante Script. And it even shows you how most of the buildings, vehicles, trees and animals are constructed.
Read more: CR Blog Β» Blog Archive Β» Look mum, a Serif Fairy!
And I didn’t know there was a Type Museum in London!
Randomness #214C
In contrast to their formulaic Hollywood cousins, Polish movie posters are surreal, disturbing pieces (like the one above for Hitchcock’s The Birds). Yes, I chose it for the type.
Alan Moore got married; Neil Gaiman has photos.
The Penguin blog remembers Helvetica’s 50th birthday.
Bad news from the New Scientist: Oral sex can cause throat cancer
type zen!
(image from Erik Spikermann’s blog)
web zen showcases type links this time round. A nice follow-up to the word-related links compiled the last time.
Included in the list is a link to the Helvetica documentary official site. As much as I’d like it to, I doubt it’ll ever come here. The DVD can’t be far behind.
writing without rhythm 
