Through Lines 262
It’s incredible that the BFI National Archives in London has managed to preserve an original 1977 Technical print of Star Wars. Not a special edition version, but literally the film exactly how it was first screened in 1977 — even before it became “Episode IV” alongside the release of Empire Strikes Back. Surely someone there is carefully digitizing this original to further protect it.
Art & Design
You will always get farther on your own steam than someone else’s.
Chris Butler lays out a path to a fulfilling career in design. Spoiler: don’t focus on money or recognition.- A lengthy look at Taliesen West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s desert home and studio in Scottsdale, Arizona. This would definitely be a refuge from the brutally cold Wisconsin winters he and his students would have faced otherwise.
- Glasgow’s Newspaper Club is a special kind of company. Their product shouldn’t make sense in these times yet still resonates. And now they’re launching a new publication called The Printing Press and first ad campaign across London. Print isn’t dead.
- Speaking of print-related things, a look at the end-to-end process of producing a roll of Black Licorice card stock at French Paper in Niles, Michigan. Still making great paper after 147 years.
- The Outer Periphery: Amateur Spacecraft Designs from the U.S. Patent Office by Andy Sturdevant is one of those quirky books that I suspect I’m going to love. Already can’t wait for it to arrive.
- The Rules of Typewriter Club, wherein the first rule is: do not oil the segment. Rule 2, see rule 1.
Type of Note
- Oldschool Graphic from Kilotype is chunky but compact, and bold and inventive. The flat terminals and little holes punched into the counter shapes especially give it a unique, technical character.
- MCKL Gear by Jeremy Mickel screams athletics, especially as its precision-cut, sharp-cornered octagonal forms stretch wider across an extreme range of weights and widths. Extra points for the backslanted styles.
- The not quite conventional ABC Honeymoon from Dinamo to me feels like the last thing I’d expect from the foundry, so as a result it caught my attention. I’m particularly fond of the dotted terminals in the Hairline weights.
- EK Ultimo blends an experimental futuristic appearance with traditions originated from the serif-less Antiqua to deliver a three-style family of unique properties and aesthetic while retaining a high level of legibility.
- Setup Type launched Lab, a repository space for their pre-releases, unfinished fonts, and experimental ideas. Already a few interesting things in there like Kinki, Kue, and Preon.
Technology
- I suspect I’d have a lot of fun tinkering with TRMNL, not that I need another project — or distraction from the projects I should probably be working on.
- What Happens When People Don’t Understand How AI Works? I suspect the answer is not that different from what happens when people don’t understand how social media works. And by that I mean what it does to them.
- Liquid Glass? Meh, whatever. I’m more excited by some of the new things coming to Webkit (Safari) in the Safari 26 Beta release.
- PHP is 30 and so much of the internet either wouldn’t exist or would certainly be shaped very differently without it. It’s still my favorite scripting/programming language.
Music & Film
- While I may struggle with his politics, Roger Waters does put on a great show. The This is Not a Drill tour was no exception, and like any good legacy act, there’s a timely concert film coming to theaters to expand on that experience.
- I’m bummed that the Super Deluxe edition of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway has been delayed (again) but at least now I have something to look forward to in the fall.
- Ludicrous speed! Spaceballs is returning for a sequel nearly 40 years since the original — and still hilarious — spoof hit cinemas, along with many from the original cast.
- A (final?) trailer for James Gunn’s Superman.
One More Thing
- It was 20 years ago that Steve Jobs’ delivered his now famous commencement address at Stanford and the Steve Jobs Archive this past week shared a newly enhanced recording of that address along with previously unseen notes and background ephemera leading up to the speech itself.
It’s really a shame that so many people continue to rely on platforms like Substack because as much as I may want to support those writers in one capacity or another, I can’t in good conscience send traffic to that platform. I bet many of those same people are still hanging about on the other Nazi platform too for some inexcusable reason. Sorry not sorry I guess.
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Side One