Through Lines 264

It’s funny how some songs just hit in the right notes to stay relevant long after their release. This new live version of Roger Waters’ Is This The Life We Really Want? hits the empath in me almost to the point of tears.

Art & Design

  • The Standards Manual folks have a new book in the queue featuring the Brand Identity Manuals for Coca-Cola covering 1969 to 1979. First printing is only 1000 copies and I bet these won’t last long.
  • In Sketched Out, Christoph Nieman illustrates his way through his fears about the implications and impact of AI on his practice.
  • In the brief documentary, Death of a Fantastic Machine, filmmakers Maximilien Van Aertryck and Axel Danielson interrogate the reality created by the camera, one of our most potent creative tools which can easily be used to different ends, for good and bad. Definitely need to see the full version of this film.
  • While I have mixed feelings about Pentagram as a whole, it’s odd to think of the venerable agency without Michael Bierut who’s on his way into retirement (sort-of).
  • Chris Ware has designed a set of stamps for the USPS. Obviously, I must have some.

Type of Note

  • Based on designs by Stanislav Maršo (1954 to 1963), BC Vega revisits that work in digital form with a focus on typographic accuracy, consistency, and attention to its perpendicular axis and wide stance, while retaining a contemporary elegance.
  • Nina Stössinger’s SMOR is a wholly unusual, gestural, marshmallow-like, and near weightless collection of bubble letters that omit the side profiles of the characters entirely. Weird, and maybe useful for the right kind of packaging and editorial.
  • Brazda from DualType takes inspiration from worn stone carvings and lead inlays. Its almost blurred forms give it soft but sharp contours with a uniquely handmade quality.
  • Built from only perpendicular and 45 degree angles, Graph is an exercise in practical restraint and control, taking traditional sans serif proportions and using gridded kerning to give it a distinct graphic look.

Technology

  • The web platform makes no demands because it offers nothing beyond the opportunity to do good work. Robin Sloan on the reality of the platformization of much of the web. Like Robin, maybe it’s a stupid choice, but I prefer independence.
  • Douglas Rushkoff addresses the future of humans, machines, jobs, and AI. To a hammer, everything is a nail. To AI, everything is a computational challenge.
  • The long awaited release of Kirby 5 landed this week after a year and a half of development. Full of smart improvements both on the surface and behind the scenes, it’s a winner through and through — and this site is already benefiting from it.

Music & Film

  • Yorgos Lanthimos’ upcoming film Bugonia is both unsettling and also somehow satisfying, but looking forward to figuring out why when it hits theaters.
  • I was fine with how things wrapped up following the last series but given the stacked cast in Dexter: Resurrection, I’m not upset to see him back for more.
  • Start planning your next trip to Tatooine or Malastaire with the new Star Wars Galaxy map.
  • Living Color... still shred.

Humanities

  • The initial images of distant galaxies coming from the Vera C Rubin Observatory in Chile are breathtaking. The massive astronomical data collection — the full 10-year survey is expected to rack up as much as 500 petabytes of data is what really breaks my brain.

One More Thing

  • RIP to lettering artist, type designer — and just plain “artist,” the inimitable Jim Parkinson. A gentle giant who I’m thankful to have met a few times over the years whose unmistakable work you know if you don’t know his name.

A real mixed bag this week but on the whole, still a good one, especially getting out for a longer than usual ride this morning up into the hills towards the 280 freeway. But man it was starting to get hot! Maybe tomorrow I’ll instead go down closer to the water and the Bay Trail. Hoping to squeeze in a movie in the afternoon and maybe a little time out in the studio if I get something together to work on.