Bird Mail: 004
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I was working on a design project a few weeks ago when a colleague asked me if I had any new favorite fonts. I’m pretty sure they were joking, but actually, I do have some new favorites.
The first few are pulled from history. Signato is a beautiful cursive font based on the handwritten script of the Lithuanian declaration of independence. The attention to detail, with multiple versions of many of the letterforms, makes any paragraph set in Signato feel more like a handwritten text. This one is free to download and fun to play with. While you may never have seen the document that inspired Signato, chances are you’ve seen the signs that inspired Vocal Type Co’s typefaces. Named after notable protest leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Eva Perón, each font is based on signs from significant movements in the twentieth century. Martin was immediately recognizable from history books, though I think my favorite is Ruben with its half-circle indents in the Bs and Rs and low-barred As.
Moving to the present, a controversial favorite, Helvetica has been given a modern update by the type foundry Monotype. Helvetica Now is the ubiquitous font made better for the digital world. You can even download a weight of Helvetica Now for free.
Continuing with the -etica named fonts is the unusually styled Sans Forgetica, a weird type face that leans back and is full of holes. I haven’t spent enough time using it to see if the claimed memory benefits are true, but I think explorations with type like this, and Dyslexie, are great ways to change our interactions with screens.
Last, but not least, And Repeat’s Color Dot Font which replaces letters with colors and makes the patterns of letters in language more visible than normal. Bird Mail looks pretty cool in it too.
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In keeping with seeing the world in new, unexpected ways, I have been thinking about what it must be like to live with musical super powers. Last week I read about LJ Rich, a composer with both perfect pitch and synesthesia. The way she experiences the world is vastly different from any description I’ve ever heard, and I wish for one day, one hour even, that I could see and hear the world as she does. Make sure you listen to her compositions based on the world around her (most of this issue was written with these compositions as the soundtrack).
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File under “nature is amazing” and “wishing for cooler temperatures in Austin”: The ice formations of Lake Baikal. Images 9, 15, 19, and 26 are favorites.
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My first real job out of college I had my own office. Granted, the walls didn’t go up to the ceiling so I could hear the three sales guys yelling at each other, but I had four (almost) walls and a door I could shut when I needed to. Since then, I’ve worked in strikingly similar cube farms and open-plan offices, only with different color schemes. Slack has a new office in San Fransisco, and normally this shouldn’t matter, but they used the Pacific Crest Trail as inspiration and the office is beautiful. Each floor represents different parts of the landscape, with the topography and flora providing color palettes and informing everything from hallways to meeting spaces. I want to wander the trail and see their aurora borealis hallway.
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Every few months I get a line from this little film stuck in my head and I go and watch it again (it takes a minute or so to get going, but it’s worth it). The letter moves me every single time, and the leather bag is gorgeous. I know this is ostensibly an advertisement, but the wisdom contained in the letter is worth hearing, regardless of the context.
This life, know that it is precious. You’ve got to grasp at every little whiff of it that passes by you. It won’t be easy, and it won’t be certain. Not now, and not in your unimaginable future. Don’t be surprised. No, embrace the stiff winds, and the lonely heights.
If you have something you think I should add to my collection of internet ephemera, write me by replying to this email.
You friend,
Bruce