spécimen général

This is a French type specimen book filled with beautifully amazing type and ornamental borders. I borrowed it from my friend Sam, who borrowed it from the BYU Library. To give someone the benefit of the doubt, someone then in turned borrowed it from me. The problem is that I’m not sure who that someone is or when (or if) someone intends to return it. I imagine sharing a few samples here would only make others want to “borrow” it more than ever before. But… if you borrowed it—or know who borrowed it—if you would unborrow it, me and Sam and the Harold B Lee Library would really appreciate it. Thanks.
Otherwise, just enjoy the samples that I scanned from the book before it’s disappearance.

HTF Didot Letterforms…

I was working on a wordmark for a client today using the HTF Didot type family and I got sidetracked because I was so incredibly mesmerized by its letterforms. I started turning them on end, backwards, and upside down to take them out of the expected so that my eyes could better appreciate the shapes and the lines. Take the lightest set of letters, for example: at first glance, it almost looks Arabic or Thai or something. Really crazy. Crazy beautiful.

NEWWORK magazine

I love the posi/nega-tive interplay in these grabs from NEWWORK magazine.

circles, squares, triangles…

This piece from Wyeth Hansen reminds me a bit of this piece I did one day playing around with letter shapes and lines. Hansen’s piece has great play of shape and color.

1828 Roman

This is an awesomely quirky face by Darius Wells form 1828. Wow.