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Get Rid of Stereotypes

Not all of the people in this industry are fixated on type and design 24/7, some of them have serious hobbies and alter-egos. Karl Thomson, who is our first Speaker in the upcoming Calendar, is somebody who wears two hats extremely well. Not only is he an extremely talented designer, but he is also a highly accomplished race car driver. I wish I had more time to go into this right now, but I have a class to teach and can only leave you with a teaser and a link. Karl’s crew initially placed 3rd in the qualifying rounds last weekend, but ended up in the top two on technicalities (if I understand this correctly) and their race will be on the Speed Channel tonight at 8:00 p.m. for those of you inclined to watch what professional designers do in their off time. There is more on Karl’s blog site if you’re interested.

Congrats Karl! For the rest of you, have a great weekend.

It’s a Boomerang Man! It says Return to Sender!

Capital One

Brand New has just posted a brief on the re-branding of the Capital One Logo. Why any financial company would want to use a big red boomerang to enhance their brand is beyond me. What is the message? It’s all coming back at you? Return to Sender? It worked for Nike, why not us? While not “officially” released, there is a brief notice about this upcoming new version of their logo that can be seen on the Capital One site.

Xerox

Coming on the heels of the Xerox re-branding, which was also covered on Brand New about a week ago, one has to wonder what it is that drives these creative studios. Here, in their infinite wisdom, they’ve added a great big red marble. The marble motif has been used recently by such companies as X-Box, AT&T, & UK Total among others.

I guess the game of branding has resorted to schoolyard tactics, or, it could be that they are trying to appeal to our childhood nostalgia. There are some great comments on Brand New, if you’re curious.

The Pelicans Have Landed

Things magazine has just posted an amazing chronological gallery of historical Pelican books covers, called The Pelican Project. Pelican was a branch of Penguin Books added in 1937 to “cover serious contemporary issues” such as History, Sociology, Economics and Politics. (Continued)

Type Talks 2008

Our Calendar is set for the Spring & Summer and we’re already hard at work booking Speakers for the Fall of 2008. The following dates are all confirmed and finalized, so mark them down in your calendars lest you miss one of these insightful and fascinating talks.

As usual, they will all be held at the Arts and Letters Club, located at 14 Elm Street, and they begin at 7pm. Unlike past years, they will all be held in the 3rd floor Studio and we will have our own Bar up there. There will also be appetizers and snacks before all the Events. This comes about because there is a new Catering Manager in place and the booking arrangements and rental policies have changed for us. We are very pleased to be able to continue in the same venue and with added bonuses in services available to us. Sadly, however, this also comes with an increased cost. Thus, we have had to raise the cost of admission to all of our Events.

The new cost at the door will be $20 per Person or $10 for Students, while the cost of Annual Membership has been raised to $75 or $45 for Students. Membership allows free admission to all of our Events for the Calendar year and a discount to TypeCon and any other workshops we offer. We will be having more than 6 Events each year, so it will be well worth the cost – even if you miss the odd Event, which we hope you don’t.

The Calendar for Spring/Summer 2008

Tuesday, February 26th, Karl ThomsonType R: Good design and racing cars
Thursday, March 6th, Peter Zak & Barry Lavender - Get Some Personality: Branding with Custom Type
Tuesday, March 11th, Michael ClarkTaming the Written Form
Thursday, March 27th, Andrew & Matt McCrackenFour Years Deep: The Typography and Design of Doublenaut
Wednesday, April 16th, Ian BrignellThe Drawn Letter
Tuesday, April 29th, Patrick GriffinCanada Type
Wednesday, May 21st, Speakers’ Night moderated by Dan BrillFrom Print to Pixel
Wednesday, July 16th – Sunday, July 20th, TypeCon 2008 in Buffalo, NY

Don’t worry, we will continue to send out emails giving advance reminders of our upcoming Events. However, we hope that you’ll continue to check back here often to see what’s new with The Type Club of Toronto and what’s happening in the much larger world of Type & Design.

Michael Bierut: 79 short essays on design

Michael Bierut, a partner at Pentagram and a senior critic in graphic design at the Yale School of Art published a book last May called Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design from Princeton Architectural Press. Unlike your standard book of Essays, each one of these is set in a different typeface: some picked at random, some to emphasize the point, and some just for the sheer perversity of the “inside joke”.

For those who enjoyed him in Helvetica, there is a great flash player interview with him done by The Atlantic along with an accompanying article that is well worth reading in case you missed it the first time around.

The flash link is http://blog.pentagram.com/2008/01/michael-bierut-talks-type.php

Watch for the very nice Metro titling! And come back soon for a review of the essays.

Thanks to Stephen Coles for the original post and the links.

WHAT’S IN A FONT? There is also an interview printed here, where Virginia Postrel talks with Gary Hustwit—director of Helvetica—about filmmaking, creativity, and the expressive implications of one of the world’s most popular typefaces.

By the way, Helvetica is available on DVD from Swipe.

Welcome to the new Type Club site

We have changed our site to reflect the needs of our community. Please check back frequently as we will be announcing some very interesting new talks in the coming months.

Christmas Party

Xmas_07

Annual Type Club Christmas Party

Monday December 17th, 2007
6:30 – 9:00
The Wolf and Firkin
43 Elm Street