I will do a lecture in Boston next week. Come check it out.

6pm Tuesday, November 18th

Raytheon Amphitheatre, Northeastern University

Arabic calligraphy is the most beautiful calligraphic tradition in the world, in my opinion. The birth of my niece gave me an opportunity to try it myself. Above is a sketch I drew of her name in the kufic style. I liked how it came out until it was very politely pointed out to me that I had spelled it wrong. Back to the old drawing board, as they say.

Zahar Yashchin has posted a Russian translation of a version my essay “No, There Are Not Enough Typefaces Already” published in the Type Directors Club winter 2008 publication, Letterspace.

Thanks to Maxim Zhukov for making the connections.

I like how it looks in Cyrillic.

Metropolis magazine invited various visual artists and writers to contribute to their March issue about local flavor. I was happy to send them an interpretation of my town, the ancient city of Providence, Rhode Island. There are also contributions from fellow letter-drawers Sibylle Hagmann, James Goggin, Elliott Earls, and Village.

Wired.com gives away all our trade secrets. Oh well...

As a letter drawer, my main materials are black and white. I don’t get many opportunities to work in color. That’s ok with me but a little change is also nice once in a while. I was happy to see some color around my desk this last week. Above is a detail from a drop shadow treatment for a logo I have been working on that included red, black, plus not just one but two shades of yellow. My eyes are confused but I think they like it.

The Boston Globe asked us to write a small article on the design of the 2008 presidential candidates’ logos. Sam Berlow and I took a stab at it. I use the word ‘stab’ because looking at most of them is like stabbing needles into your eyes. Well, maybe not that bad.

Personally, I am surprised at how restrained Giuliani’s logo is. I was expecting something set maybe in this typeface with little airplanes crashing into it.

You can see the Globe’s version of the article here.

The em is an important and basic thing in typography, but its definition can be quite tricky. If you ask a type designer, a typographer, and a software engineer to define the em, you will probably get three different answers. The answers will not necessarily contradict each other; they are just from different points of view.

the typographer’s em

Let’s start with probably the most common usage of the term ‘em’, what I will call the typographer’s em. You probably encountered it early on in your typographic education.

The typographer’s em, a horizontal space, is equal ...