Arthur just came back from a 2 week family vacation in Hong Kong + he was nice to bring us back yummy treats. *nyum*

_ 07 April 2k9
_ @ the studio

» Right click + ‘View Image’ to see larger version.

So beautiful.

A nice break from all the greyness this week…

_ 28 Jan 2k9
_ out our office window

I realize that this treatment of using type as illustration is not 100% type, but you have to agree that it is beautifully executed. The concept behind the design is just muy fabuloso. Helps that it is a depiction of Thom Yorke—one of my favourite musicians that have stood the test of time.

» Regurgitated info c/o Pitchfork

After a long, dark slumber, the Grammys may be waking up. The tiny gramophone awards have suffered a steady decline in interest (last year’s broadcast was second to only 2006’s all-time ratings low), but this year’s surprisingly aware nominees– Lil Wayne, M.I.A., Radiohead, Kanye, T.I.– and an admittedly eye-catching ad campaign are poised to prevent more dismal numbers for the February 8 telecast.

…

Part of Grammy’s "Celebrate the Music That Made Us" campaign, the ad is made up of the names of songs that have influenced Mr. Yorke over the years, including Björk’s "Unravel" (web-famously covered by Radiohead), David Bowie ("Ashes to Ashes") and Liars ("The Wrong Coat for You Mt. Heart Attack"). Grammy gets to use Thom; Thom gets to promote Liars song names. An even trade!

*yay*

Now my eyes don’t hurt when I look at my Google Reader window.

No offense, Google, but somebody had to come up with a skin for your feed reader. Look at it this way: At least you won my heart with Gmail themes. 

» Get your own Helvetireader. Now.

It’s not just for the focally-challenged anymore…

If you haven’t yet noticed, trends regarding type size on the web have been reversing in the last few years. We used to think bigger type looks juvenile + that smaller displayed better—for example, setting body copy to Arial 11px, or even using tiny bitmap/pixel fonts in Flash-based sites—especially because our browsers didn’t allow for much back in the day of tiny 640 x 480 screen resolutions. Not to mention, using smaller text to be able to establish hierarchy between headings, sub-headings, body copy, + disclaimer notes on top of keeping important content “above the fold”. Project after project we’ve tried to push smaller, “cleaner”, pleasing-to-the-grid type to our clients + yet have always been requested to go bigger for legibility’s sake.

“Can we see it bigger than Verdana 11px?”

If designed properly, using 14-16px type for main content doesn’t seem to look so “clown-sized” these days. The NYTimes.com has been using this on their articles for awhile now. It’s a trend that seems to be more the norm to help improve online readability, to cause less strain to the eye, + to help some of us avoid from having to use the key command shortcut ‘COMMAND/CTRL +’ times three to zoom into our browser content. It helps that the commonly used screen resolution is leaning more towards at least 950px of usable width to accommodate a type size closer to our browser’s default type size, which is set to 16px.

Check out the case study by Oliver Reichenstein mentioned within the blog article link below. The visual comparison really puts it into better perspective. Also, read the comments following the article for other points of view. Something worth thinking about when considering layout options for a new website project.

Really, the moral of the story is: Use big type for good, not evil.

Relative Readability

Why go so big on type? There’s a short answer and a long answer…

This is an interesting way to get a good sense of how Twitter is being utilized amongst online audiences.

The best producers of short* content in 2008
*140 characters or less, on Twitter

The Shorty Awards honor the world’s top Twitterers. You can nominate as many people for as many categories as you’d like until midnight December 31st.

There will be an awards ceremony in New York in late January, where the winners can deliver their 140-character acceptance speeches.

shortyawards.com

Top nominees include categories such as:

• advertising
• apps
• brand
• business
• design
• entertainment
• finance
• food
• green
• humor
• music
• news
• nonprofits
• personal
• politics
• science
• sports
• startups
• tech
• weird

So, some of you are probably wondering what in the heck is tacked on the wall across from the production area for the last week.  “SHOW NO TELL??  That doesn’t even make sense!”

Rewind back to your childhood…  Remember when your teachers would request for you to bring in an item of interest to “Show-N-Tell” your classmates?  There was always an interesting story behind each + every toy, every book, or whatever was brought to the front of the class.

In this case, we encompass + nurture the same idea from your elementary school years, but with a slight twist.

SHOW [ N O ] TELL will be a diverse gallery showcasing the individual talents of fellow workmates that you may have never known existed.  So, what is the title all about? It is, of course, a play on words where we will only offer the gallery viewers the former “SHOW” half.  As for the latter half, well… We will leave that in your hands.  If anyone has the desire to learn more about something they’ve see displayed on the wall, feel free to ask the person who created it.  You never know what you might learn.

At our studio, we believe that creativity + inspiration can exist in every shape or form; whether it comes from a towering art sculpture seen at a local museum or from something so minute + so common-place that if stared at for a lengthy amount of time it begins to morph into something completely new + wonderful.

With that said, all members of the studio are most welcome to showcase personal creations that you can proudly point to + say “I made this!”.  We’re excited to see your additions in the near future. So, hop on it!

Our first installment:

“Tight-Roll Revival” - collaboration effort, B+W triptych series

*Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

_ Atticus visits Grafik
_ 26 Nov 2k8
_ @ the studio

Who knows why it took Google this long to give Gmail users the option of customizing the default look of their online email interface, but I’m glad they finally came around. They’ve got all sorts of colour palette themes to please almost every individual as well as more elaborate landscape + illustration themes.
One theme to highlight would be the “Terminal” theme simply because it is an ode to the nerdery + successfully taps into certain users’ nostalgia. But, I see it more as a quick 10-second chuckle, + then I’m over it. Because if you actually chose that as your theme you would have the hardest time reading your mail. Unless you enjoy hurting your eyes with #00ff00 type.

With some of the themes like “Mountain”, you can also customize by country +/or region. These themes change during the day based on the location information you provide to Gmail to correctly time these changes with your local sunrise, sunset, and/or weather.

Of course, I just had to choose the “Ninja” theme for my interface. I mean, how could I not? While viewing in Ninja theme mode, the star icons are replaced with ninja stars! Ninja stars! Can’t go wrong with that.