Egyptian designer Moe Elhossieny talks us through why he launched his Design Repository and what he’s already learned about Arabic book design from the collection.
Category: Design
Design in general; that is, things, objects, and/or ideas that are designed but that aren’t book design, photography, etc. Generally considered distinct from art.
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It’s Nice That: We dive into a new archive of over 1,000 book covers from the Arab world
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Jazz Musician Lettering
The history of the album cover and show poster begins with jazz.
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Typeset in the Future on Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Lots and lots covered here, including things this huge fan of the movie never knew — including specifics on the fonts, type, and more. When you have a few minutes, grab a beverage and enjoy!
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Martin Glaser dies (3 updates)
Martin Glaser, of I [Heart] NY fame — among many others — died yesterday at 91. Dylan covers forevermore! Here’s the Guardian with the news.
Update: Dezeen has a few items in their story, too.
Update, July 1: Dezeen has a great list of some of Graser’s more notable works (vodka excepted…;). See here.
Update, July 10: The Guardian‘s obit.
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Columbia Journalism Review on capitalizing “Black”
“At the Columbia Journalism Review, we capitalize Black, and not white, when referring to groups in racial, ethnic, or cultural terms. For many people, Blackreflects a shared sense of identity and community. White carries a different set of meanings; capitalizing the word in this context risks following the lead of white supremacists.”
Read more of this timely and appropriate article (from a great and authoritative source.)
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Hyperallergic on Letterform Archives
“The digital Letterform Archive has made nearly 1,500 objects accessible to browse online through over 9,000 high-resolution images,” Hyperallergic notes. Some good background here, too. Check it out.
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50 Books, 50 Covers (2019 Edition)
Once again, it’s time for the annual 50 Books, 50 Covers awards!
My favorites: Blackness at MoMA, Specimen Days, 14 books by Gustavo Piqueira • 2012-2018), Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle, and … not all of them, certainly. Interesting and challenging. Definitely worth checking out!
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Text for Proofing Fonts, from H&Co.
Type designers love a good pangram. Pangrams, of course, are sentences that contain each letter of the alphabet at least once, of which the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog is surely the most famous. […] I find them singularly useless in type design, and I don’t use them in my work.
Find out what does work over at Hoefler&Co. with another fantastic post on type design.

