(from Creative Review)

In death as in life: Peter Saville and Ben Kelly’s memorial to their friend and collaborator Anthony H Wilson is three years late, but it was worth the wait. Factory Records founder Anthony H Wilson died in August 2007. Just over three years later, a memorial headstone designed collaboratively by Wilson’s long-term associates Peter Saville and Ben Kelly with Paul Barnes and Matt Robertson, was unveiled in The Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.

The black granite headstone carries a quote, chosen by Wilson’s family, from The Manchester Man, the 1876 novel by Mrs G Linnaeus Banks (aka Isabella Varley Banks), the story of one Jabez Clegg and his life in Victorian Manchester. The quote is set in Rotis.

Found here.

callipygous (aka callipygian)

For many years I have collected dictionaries—in printed book form, and also online. I take great delight in discovering new words, and in understanding their roots and etymology. “Callipygous” crossed my desktop recently, and I couldn’t help but ‘share’ this lovely, voluptuous word that means: “of, pertaining to, or having beautiful buttocks,” 1800, from Gk. kallipygos, name of a statue of Aphrodite at Syracuse, from kalli-, combining form of kallos “beauty” + pyge “rump, buttocks.” Sir Thomas Browne (1646) refers to “Callipygæ and women largely composed behinde.”

Gluteous maximus triumvirate image from unknown sources: Cooper Black (typeface) seemed to fit just right… (with a nod to Matt Warburton).

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I can’t help but agree… 

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A simple decision flow-chart… (link to source no longer works).

(Not trying to rob therapists here… just saying).

Winnipeg, Canada

I’m dumbfounded every year at this time when I see hordes of crazed consumers out shopping for unneeded things they can’t afford. I’m convinced that a focus on material things causes easily-avoidable stress and dampens the creative spirit within a culture—and we well know the devastating effect that over-consumption is having on our planet.

Save some shoppers. Save the planet. Give some folks a hearty hug. Who cares if you know them or not… think of it as an intervention of sorts. (While you consider your hug-deployment strategy, here’s a nice tune by Joel Kroeker to put you in the mood).

Image: one of a bunch of poster designs I’ve contributed over the years to Buy Nothing Christmas, an initiative started by Aiden Enns (former managing editor at Adbusters and founder of Geez magazine).

Stuttgart, Germany

Literal enjoyment takes on a new meaning when typography and chocolate meet. Tasty one-liners, two-liners… letters, words, quips—your choice, from Typolade.

Thanks to Gerald Brandt for the link.

Quite engaging, humorous, and telling, this.

(Thanks to Nola for the link).

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ITC began publishing U&lc, The International Journal of Typographics in 1974. Herb Lubalin was the editorial and art director of the first issue and his seminal design set the stage for future issues of trendsetting and award-winning editorial creations.

The modest 24-page first issue declared, “U&lc will provide a panoramic window, a show case for the world of graphic arts – a clearing house for the international exchange of ideas and information.” Over the 26 years that the large format tabloid-size quarterly was published, U&lc gathered a following of thousands of avid readers (including me) that eagerly anticipated each issue—arguably, it became the most important typographic publication of its time.

The Fonts.com blog has scanned a complete set of the publication as high and low resolution files and will be making these scans available as down-loadable, searchable PDF files—you can access Volume 1 here, and the plan is to make another volume (a year’s worth of the publication) available every month.

Thanks to Miles Harrison for the link.

Johannesburg, South Africa

South African low-fare airline Kulula Air has been gaining worldwide exposure of late thanks to its creative, humorous livery. One of their Boeing 737-86Ns, named “Flying 101” is covered nose to tail with details and funny remarks about the plane. The captain’s window is marked with the big cheese (”captain, my captain!”), the co-pilot’s window with co-captain (the other pilot on the PA system) and the jump seat is for wannabe pilots.

Additional captions on other parts of the plane include:

•  galley (cuppa anyone?)

•  avionics (fancy navigation stuff)

•  windows (best view in the world)

•  wing #1 and #2

•  engine #1 and #2 (26 000 pounds of thrust)

•  emergency exit = throne zone (more leg room baby!)

•  seats (better than taxi seats)

•  some windows = kulula fans (the coolest peeps in the world)

•  black box (which is actually orange)

•  landing gear (comes standard with supa-fly mags)

•  back door (no bribery/corruption here)

•  tail (featuring an awesome logo)

•  loo (or mile-high club initiation chamber)

•  rudder (the steering thingy)

•  stabiliser (the other steering thingy)

•  a.p.u. (extra power when you need it most)

•  galley (food, food, food, food…)

•  boot space

•  ZS-ZWP (OK-PIK) = secret agent code (aka plane’s registration)

•  overhead cabins (VIP seating for your hand luggage)

•  fuel tanks (the go-go juice)

•  cargo door

•  aircon ducts (not that kulula needs it… they’re already cool)

•  front door (our door is always open… unless we’re at 41 000 feet)

•  cockpit window = sun roof

•  nose cone (radar, antenna, and a really big dish inside)

Thanks to Christina Weese (a GDC Listserv colleague) for the link. Congratulations to the in-house design team at Kulula Air for their clever, well-crafted design scheme…

Hewitt, Texas (USA)

“Most city maps are insufferably hard to read. Street names are never big enough, map keys are too complicated, and neighborhoods are rarely delineated; you could wander into the heart of West Oakland and never know it, if not for the symphony of Glocks going off around the corner.

A clutch of city maps by the Hewitt, Texas-based cartography firm Axis Maps offers a clever solution. The maps use typography as the sole visual clue. So, everything from streets and highways to parks and waterways are labeled with text. The bigger the thoroughfare or the landmark, the bigger the words. So far they have maps of Chicago and Boston; New York, SF, and DC are coming up.” (Examples of the Chicago map are shown above).

Read more about these clever maps here. Thanks to typophile friend Matt Warburton for the link.