During my recent visit to Berlin I stumbled across a truly awesome typography exhibition called ‘Signs of the Times’. I discovered the Buchstabenmuseum entrance in the middle of a central Berlin shopping mall, an unlikely location for this urban signage heaven.

Here I found hundreds of bright and wonderful letters, piled up and illuminating the dark space (I was even given a torch to take around with me!!!). The letters had been collected from Berlin and around the world and saved from neglect and destruction – they each tell a story and you’re sure to recognise some of the letters from well known brands.

Take a look for yourself!

A cool little game for the Typography geeks out there at click here

See if you can get your kerning correct, is the art of typography being overlooked by the young designers out there?

Give it a go it’s good fun, I shall keep my score to myself for the time being.

I had the pleasure of working alongside Jim Williams during my first job in Graphic Design. Jim was a very precise typographer and designer so it comes as no surprise that he’s published a book on the subject.

I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy (just to seek out Bureau Grotesque if anything!). The preview spreads on Creative Review brought back memories of seeing Jim painstakingly crafting his work on layout paper, before he’d even think of plugging in a computer. His is a fine art indeed, and one that’s gradually being swallowed up with all the ubiquitous computer generated settings and access to thousands of badly cut fonts.

What will always remain though is the tried and tested rules we all still need to apply for good typographic communications in our work. Hopefully this is as good a start as anyone needs to master the art.

http://creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2012/february/type-matters

The brothers at Skyrill have created these pretty amazing Type renders, they look pretty stunning in my opinion. Check out the site by clicking on the shot.

“Live the language” is an online video campaign showing the fabulous adventure and emotions of studying a language abroad with EF. Produced by EF International Language Centers in collaboration with creative agency Camp David, the campaign includes “four short films that will make you want to pack your bags”.

The films were directed by 24 year old Gustav Johansson (winner of the Cannes Future Lions), and photographed by his brother Niklas (cinematographer of Sweden’s 2011 Oscar entry). The graphics are by Albin Holmqvist – and the wonderful study abroad experience is by EF.

I have to say, I was completely entranced whilst watching these beautiful videos. Beautifully shot and lovely use of typography- When are we doing one for good old Manchester then?

Whilst I’m no typography geek I do appreciate the nuances of a good font and its uses. Typography Insight is an app developed by Parsons design student Dong Yoon Park and is at once a learning tool and a type appreciation tool. You can learn the basics of font characteristics – ascender, baseline, spine etc – compare fonts in an overlay mode or just browse through fonts learning nuances of each.

Available “soon” – Typography Insight
Check out a video over at Gizmodo.