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There’s a provocative interview over at Creative Review where Bruno Maag rages over the ubiquitous use of Helvetica and believes it’s comparable to Comic Sans:

…if you start analysing it and going into the nitty gritty it is quite a horrendous font. It’s quite poorly crafted and has become completely overused. People go on about Arial and how awful it is, and Comic Sans, what an atrocity that is, why not the same about Helvetica? It’s often used wrongly too.

So enraged by Helvetica that he has designed Aktiv Grotesk, a typeface aimed specifically at wiping Helvetica off the face of the planet. See if you can tell the difference over at it’s home, the type foundry at Dalton Maag.

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Aleks Krotoski, fresh from touring the world to provide the BBC with a social history of the World Wide Web, is taking Orwell’s 1984 on a one-word-per-day basis as a 365 day photography challenge. Viewed best with the Flickr slideshow option.

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Found Functions is a set of photographs by Nikki Graziano, compelling as urban and landscapes scenes they are presented with the added genius of the mathematical function overlaid on the natural curve found in the scene. Such a brilliant idea, perfectly executed. I’ve clearly come to these late in the day as her Etsy shop is no longer active.

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Anne Shewring is publishing excerpts from her Grandfather’s diaries, choosing an entry for each day of the year.

The entries span the years from 1961 to 1983 -  “printed in block capitals, usually written in pencil. Most of the volumes are contained in a series of sandy coloured journals, diaries issued by May & Baker Ltd, of Dagenham, England, manufacturers of veterinary products.”

Some entries include significant events that mark their place in time such as the miners strike and the disappearance of Shergar but it’s steadfast summary of the everyday that I like. This is the entry for Wednesday, February 4th, 1981

A cold showery day, the wind still strong. Jane got back safe and sound from Nottingham about 9.30 last night thank goodness. A rose tree came through the post this a.m. from the margarine firm. N saved tops from the tubs for it. I planted it in what use to be the pond. N gone over to Dot’s on the two bus. The nurse chatterbox came to look at my toe just as we were having dinner.

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South Africa’s Kulula airlines recently received the re branding treatment from the creative agency Atmosphere when they applied this 101 guide to the various parts of the aeroplane. Passengers can now learn where the black box is along with the ‘jump seat’ and ‘throne zone’.

More images can be found at PSFK.

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Liz Danzico recently posted a link to George Bernard Shaw’s writing hut and I was drawn once again to the marvelous, yet infrequent, series of Writers’ Rooms from The Guardian. Shaw’s hut, a retreat from callers to the house — “People bother me,” Shaw confessed. “I came here to hide from them.” — is charming in its plainness. The wicker chair, bare whitewashed wood and the evenly spaced writer’s ephemera.

Compare this then to the litter of post-it notes that swarm around Will Self’s writing room with it’s teetering paper stacks, heaving shelves, and intricately annotated maps.

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When Prokol Polymers introduced their bus shelter in 2007, presenting the Netherlands with an indestructible, vandal proof design, they did so ignoring existing research that fragile-looking bus shelters are considered less of a challenge to destroy, and therefore are less of a target for vandalism.

Spurned on by widespread reporting of this new marvel, hooligans reacted with surprising resourcefulness for to overcome the 500 degrees Celsius fireproof properties of the plastic shelter, required the use of flame throwers.

Here’s the report, albeit in Dutch, from YouTube.

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It’s a shame there isn’t a UK version of the NY Times Netflix rental patterns but the design makes up for this, supporting the playful discovery of viewing patterns.

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If the thought of yet another lunch break or evening is to be spent idly flitting from the sources of blips on your social radar then perhaps you would enjoy the challenge in helping the Victoria and Albert museum to find the best crop (or view) of their collection of 116867 items.

Once past a simple sign up screen your task is to select the best crop and zoom of the images to provide the best viewing experience for those searching the collection.

Because the images are always square it may not be possible to achieve a useful crop showing the whole object, but we can make them display more interesting details so that users of the browse wall get the best possible experience.

(hat tip: Frankie Roberto)

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Nick Martens writing on The Bygone Bureau achieves a step closer to becoming that most desirable of authority, a ‘palaeotypographist’, after browsing the Oxford English Dictionary’s archives revealed some hitherto unknown and, given the brevity of their definitions, ambiguous typographic references.

Take this 1688 quote for bake: “when Letters stick together in distributing… This is called the Letter is Baked.” So we learn that, when printing, the physical pieces of type occasionally stuck together, but we’re left to wonder why this happened, how severe it was, and how printers corrected it. Did baking ruin the type? Did each printer have his own method to prevent baking, a trade secret he passed down only to his apprentice?

More fine examples follow but perhaps the best is saved till last -

To beat fat, 1683, “If a Press-man Takes too much Inck with his Balls, he Beats Fat.”

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