Cabel Sasser: DAK and the Golden Age of Gadget Catalogs. “Thanks to the help of my friend Kay Savetz, I now present to you over 55 (!) fully-scanned, 600 DPI DAK catalogs, stored safely on the Internet Archive for you to enjoy. Best of all, there’s no charge for these downloads. Plus, as a special added bonus, I’ve also included 9 very-rare Products That Think / JS&A catalogs, never before available on the internet.”
Eyerys: Google Introduces ‘AR One Sans,’ A Font Meant For Augmented Reality Headsets. “A font is those stylized characters for text information. And Google has just introduced what it calls the ‘AR One Sans’, which is a type family purposefully designed for AR environments and user interfaces. What makes it unique, is its high-readability on user interface with busy backgrounds.”
St. John’s University: St. John’s University to Celebrate the Work of Advertising Icons Ralph Ammirati and Martin Puris . “St. John’s University announced today the launch of the Ammirati Puris exhibit, an online digital collection of the advertising agency’s most groundbreaking campaigns, including those for BMW, Club Med, United Parcel Service (UPS), and more. The online exhibit will be available permanently to all.”
Hongkiat: 10+ Free Logo Makers and Logo Generators (Best of) . “While initiating a business, most people consider hiring an expert graphic designer to craft a logo. Although this is a good approach, it can be quite expensive. If you’re running a small to medium-sized business or a startup, you might want to consider using an online logo-making tool. These tools can help you develop a simple, yet effective, logo without burning a hole in your pocket.”
Creative Boom: New digital archive provides invaluable insights into the evolution of Canadian type. “Canadian Typography Archives is a new digital resource for students, professionals and anyone else interested in Canada’s type history. Its website has just launched in Phase 1 and aims to create a space for learning, reference and appreciation of type.”
MakeUseOf: The 9 Best Free Browser-Based Adobe Illustrator Alternatives. “Adobe Illustrator is the default choice for anyone who needs high-quality graphic design software. But Adobe’s subscription model is pretty expensive, and you can’t use Illustrator online—it only works on Windows and Mac. If you’re a hobbyist on a budget, use Linux or a Chromebook, or want a more mobile option, what can you do? Fortunately, there are plenty of free, browser-based Adobe Illustrator alternatives you can try.”
The Nib: The Nib magazines are free to download! . “The Nib is wrapping up ten years of publishing and closing down at the end of August. But before we go, we are making all 15 issues of our Eisner and Ignatz award-winning magazine available for anyone to download for free. That’s more than 1,600 pages of comics, including our out of print Secrets, Nature, Food, and Color issues.”
The Guardian: Poster boy: Henry Moore exhibition art through the ages – in pictures. “Sunday 30 July is the 125th anniversary of artist Henry Moore’s birth. To celebrate, the Henry Moore Archive is unveiling a digitised collection of more than 400 posters featuring Moore’s many shows through the years.”
Smashing Magazine: Designing Age-Inclusive Products: Guidelines And Best Practices. “With an estimated one in every eight individuals worldwide surpassing the age of 60, who are actively adopting online shopping, the need for user-friendly interfaces tailored to their needs becomes apparent. Explore the guidelines to help you design inclusive products for all, particularly for an older audience and your future self.”
TechCrunch: Twitter has officially changed its logo to ‘X’. “Twitter has removed the iconic bird logo and adopted ‘X’ as its official logo. This move comes after Elon Musk announced the change over the weekend. The change is already live on the website. Notably, Musk tweeted that x.com now also redirects to twitter.com. In the post, Musk also called this an ‘interim’ logo, so we might see another logo change in the future.”
Canada Newswire: Massive Private Collection of 19th-century Ephemera Finds a Home at Letterform Archive (PRESS RELEASE). “Letterform Archive announces a significant addition to its trove of graphic design with the acquisition of over 26,000 uniquely colorful and innovative items from the Richard Sheaff ephemera collection.”
International Journalists’ Network: How journalists can use new visual techniques to create viral stories. “Emojis, memes and gifs: you may text with them on a daily basis, but did you know you can also use them in your reporting to boost engagement? These newer forms of visual journalism can help amplify the truth and reach larger audiences in a media ecosystem today in which false information proliferates too easily.”
New-to-me, and I was alerted to its existence from a recent news article that isn’t nearly as good as this old one from Scroll.In: Not Arial or Times New Roman, Indian streets are ruled by charming homegrown fonts. “As she was walking down a street in Panjim in 2017, a shop sign caught the eye of Pooja Saxena, a typeface and graphic designer. The wooden sign, written in cursive Sans Serif font, was advertising Bentex watches and straps. It was the elaborately designed ‘B’ with its multiple curves and an eye in the middle that intrigued her. It was the perfect addition to her online project, titled India Street Lettering, where she documents street lettering and signage from across India.”
Creative Boom: Studiographica, a digital archive of work by design studios that sadly no longer exist. “Paul Bailey and Mike Sullivan explain how and why they’re archiving the work of some of our most-missed graphic design agencies.”
Guitar: People are using AI to expand iconic album covers and the results are… mixed . “This week, classic album covers are the vehicle for people having fun with AI online, in this case using Photoshop Beta’s new AI-powered ‘Generative Fill’ feature to expand classic album covers and give a hint of what the machine things might have been lurking outside the confines of the original sleeve.”
