Twin Lens Reflex Lust: Blackbird Fly

The new Blackbird Fly TLR Camera

I have always been absolutely fascinated with twin lens reflex cameras; the square format, the waist level viewfinder, and the beautiful engineering of the twin lenses just makes these cameras beautiful and interesting to me. However, the complexity of getting medium format film developed and cost of the cameras, especially the few digital models on the comsumer market, has kept me from legitimately looking into buying one. However, superheadz is now manufacturing a plastic TLR called the Blackbird Fly that has been adapted to use traditional 35mm film; an elegant and afordable solution to the very probems that have kept me out of the market (and it comes in orange too!). (more…)

Typography of the Web: Serif Fonts

On screen display tends to focus on sans-serif typefaces, so unfortunately all of the serif fonts truly available to a webdesigner can be covered in one post. There are only two truly web safe serif fonts: Times New Roman (Times), and Georgia. The latter is found on both Mac and Windows operating systems, with Times and Times New Roman, essentially identical fonts (at least in terms of the web), appearing on Mac and Windows operating systems respectively. (more…)

Design in Painting

Leashed Dogs; Painting by artist Steve Kim

In my trollings on the internet, I have come across the paintings of Steve Kim, and I am a HUGE fan. I have had the strange, inexplicable desire to paint recently, and his impressive portfolio is only amplifying this urge. (more…)

Leg Study Life Drawing

Sanguine and White Conte on Cream Marillo, 40x28

Latest work for Phil; the assignment was to put six legs in one frame and I decided to use our old, saggy, disgusting couch as the frame. I focused a lot on the tonal range in this one, and I think its a lot better than in my previous pieces, although still a bit too high contrast overall.

The couch is my favorite part.

Genetically Engineered Animals: NYT Illustration

Super Cow? 2.15x2.5

Today in my type class we had the opportunity to participate in a competition to do the 2.15″ x 2.5″ illustration for the letters to the editor section of the New York Times. We only had around 5 hours to complete the assignment, and the subject was genetically engineered animals and foods. This was my contribution, and although I did not win the priviledge of having my work appear in the New York Times, I am happy with my solution.

See the other submissions

Solar System Calendar Spreads

Some calendar layouts I have been working on. Two 9″x7″ facing pages, using only Adobe Garamond Pro, pure black, and pure red. I would love to do a giant poster calendar based on this imagery of the solar system, with all the information graphicsey dotted lines and what not. If I can find the time perhaps I will… (more…)

Typography of the Web: Lucida Grande/Lucida Sans Unicode

Two of the lesser known, or at least lesser used, browser-safe fonts out there are Lucida Grande and Lucida Sans Unicode, bundled with Mac and Windows operating systems, respectively. Like Verdana, they are humanist alternatives to the Grotesk and Neo-Grotesk Helvetica and Arial, and Lucida Grande is actually the font used by OS X, including Safari. (more…)

“Rome was not built in a suit.”

Words courtesy of www.aisleone.net

I was getting tired of my retro Mac wallpaper, so when I found this FANTASTIC quote on www.aisleone.net I decided to make myself a new background. Special thanks goes out to Antonio Carusone of AisleOne, the H. Berthold AG type foundry for giving us all the gift of Akzidenz Grotesk, and whatever dark corner of the internet I originally got that wood pattern from. (If you know the source let me know so I can credit it)

I am not offering it up for download because its not my quote, but for a few other fantastic wallpapers with these beautiful words, check out AisleOne.