[SIC] / Calling in sick

Aspi got this text on his way to work today. It's quite lovable when a guy who has never been formally educated gets it almost right in english.

Cinema / My best year: 2008-09

Typeface: Qlassik Medium

Arsenal / Will he, won't he?

Typeface: Blackoak Standard + Diotima Roman Oldface

Type / Kontrapunkt

Some free type is not worth the bandwidth. Kontrapunkt is different, and how. I chanced upon this modern slab-serifed beauty in a PDF e-mailed to me by a friend, who works for a magazine. (For those that don't already know, hitting Ctrl+D brings out a dialogue that tells you what fonts, if any, are embedded in an Acrobat document)

Typeface: Kontrapunkt

The award winning squarish type available in two weights and italics, was designed as the house-face of a Danish company that goes by the same name. Nobly offered free to designers the world over, they say it's been hauled down more than 60 thousand times.

Well done Kontrapunkt.

Thoughts / The one thing

Typeface: Baskerville Classico

News / Reverse Colonisation

Kevin Keegan, who quit as Newcastle manager three days ago, may return if Indian businessman Anil Ambani buys the club, the Sunday Express said. — This startling piece of news has been making my head spin. An Indian owner for a major European football club. Wow. Anil Dhirubhai Ambani you are my man of the year, for even making that headline.

Typeface: GeoSlab BT

Quote / General Martin Luther Agwai, Sudan

You ought to have heard that on CNN. It plays a few times everyday. A clip on their coverage of the civil war in Sudan.

Typeface: SF Gradenzza + Hand-lettering

Agwai is a commander fighting to save the lives of his soldiers as he works against odds in a war ravaged country. A conflict without a solution. Each time I hear him, his voice plays in my head for hours after.

“You have come just at the time that shows that we are peacekeepers,” he says, “but there is no peace to keep.”

What a job. What a job.

Work / FastStreamPrep.co.uk

A recent logo and website identity I worked on. Its an online course that prepares one for a career in the British Civil Service. 15,000 aspirants take part in the online examinations every year , only 250 among them eventually make it to Whitehall — the center of the British Government. The clock tower, situated at one end of the astoundingly beautiful British Houses of Parliament, often referred to as the Big Ben, is a universally recognisable building and embodies the eventual goal, the reward.

Principle Type: Gotham

The characters in the brand name fell into place perfectly as I toyed with elements and shapes from the silhouette of the tower. Then the two-toned golden brick of the building was used to complete the symbolism. Above is the opening page of the web-based preparatory course.

SMS / It's Raining Again

Just past midnight, day one of the spanking new rainy season. Clever, crazy friend sends out a text to practically everyone in her contact-list. It has got to be one of the best pieces of SMS prose I have ever read. Copied below word for word, just as I got it. Thank you, Annu.

Typeface: SaxMono [free download @ dafont.com]

Design Classic / The Red and Blue Calendar

If you want a beautiful picture on your wall go get a beautiful picture. If you want a calendar, get this. Who can deny the purposeful design of the stark red and blue calendar. Is this an Indian design classic?


I have seen calendars, and then some. This is up in my room now, and there will be one like it up every year.

Random / Bathroom Tiles

Typeface: Giddyup Std

Commentary / Champions League Final

Andrew Gray and Martin Tyler are the voices of English Football. They we standing by as Christiano Ronaldo walked up to take Manchester United's third penalty in the Champions League Final versus dead rivals Chelsea.

All the four kicks before his had gone in. Ronaldo had finished the season on a staggering 42 goals having scored only an hour earlier to put his team 1-0 up in the final. The game which finished 1-1 after extra-time was a classic. This moment was huge. The commentary, unforgettable.

Typeface: Chaparral Pro
Andy Gray's dialogue is in white, Martin Tyler's in black

Even after Ronaldo's missed penalty, Manchester United went on to win 6–5 and be crowned Champions of Europe. Already Champions of England they deserved the double this year, if only for their always positive attacking style. My team, the Arsenal, had lost earlier in the tournament after a year that promised much, went sour.

The original image is 2000 x 1500 pixels, you could view it in full resolution by clicking on it.

Copy / Cafe VJTI, Wadala, Bombay 400014

With some degree of disregard for need of a copy check, this menu board hangs down proudly in a small Irani restaurant in central Bombay. There is no separate menu in any local language. This is it.


For the uninitiated: Cutting Chai would be a half cup of tea at half price. This would usually mean you would get a three-fourths full glass but at half the cost making it the standard order at such joints. Eggs in all their variations make a meal at any time of day sometimes with a saucerful of Kheema (mince). No, Ban Butter is not an anti-fat statement, it is instead a sweet bun with a thick slap of butter.

Words / Gluttony Postcard

gluttony (glu-t'n-e): Derived from the Latin gluttire, meaning to gulp down or swallow.

Typeface: Pea Andrea, Pea BreatheEasy + hand-lettering

I can't trace this back to the source where I had seen it. If anyone knows where, tell me so I can add a credit.

Advertising / Oogmerk

Love this campaign that illustrates what glass can do to your image by Oogmerk, a Belgian optician.

Click to see a larger image

Get the respect you deserve — and coming from a maker of glasses might seem a bit of an overkill, but the simply executed illustrations and hand-lettered typography make this memorable advertising.

Copy / Everyone's favourite dummy copy

Haven't you often wondered what Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet means? Wiki tells me the latin phrase doesn't really mean anything. And, that it is only used as a placeholder for final copy, where text is not intended to distract from the design.

Quite remarkable how popular a dummy sentence can become. I don't believe there is a graphic designer out there who has not at some time used it, or at least come by it.

Typeface: Weiss

Here then is a sentence that does mean something. I found it on lipsum.com and they go further — the website will generate paragraphs full of dummy copy for you from a randomised selection of latin words. So now you don't ever have to bother with hitting xxiox over and over to generate placement copy. Cool huh? Spread the word!

Logo Design / Paul Wu & Associates

This one has made it to my list of the World's Best Logos. To be true its the first one I'm putting on that list, because I only just invented it.

Designed by Nancy Wu for a firm of chartered accountants, its a delightfully friendly face to a business that would not ordinarily inspire such creative expression. Simple, lovable, memorable.

Typo / God and Animals

Typeface: Bembo

Now I didn't say that first, but I do wish I did . You can get more on People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables here.

Logo Design / The Kiss Principle

Typeface: Crono MM

To begin the blog with an interview I chanced upon today. If you are interested in what drives Jeff Fisher, an established corporate identity designer, you might want to go here and read about his faith in the Kiss Principle — the first law of graphic design.