50 years of typography in album art

Music and art tend to go hand in hand. Visual art is often made in response to music and vice versa. Album art is a clear example of this time tested relationship between sight and sound. The use of typography on album covers is utilitarian it often times is also a visual land mark of the style and trends in art at the time it was produced. Accordingly, this article creates a time line of the last 50 years through typographic album covers showing the progression of time, music, typography and art. (This website also offers tutorials on how to achieve typographic effects from the album covers).

Letterpress and Another Game!

Letterpress Poster Printing from Joshua Gerken on Vimeo.

I was always curious about the idea of creating posters and prints using a letterpress. I have never even seen a letterpress in person before, and didn't fully understand the process. This video shows the creation of a simply typographic poster using a letterpress so I was able to see how all the parts of movable type would go together for a print.

I found another game I wanted to share. The Rather Difficult Font Game. You have to guess the correct font. This game is a great time consumer! Good luck!!

Stefan Sagmeister on time off

The above video is a brief example of some of the experimental type that Stefan Sagmeister is known for doing if you were not familiar with it. The main reason reason for this article, is not necessarily his time at work but rather his time spent relaxing. Kind of hard to believe that a graphic designer is praising not working but it seems to be pretty successful. Stefan gave a lecture for TED about his experience on taking time off in relation to design.

Hand drawn type, pencil lines, and good music. Jay Ryan is an amazing poster artist.

Eric Speikermann Rules.

Graphic design can change your life from Edenspiekermann on Vimeo.

Type is a Whole 'Nother Animal

s we all know, type is its own beast we have to tame and nurture. But are you able to tame this? An interactive typographic masterpiece designed by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich typographically illustrates animals using letterforms as his building blocks. Besides the awesome interactive website, Bembos Zoo is also a picture book for young children. Indulge your eyes:

Also, have you had enough of the grid? Well, of course not. MOMA's New Typography Movement site allows you to interact with the type and play with the grid, on screen. Enjoy!

Effektive Design

This here is a piece created by Effektive Design's Greig Anderson, which made

Behance’s Top 10 Typographic Works of 2008. It is Greig Anderson's self promotional piece, which he created to find work while on a work visa in Australia. Behance has praised it, saying, "The living proof that the best work comes out when there’s no clients involved in the process. This two color piece is a challenge to flow of information and small demonstrat[ions] that small budgets can go a long way. For the obsessive typography lovers there’s nothing better than a piece that speaks through type."

Effective design has been a fully functional and active firm which has won a decent amount of awards in the six years that is has been active. They specialize in identity & brand development, print design & production, art direction and digital design.

What really caught my eye about this piece was it's strong, yet extremely flexible, grid. He prioritizes his order of things in the pages which open in different ways, overlaps bold font and imagery, sticks to just a few effective type faces, keeps a simple color scheme, and throws in the occasional visual quote bubble graphics. There is some really smart design going on here.