Seen From Above

A recent flying adventure on a clear day yielded views of mesmerizing man-made geometry, superimposed on the land below:

Poster for Pinion Display Font

I recently had the honor of creating a few promotional pieces / type samples for Greyletter's new display face Pinion Display.

In the type designer's words:

"Pinion Display is a modern decorative typeface that is constructed using simplified mechanical ornaments blended with irregular curves and flared serifs. The result is a font with the consistent rhythm of a sans-serif and a touch of historical charm.

The goal of Pinion Display was to create a modern decorative face that is constructed as if using industrial techniques. Characters were fabricated, rather than drawn, by joining together a variety of components. Proportions and curved forms were then fine-tuned to achieve balance and approachability when characters are combined into words. Finally, capitals without ornaments and small caps were added to make the typeface more versatile."

Pinion offers language support uncommon to display faces, including Western, Eastern European, Baltic,and Turkish characters. This poster was inspired by Eastern European Art Deco-era advertising. The design is currently on display at TypeGallery2010, an unjuried showcase of new type design, presented by The Society of Typographic Aficionados (SOTA) as part of TypeCon2010: Babel.

Travel

For me, the thrill of travel has always been seeing new shapes, the specific slant of sunlight bouncing off of unfamiliar geography, a different shade of fog, an unknown plant or tree, an outside view at someone else's every-day. I become more attentive as I soak up things never seen, things I'm sure I'll never see again, and the experience feels almost too vivid, dreamlike, magical. But walking through San Francisco last week, I discovered there's a little magic too in seeing these things again, in recognition, in turning the haze of memory into something less vague, in the comfort of discovering that the dream was not a dream after all.