In a few bookstores over the holidays, I’ve taken a look at Annie Leibovitz’ new monograph At Work and thought, “Nice book. Bad kerning.” Designer David Croy agrees, and offers a great little mini-kerning lesson here. I’ve also found this kerning lesson from David Jury’s book About Face to be very helpful. Jury sorts letters into the basic shapes of triangles, circles, and squares and takes it from there. Of course, practice makes perfect.

These inky bubble experiments Kevin sent me are kind of like Rorschach inkblots gone all three dimensional and trippy.

Will spiral-based curves replace Bézier curves as the cleanest, simplest way to draw fonts? My student Scott Kellum sure thinks so. Grab the code by Raph Levien or play with the tool yourself at Fontly.

Who do we have to thank for the CD? In one sense, maybe Beethoven. And the MP3? Maybe Suzanne Vega.

Virginia Heffernan vs Jessica Fridrich vs Jürg Lehni vs Michel Gondry vs Scott Kellum vs Rubik’s Cubes.

What could be a better idea than having the Muppets’ meep-meister Beaker meeping Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and then posting it on YouTube? Maybe something, but I don’t know what that something could be. This video left me meep-less.

This video by Körner Union for Larytta is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in awhile. It just keeps getting more insane, so make sure to watch to the end (via VVork).

Two great shorts today featuring interviews with designer Peter Saville. The first, via the always great Bevel and Boss, features an interview with Saville by Arkitip magazine on the development of his designs for Factory records and the legendary Haçienda club. The second, from the always wonderful podcast Tate Shots via Tagbanger and perhaps even closer to my heart, is Saville on Richard Hamilton’s reworking of Dieter Rams’s Toaster for Braun. Quoting Saville: “It’s kind of like a blueprint to my own work.”

One of my favorite blogs in the whole world, Andy’s Reference Library, is making the leap from virtual to real in fine fashion at one of my favorite shops in the whole world, Alisa’s Kiosk. Read all about it, or, if you’re in NYC, hit the opening party this Friday 11/28 from 7 to 10pm. Black Friday indeed.

“When we received the assignment, we immediately read both of Senator Obama’s books. We were struck by the ideas of hope, change and a new perspective on red and blue (not red and blue states, but one country). There was also a strong sense, from the start, that his campaign represented something entirely new in American politics — ‘a new day,’ — so to speak.” Steven Heller interviews Sol Sender about the development of the O monogram. Interestingly, the interview implies that Sender LLC never met directly with Obama during or after the mark’s development.

“What I want to be able to say, in the end, is that friendship is incredibly valuable in life, and in fact is not just valuable but absolutely necessary—that you can’t live without it—but that its value, distinct as it is, is not the “values” that our moral behavior exhibits or expresses. A whole other set of values—which we have tended to neglect in philosophy—is involved in friendship, and I believe these [neglected] values are also involved in the arts and in our attitudes towards the arts. To put it very bluntly and very roughly, the values of morality are values that depend on our commonalities: the similarities we have among other people and the similarities we want to create among us. The values of friendship are exactly the opposite: they are the values that distinguish us from one another, that make us distinct and interesting individuals, the values that differentiate one person from another.” Princeton Professor Alexander Nehamas speaking on my favorite podcast Philiosophy Bites draws parallels between friendship and the arts and aligns friendship with the individual, opposing it to morality, which is a common (or shared) state. In other words, books make friends, but not every book will make any friend. However, despite the fact that we are disinclined to read some books, and we may not even be friendly with someone who would, morality dictates that we should accept and respect them regardless.

Wow. Within a few hours of posting Spraypaint and an open call for a Williams Word Generator, I have been pleasantly surprised by the response. Jason Kottke was kind enough to post Spraypaint on the wonderful Kottke.org and I awoke to dozens of supportive emails this morning. Hektor himself wrote in to say he’d like to paint the poem sometime, and, best of all, Kaolin of GUD Magazine quickly created a working Williams Word Generator for words of eight letters or less. Hopefully it will be able to do longer words in the future, but for now, it’s a great start. Once again, Internet: well done. Well done. Update: Kaolin has his generator working for ten letters now.