Jason Santa Maria: Saying No

Jason Santa Maria, at Creative Mornings, speaks on finding the strength to set your own priorities for what you want.

In his own words: “It might be saying no to a project or job, or even something that you think you can’t say no to, but finding the strength to set your own priorities for what you want is one of the most crucial things you can do in life. Saying no used to make me uncomfortable, and despite making many mistakes on my way there, I’ve learned to feel good about saying it. The talk is just a short 20 minutes, but sums up most everything I’ve learned about the topic in all my years working and living.”

Graphic Design Before Computers

Graphic Means is a documentary film currently in post-production that looks to unveil the fascinating world of graphic design before desktop publishing, and undoubtedly inspire in you feelings of unconditional love for your MacBook for simplifying your life one thousandfold. Take a look at the trailer above, and admire the human ingenuity that was necessary for transforming an idea into a printed page, before heading to the project’s Kickstarter page for more information.

Swiss font legend Adrian Frutiger dies

Swissinfo.ch: 

The internationally renowned Bernese designer who created the famous Univers typeface passed away on September 12 in Bern at the age of 87. 

He was one of the few typographers whose worked with hot metal, photographic and digital typesetting during his long career. Besides his well-known Univers family of sans serif typefaces, Frutiger designed over 50 other fonts like Roissy, Avenir, Centennial, Egyptienne, Glyphia, Seifa and Versailles. He was also the man behind OCR-B, the standard alphabet for optical character recognition. 

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Univers was one of the first breakthroughs of the new system of phototypesetting that soon supplanted the old and expensive method of casting a font in lead. It offered a whole set of variations to the blossoming global advertising industry which helped make it enormously popular. He did well from the advertising boom by creating his own studio in 1960 and working for clients such as Air France, IBM and the Swiss Post. 

Ink - Written by Hand

Not long ago, handwriting was taken for granted as something anyone could generally do well. Today, children are taught how to type on tablets - putting pen to paper is an afterthought. INK follows Tanja Tiziana - a freelance photographer in Toronto, Canada - and her journey to rediscover the written word. A film by Ryan Couldrey 

Chip Kidd: The art of first impressions — in design and life

Book designer Chip Kidd knows all too well how often we judge things by first appearances. In this hilarious, fast-paced talk, he explains the two techniques designers use to communicate instantly — clarity and mystery — and when, why and how they work. He celebrates beautiful, useful pieces of design, skewers less successful work, and shares the thinking behind some of his own iconic book covers.