I co-edited and contributed a few essays to Idea Magazine‘s new feature about New Wave/PostPunk independent publications.

One is called “Dot Gain” and is an introduction to independent publications in the late 70s and the early 80s.

The second is a hybrid essay/interview with WET magazine founder Leonard Koren about WET and his life and times.

Special thanks to Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein for their assistance in researching the essay!

We put up a small mobile-friendly site redesign for our pals Upswell in Portland recently.

We just finished up an identity for the P.INC Patio, a new summer restaurant in Penticton, British Columbia in Canada that will open in a few scant months…

Smythe Sans and a whole bunch of other new Wordshape fonts are now available via Fontspring, the indie webfont provider alternative.

Last year we released the font Kirimomi Swash Italic, which was a runaway smash hit- it’s a free font whose creation was sponsored by Onitsuka Tiger. We just reached 35,000 downloads from our assorted distributors, which, in my book, is total brutality. So, to celebrate, I put together an accompanying Jannon-inspired Roman serif that is available now from MyFonts.com.

More here!

I’ll be giving a presentation on the secret life of American type designer Oswald Bruce Cooper at TypeCon 2012 in Milwaukee this year. The conference is from July 31st through August 5th. Yuki and I will both be in attendance. Come hang out with us!
More at the Typecon website.

Logo and mark for PechaKucha Night.

We recently designed new business cards for the three of us, and were paid the ultimate print design compliment in return- our business cards are some of the featured items over at FPO this week. Huzzah!

We got a great huge package of zines in the mail from the intrepid Elly Blue of Taking The Lane zine fame this week. It’s so great to see our fonts put to such great use!

I wrote three essays for Slanted #17– all in all, 15,000 words.

I wrote an essay about the twin evolution of Manga and Graphic Design, folding in a bit of personal history and a whole lot of analysis of Manga’s influence on PostModern design (even PostModern design masquerading as Modern design).

I wrote an essay about one of my favorite designers and people, Micke Thorsby. The bulk of it was written in Cuba, on a beach, rum in hand.

I wrote another essay about one of my other favorite designers, Akiyama Shin and his marriage of fine art and design practices, as well as his importance in the contemporary context in Japan.

The three essays wove in and out of a lot of different territory: cats, roommates, sex, The Swedish Chef, pagan rituals, teenage drug use, tentative friendships, politics and sallow people from Minnesota.