Brian Paul Nelson – Branding / Design / Illustration">Brian Paul Nelson

The ampersand has always been one of my favorite characters. In many good typefaces it usually has a little more personality than the rest of the character set and is always fun to design with. The Ampersand is a nice blog dedicated to the little guy where users submit pictures of any type of ampersand they come across. Above are some of my favorites from the site, especially that last one from House Industries.

Beautiful mix of photographs from Todd Richardson who not only shoots in digital, but also with a 35mm and Polaroid. His eye for composition, color and processing is striking to say the least. You feel as if the real world actually had the vibrant colors and effects his photographs truly bring.

Vintage Bus is exclusively devoted to the vintage Volkswagen buses built from 1949 to 1967, otherwise known as split-window buses, splitties, splits, microbuses, micros, transporters, bullies, sambas and transporters. The shape of the buses really lend towards the branding of them with many different companies where they utilized the space with color and type in very intriguing ways. VW needs to start producing these again, at least for the sake of design like this.

Via Original Linkage.

One of the best places on the net to shop for true vintage goodness is Three Potato Four. Sure some of the stuff is expensive, but most of the items are one of a kind and completely worth it. I spend hours on this site wishing I had a random stack of Benjamins I could throw down at some of my favorite pieces which I posted above.

Though it’s believed that HTML5 will not be fully completed until 2022, some features can already be implemented within our work today, while others are still in development or haven’t even been started. This graph provides a clear understanding of some of the more important HTML5 attributes and elements and what browsers currently support them. It also gives insight to the heated battle between Flash and HTML5 video, which many big companies have already switched too, namely Apple with the iPhone and iPad.

Another nice feature that HTML5 offers in different ways is shorter, cleaner code which helps reduce file size and allows for faster web browsing. This video provides some other elements that are already widely supported right now and help with cleaning up some code.

Dive Into HTML5 is an in-progress online manuscript that is another good resource into the current and future world of HTML5

The geek inside me is excited to see the outcome of HTML5 over the next decade. I have my fingers crossed that it will allow for a better way to bring typography to the web minus Flash or Javascript or some other type of plug-in, but who even knows what computers will look like or how they will perform in 2022 and whether or not something even more substantial will have come along to replace it all, though I doubt it.

Graph via Focus.

A nice array of Belgian design work dating back to the late 19th century and up through the 1980′s courtesy of Veerle. It’s awesome seeing the variety of style and approach throughout different decades and how different time periods influenced specific trends and techniques. What’s great however is that most of the work looks like it could of been created yesterday. Quality design is that which can stand the test of time.

Check out more work at Veerle’s Belgian design gallery.

• July 1947

• January 1949

• October 1953

• October 1955

• July 1956

• January 1967

• January 1981

• October 1989

• March 1991

• October 1996

First published in 1947, Concrete Quarterly is a relatively small magazine that includes innovative concrete projects while also providing news and viewpoints from industry figures. The publication is put out by The Concrete Centre which is the central development organization for the UK concrete industry.

Architecture design has always been fascinating to me and is one of my favorite things to photograph. Over the decades CQ’s cover designs have captured a structure at some pretty compelling angles. Every couple of years they change up their cover either with a new layout and/or a new masthead logo, however in 2000 they did away with one on the cover, but brought it back in the middle of 2003 to rather disappointing results. The new logo constrains the overall photograph and design of the cover and strips the quality it once had.

View CQ archives.

Unicorn Graphics recently uploaded their Web Museum of Wood Types and Ornaments with a large collection of scans and photographs of wood type and wood type catalogues, most of which are over 100 years old. It’s amazing to see just how precise and deliberate type designers and setters were well before the global age of technology. You can really pin-point where many later fonts got their start from. This is the sort of stuff that should make anyone appreciate type on an even higher level if you don’t value it with prestige already, which you should.

“As the demand for broadsides increased during first years of the nineteenth century, the need for the process of producing large letters cheaply arose. Wood was a logical material choice because of its ready availability, lightness, and proven printing qualities. In 1827, Darius Wells of New York City first found the means to mass produce wood letters. In March of 1828, first wood type catalogue was published by Wells. Throughout the wood type manufacturing history, many manufactories were in business. Among those, Wm. H. Page & Co., Vanderburgh, Wells & Co. and Hamilton Mfg. Co. was the most noted ones.”

This museum serves as a great reference for any designer, especially type designers, who are looking for typography inspiration for their next design. I would love to have an actual copy of the Hamilton #14 catalogue which is where the images above came from, it’s beyond amazing.