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Did you know?

design history

Does anyone know what “flong” means? I bet you don't know what a “pop test” is?

I enjoy collecting antique terms, especially for the design and printing fields. I take impish joy asking young students what “leading” means and how it was derived. Or what a “cut” is and how it got its name.

I savor old professional dictionaries, like the one here, of printing and graphic arts terms. Most of the terminology is on the verge of becoming obsolete. Read these pages and see how many terms you use — or know. Read on.

A Big Anniversary!

design history

2011 marks the 100th anniversary of Chevrolet. During these 100 years the company developed over a hundred different types of cars, vans and trucks. All of those cars, vans and trucks have something in common: they all contain speedometers.

Speedometers are those kind of items you look at thousands of times during your life, without ever really noticing. You notice the speed, not the meter. And if you do notice the meter chances are you don't realize someone actually designed it.

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MIT gets a new logo

design history

To honor 25 years of backseat-driving robots and vision-scanning iPhones and touchscreen-keyboard-3D-display hybrids, the MIT Media Lab tapped Brooklyn-based designers (and erstwhile Media Lab rats) E Roon Kang and Richard The to dream up a fresh visual identity. The result is pure, unadulterated Media Lab: an algorithmic logo that generates a sui generis image for each of the Lab's sui generis brains. Read more.