I’d love to see Japan, too—I tend to travel more for typography conferences than for anything else :( —but I don’t think the ATypI will be there soon. The 2008 conference will be in Russia, and 2009 in Mexico. I hope to make it to Russia; it is much to early for me to think about travel in 2009.

Vivien

Vivien
Thank you; and thanks for the ideas.

Hamish
Hope that it was a good and busy week for you.
Your wallpapers are being downloaded like crazy—approx’ 2000 in the last week. Love the new Helvetica wallpaper. Thank you.

Anyway another great roundup, John! That first typeface is very… interesting (I love the ambiguity in that word…) — but I can surely attest, all designers have to start somewhere, it’s part of the learning process. In fact I think we learn the most from our failures. And believe me, I’ve had a lot of failures :)

Oh, and I love the screenshot of FF Meta Serif in different variants. I see a wallpaper idea coming.

Enjoy the next few weeks away, I won’t go anywhere, hehe.

Also, that Bed Bath & Beyond example?? Wow. I’m guessing you’re referring to that horrid D that looks like it’s being sucked by a vacuum cleaner. I mean, it just … looks… bad. Do their designers not have eyes???

ANYway. Grand post as always. I love how iLT is growing in leaps and bounds. And I like how much it feels like a community. I definitely stumbled upon the right website to learn more about my newfound love, type!

Oh, AND, John, I figured out why I couldn’t get the smiley face to work! I hadn’t seen that I could register to be part of iLT, through WordPress, so I hadn’t done that. Now that I have, my smiley face automatically converts to the kind I like. Namely, this one: :) Huzzah. All’s well that ends well, and thanks for your help for such an elementary question.

Vivien
Yes, the Type For Kids idea came to me after receiving so many emails from readers asking me about tips on teaching type to kids. In fact, I don’t have any children, but I have lots of ideas; I think I’ll borrow some children for some of my experiments. The idea behind the article is really to provoke a little discussion on the topic; then perhaps with input from readers, I can put something more ‘concrete’ together.

I spoke to a friend who does some casting (in metal) about producing some letters; cost is a little prohibitive. Small wooden letters are a little tricky owing to the fine details; the serifs would probably fall off. However, some of the sturdier sans serif types might work. I also think that some playing-card-size cards might work—with one letter per card—a kind of game like snap, where children must match the letters within a typeface; I need to give this more thought. I’m sure there’s lots that can be done. I’m working on a simple type board game for kids; if ever I get the time to finish it, I’ll send it to you and your daughter for testing :) I guess I shouldn’t say too much more here, or I’ll spoil it.