microsoft released imformation recently detailing opentype properties available in the next version of windows. opentype seems useless when discussed from an everyday user’s point of view, but it can be remarkably useful, and simply fun. it allows a single typeface file to contain ligatures, small caps, and swashes, all in one font file. no more fake small caps in word! huzzah!

design observer is a new blog on design penned by michael beirut, william drenttel, jessica helfand, and rick poynor. i am ecstatic about this. established writers in the world of design have never written online in this form.

new from gawker with editing by jonno and typographics by me: fleshbot. because you always need links to good sex.

jason salavon averages specific instances of common situations into shimmering apparitions. his images shed light into experiences which bind us together—even in our singular circumstance. link via su.

the hoefler type foundry releases a new collection of engraved and inline types today called “shades.”

shades incorporates many of the classic american and english forms from earlier releases, namely the proteus project and knockout (which is the family i use for navigation at left). as an added surprise, one of the fonts (which reminds me most of knockout) is a unicase—lighthearted display fun to be had.

not sure of who HTF is? you know their work. hoefler text is included with every new macintosh system sold, and knockout originally saw light of day as titling for sports illustrated.

“Here, at last, was true certainty: the promise that every piece of graphic design, each an amalgam of dozens of arbitrary, intuitive, “gee, this looks right to me” decisions, could be put into a centrifuge, broken down into its constituent parts, and analyzed for the harm it could do to our environment.”

michael bierut, always intuitive, steers towards the possible reason for visual design’s lack of professional purpose: we are created to destroy.

while that’s my overstatement of the fact, he does take an informed trip through design’s last three generations of “purpose” which i have not seen anyone express or write from such a personal perspective.

childish, histrionic, dogmatic, pedantic threads like this one at typographi.ca are the reason i generally keep my distance from more vocal members of the typographic community.

sometimes i think if language was left in the hands of typographers, english would be immediately frozen in its tracks. usage rules would be neither invented nor altered again, spelling would remain the same well past its usefulness, and i would more than likely be lynched for my hatred of capital letters—never mind that one of their own canon, herr renner, shared my distaste for nearly identical reasons.

(end rant.)

i got my sweaty little hands on an advance of britney’s new album, inexplicably titled “in the zone.” (ed: britney, give my cardio workout a small break please.) verdict: “mostly cute” on a sliding scale of “not cute at all” to “totally cute.” every gay man in the world will love at least one track. for those who don’t know me well, i have a huge, embarrassing weakness for bubblegum pop that rears its ugly head at really inappropriate times.

but what bothers me is that it sounds like every song is a cover of something else…but nothing’s a cover. every single track seems really familiar. we hate that.

“me against the music” is a duet with madonna, and the creepiest damned thing i’ve ever heard. madonna’s never been anything but an ice princess, and ice princesses do not get letcherous towards anyone else—they let the suitor approach them. but in this track, she’s trying to get down britney’s pants. the result? madonna sounds utterly desperate. it’s embarrassing.

there’s a track called “i got that (boom boom)” featuring the ying yang twins, which is fucking amazing. it’s britney exactly as she should be: little rich white girl surrounded by a pack of party boys who realize they’re disposable. fantastic dancefloor track.

and “brand new girl,” the first track, is frothy, pink electropop. sounds just like chicago’s own flutter would if they could afford the gazillions of dollars of production.

should you buy this album? fuck, yes. britney’s vocal talent and range have expanded. so have her personae. she’s a lot meatier than she used to be when she was a pink powderpuff joke. the best part is that britney’s now ascended to the level of pop deconstruction that you don’t need to hide the album like you did with oops! even the smart kids love her now.

can no longer stand the britney album.

oh well.

art mavens take notice: my friend charles is interviewed in the current issue of metropolis magazine. and have you bought his book? hmm?

“weren’t you serving in the military when bosnia was at war?”

ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner for best pickup line ever!

some guy with terrible facial hair (chinstrap and goatee, obviously employed to create the illusion of chin where there is none…i firmly believe men use facial hair they way women use eyebrow pencil) said this to me last night at berlin, thinking i looked like a soldier he’d met before he emigrated. the possible scenarios were endless:

“no, really. you were dragging four dead men behind you and it was totally hot!”

or

“it was too you! you were hanging in stocks from a brick wall. really. hold your arms up over your head so i can see what you look like hanging.”

or

“yeah, you were running through a minefield holding a severed head by its hair! it was so funny, i thought, ‘wow, that guy must totally miss his head!’ and i never forgot it. so how are you?”

current self-portrait. i realized it’s been a while since several relevant parties have seen a picture of me (hi mom—i love and miss you too). not scowling, just trying to focus.

congratulations to my longtime friends fred and karen on the birth of zuzu evangeline, who’s been showing some early hints to her personality by staying in the womb for a few extra weeks.

best. name. ever.