…and this is a picture of the mouthiest literary critic in the country getting goatse.cx’ed for the first time. fashion did a retarded concept a while back called hi-lo. it meant you weren’t afraid to mix artfully-made clothing with, say, a pair of levi’s. a lot of idiots misinterpreted that to mean a mixing of cash with trash and nothing more.
ladies and gentlemen, with this photograph, choire has created literary hi-lo. i’m so proud.
from the bbc:
Another answer is that we’re totally scared of new media, because new media is railways and we’re canals, and you all just know how that’s going to end.
well then.
why is this even a story? you leave the door of your house unlocked, you get burgled. you leave your network unlocked, you get poached. common sense. pick a password, already.
i completely forgot to mention this: we released a redesigned defamer on monday.
i like watching gawker sites progress as the years go on; the weblog format is definitely changing. what used to be a solid wall of book-like paragraphs with tiny text is changing into an open reading space with large, easy-to-comprehend typography and images. much more magazine-like.
i get a lot of questions about this design. answers after the jump.
the logotype itself is based on a weird mid-nineteenth century script called madisonian—i wasn’t crazy about the lowercase a and lowercase m’s terminal forms, so i redrew them specifically for the logotype.
the portrait of the defamer himself is an illustration made from a publicity still of charles boyer, who made famous the line, “let me take you to the casbah.” i chose him for his dramatically arched eyebrows (which i painted even higher).
boyer was a private man. he had, from what i could find, a reputation as a gentleman. he seemed to be generally well-liked throughout his career, and was largely recognized as one of the first anti-celebrities: his public self was very public, but his private self was kept out of the tabloids. he remained married with the same woman for over forty years. his family ended tragically, though—his only son committed suicide in the sixties (from what i can gather), his wife died in the seventies. boyer took his own life days after her death.
in january of 2006, the livejournal illustrators’ group went nuts for batgirl. some of the work is fairly painful (livejournal groups seem incapable of self-critique). but when they’re good, they’re really good.
this particular batgirl is by terry beatty.
the campiest part of the film, of course, was the constant, recurring, and painfully obvious use of a crack in the wall as a symbol of the edies’ decline. i love the subjects, but i think the moviemaking skill displayed were pretty crappy. it’s hard to go wrong when you’re filming insane socialites.
i can’t decide if this project appointment is vindication for calacanis or a display of ineptness on aol’s part. i’m a little surprised they’d install someone with a proven track record for open childishness on a public-facing project.
ah well. should be fun to watch if nothing else.
sassoon was designed by Rosemary Sassoon in the style found in schoolbooks in the early 20th century. comes in a gazillion weights, features large, open forms. a lot of the face was developed specifically to aid in the teaching of better handwriting by teaching with something kids liked. sample audiences were asked which sorts of forms they liked best, and the resulting opinion was used in the font family’s final forms. of note is a primer style comprised of dots and illustrating how to make the letterforms with a pen or pencil.
“the lion sleeps tonight” was one of my favorite records as a child. it was originally written in the late 30’s by solomon linda in a traditional zulu a cappella. in the fifties, the song was adapted to the western world, and eventually became one of the world’s best-known pop singles—but the composer’s family never saw much return due to african laws denying him negotiating rights.
ownership of the song has been awarded to his now-destitute family, who seem to need a leg up right about now.
i am shamed by my love of internet culture
