An inspirational viral video that makes the real cost of war more tangible… “War has no return — you’re not producing a product.”

This is an excellent viral video about the true cost of war. Nicely put together, clean typography, illustrations, not overly keen on the audio but 2/3 aint bad. I think it’s important whatever the subject, especially war to make the real costs, human & financial apparent. Some of the facts here are astounding! I felt the quote that accompanied the youtube video summed up beautifully…

“I think people are becoming more aware of these guns or butter questions,” said Gary Gillespie, “But when you talk about $720 million a day, even people who work on this issue are shocked by the number and shocked by what could have been done with that money. War has no return — you’re not producing a product.”

For more information on the true cost of war check these links.
The Wage Peace Campaign – Facts & Figures related to the financial cost of war.
Anti-War Website – Information on the human cost of the war in iraq.

What’s that skip? Your into Viral Video?

• Print Shop Viral Video – a dominos style viral video set in a print shop, guaranteed to put a smile on any designers face!
• This is a beautiful viral video, where the hell is Matt? – about a guy who dances all over the world. Well worth a read.

It is an almost ‘invisible’ typeface which has legibility as its main attribute and is ideal for a wide range of design works. It does not attract any unnecessary attention, but rather serves its purpose.

The European Design Awards 2008 just finished. Celebrating the best European design, setting the benchmark, promoting and raising standard for communication design throughout europe. There where some excellent winners this year (I strongly recommend you check out the official ED Awards website).

I (and forgive me) hadn’t realised there was going to be an Original Typeface category until it was announced! It went to Centro Pro (well deserved) a solid family (slab/serif/sans). Parachute are a relatively small foundry & in my opinion it was really deserved.

I went onto parachutes blog (parachutefonts.blogspot.com and the exctiement from them firsthand spills out into one of their posts.
“…it is awards like these that make you feel that your work is appreciated, it is awards like these that make you feel responsible for your work, it is awards like these that raise your standards, but most of all these awards make you believe in yourself and your work”.
I love it when good type gets recognized & when the details are counted!

Another great thing about Centro/Parachute & and something that makes me warm to it more is the fact they documented its construction. From their initial type requirements and design aspects to revisions, quality control and variations. They covered it pretty well and if your at all interested in the construction of type or creating typefaces it’s brilliant! The construction of the typeface is available on their blog. I strongly recommend the read!

Parachute have documented the event and have centro pro samplers on their flickr at http://flickr.com/photos/parachutefonts/… Check out the trophie. What a beauty!!

Love Typography? Here’s a few other posts that might interest you…

• A great typography t-shirt – this years typophile t-shirt design competition winner.
• I Love Typography – an animation I did as a tribute to the fantastic iLT blog.

Last week saw over a months worth of sweat & tears come to fruition as the team that I work with put on the Annual dinner for Ezer Mizion – A Celebration of Life.

I was lucky enough to brand the event & design printed / web based material. The event was a great success and although the figures haven’t been released I believe we helped to raise a considerable amount of money that will help the bone marrow cancer research charity continue with their award winning work.

Interested in seeing more of my design work? Visit my design portfolio

Nike are releasing these, really nice, Euro 2008 ltd edition t-shirts!

The shirts represent different countries taking part in the cup (which means sadly, no england). Above (left to right) is Poland, Austria & Germany probably my top 3 from the series but they are all bloody lovely. Not yet in stores but i’ll keep you posted.

Artlebdev, sensor display keyboard concept… now that’s a mouthful!

It does not have physical keys, which means there are no restrictions on their shape and size. Any part of the keyboard surface can be programmed to perform any function including displaying images & video. This opens up endless possibilities when it comes to using design apps (see the colour keyboard picker above!) or playing games, if they can work the apple, multi-touch features into it then it’s going to be a certified jaw dropping innovation!

The ‘Tactus’ is still in the concept stages but they have released the ‘Maximus‘ it’s a very early version, featuring customizable keys, if your desperate to get your mits on one it will only set you back a mere $1865.

The Tactus is going to be a revolutionary product and I think I speak for everyone when I say “I want one!” Visit the Artlebdev website for more info on the Tactus

 

For the rest of us (well at least the rest of us mac-users) there are these keyboard skins. Not quite the same experience but I think a really handy thing to have, especially if you are learning a new app / trying to expand you knowledge of keyboard shortcuts etc.

Buy them online at photojojo.com