Letters Remain

Category: design

  • Periodic Table of Typefaces

    The Periodic Table of Typefaces is a fantastic visualisation of 100 of the most popular, influential and notorious typefaces available. Grouped by families and classes of typefaces ((sans-)serif, script, glyphic, grotesque, etc.), each ‘element’ lists the designer, the year designed and a ranking of 1 through 100. Sites used to calculate the ranking: The 100…

  • Visualising the News (The Guardian & New York Times APIs)

    The New York Times Developer Network is the media outlet’s “API clearinghouse” offering details of how you can get access to the extensive data they have released (from stories dating back to 1981). Using this API, Jer Thorp has created some visualisations of NYT trends using Processing (a language I keep promising to take a…

  • Evolution of Art and Design

    Flickr user 802.11 has created a lovely flowchart depicting the evolution of art and design between 1845 and 1980. The chart depicts art movements and design groups and how each are connected. You should take a look at some of her other visualisations, too. I particularly like the depiction of character interactions throughout Shakespeare’s Romeo…

  • Designing for the Poorest 90%

    The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%. ā€”Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises Design For the Other 90% is a design exhibition aiming to…

  • Archive of Book Cover Designs and Designers

    The wonderful Archive of Book Cover Designs and Designers has a simpleā€”yet importantā€”raison d’ĆŖtre: “for the purpose of appreciation and categorization”. Already quite extensive, the archive is constantly growing through reader suggestions and is searchable by designer, photographer, author, and many more besides. The site’s footer also provides a wonderful directory of equally great sites…

  • Typography and Design (Two Free Ebooks)

    Getting Real is the undisputed bible of agile software developmentā€”a manifesto that can change your view in a single reading. However when it comes to typography and design, the closest I have ever come to such a document was Mark Boulton’s Better Typography presentation. Now there’s a contender: The Vignelli Canon (pdf) I can’t do…

  • Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis

    An excellent infographic on understanding the current financial crisisĀ from one of my favourite data visualisation sites, FlowingData.

  • Miscellaneous Transport Maps

    After seeing this map of the US Interstate system (via Link Banana), I wanted to find an equivalent for the motorway system here in the UK. The closest I came wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but very impressive nonetheless: Harry Beck’s London Underground-inspired UK motorway map. After a bit more searching I came…

  • MIND08 Talks

    Videos of talks from MIND08; theĀ Design and the Elastic Mind Symposium. Collaboration between science and design is yielding a radical new way of visualizing, understanding, and manipulating the natural world. MIND08 is a conference [ā€¦] which aims to catalyze this convergence. Bringing together an eclectic group of speakers and participants, including leading scientists, designers, and…

  • Designing for Democracy

    As the Floridian ‘butterfly ballots’ used in the 2000 U.S. presidential election showed, poor design can have far-reaching consequences. With new ballot design guidelines now in place, The New York Times identifies common design problems found on ballots and ways to improve clarity and vote accuracy. It’s good to know people are thinking about issues…