Studio Notes #87

Hello, hello, Grand Beings. Here are this week’s Studio Notes™—quick bits delivered to you each Friday.

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As a longtime fan of the old Hilltop Steak House on Route 1 in Saugus, Massachusetts, this glimpse into the home of late owner Frank Giuffrida is quite a 1970s time capsule. The interior is exactly what I expected it to be, and the video does a great job of preserving it, as it's now empty and up for sale. The Hilltop was the epitome of the mid-century family restaurant with its gigantic neon cactus sign and life-sized fiberglass cows out front. The sign is still there, kind of. It was a North-of-Boston institution for over 50 years. I can still remember the fun design on the paper placemats.

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Datatype is a variable typeface that turns text into visual charts. What an ingenious bit of font tech! Perfect for those “sparklines” that Ed Tufte taught us about. Datatype takes simple text expressions and, through the magic of OpenType, turns that data into inline graphs—and it's open source.

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This is old news, but pasta maker, Barilla, created playlists that align with the exact cooking times of various pasta shapes. You can also throw the pasta at the wall and if it sticks, it's done. I'm 52 and still don't use a timer to cook pasta. I fish it out of the water, rinse it quick, and bite test it. But maybe a soundtrack would help.

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We saw Backrooms this week, and it lived up to the hype. I went in not knowing a lot about the backstory (pun intended), its internet origins, or its 20 year-old director that based the film on a YouTube series he created using Blender 3D and old VCRs. The lore about this movie is massive, and fascinating.

One thought I had early on was, "Hey, how do the filmmakers know what my dreams/nightmares of abandoned, indoor pools look like?". The liminal space phobia is a real thing—a modern phenomenon involving harsh fluorescent lighting, windowless, barely-furnished, carpeted office spaces, and a crushing, creepy, emptiness. The movie captured all of this so well—and with 30,000 square feet of practical sets! It's remarkable that reality makes all the difference in depicting a very surreal world. ★★★★½

This Week’s Poll

Last week, I asked about your thoughts on the recent Lacoste brand update. See the results→

What are you working on?

I've been making a little graphic for each F1 race as an excuse for more font specimens—this weekend is a big one! Using the WIP of Kyroh here for the city and driver names. Had to predict Charles Leclerc here to take the hometown win.

In other news, I have multiple WIP fonts going on, which is slowing the release of...all of them :) One I need to get back to is the typeface we're making during the monthly Secret Livestreams for Club members. I'm overdue for the next stream, which I'll get on the calendar soon after this week's crazy schedule of high school graduation and other festivities.

Wishing you a fantastic start to the month of June. See you next week!

Cheers,