Studio Notes #56

Hello, Spooky Friends. Here's issue #56 of Studio Notes™—quick bits delivered to you each Friday. Happy Halloween from Salem, Mass.

🏁

I still love paper. Books, magazines, prints, cards, etc. Anything tactile that holds information and design. As a new-ish F1 fan, I was happy to come across Esses, a quarterly print magazine that covers Grand Prix racing and the culture surrounding it (“Esses” derived from “S-turns” on a racetrack). Great ph0tography, design, and writing with a more gritty, less slick perspective on the sport. Subscribed.

✂️

The mixed-media collage art of Fries Vansevenant stopped me in my tracks. It started with this one of Marty McFly. Such a fresh take on proportions to create dramatic, 2-dimensional caricatures. I love these. I also wish they were published on their website, but alas I'm linking to their Instagram out of necessity.

🧩

This is my kind of project. Type designer, Ty Finck, was making specimens for a monospace typeface and created a word game out of stacking letters. He took it a step further and created an iPhone app for the game from all the tinkering called Sixtep. As a fan of word puzzles, I can say it's fun and simple, and a great example of how type design can be more than just making letterforms.

🏚️

I may need to re-buy a vinyl copy of New Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House. It came out in 1979 and was a favorite of mine when I was a kid. Disney's sound effects masters creating just the right amount spookiness. I'd throw it on even if it was a random rainy day in April just to get into the ghost vibes. It reminded me of my favorite ride at Disney: The Haunted Mansion, of course. But the first time I went on the ride when I was probably 5 years old, I closed my eyes the entire time. When you do that, your main memory from the ride is when the chair spins around and tips way back (which is still my favorite part).

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Just barely not-in-time for Halloween, our Vowels of Hell dice game is back in stock! And it's just $12 bucks. Custom D20 and D6 dice featuring our Dragönsteel typeface, game instructions, sticker, and pencil. Is the game we made up for this...fun? Well we can't guarantee it.

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What are you working on?

Earlier this week, we moved our Secret Club™ from Slack to its own dedicated Circle community. I had evaluated several Slack alternatives and landed on Circle due to its customization, feature set, and its out-of-the-way UI. Most community/forum interfaces overwhelm me (maybe it's my age), but Circle's was easy to whittle down into something simpler and more on-brand. As the little club gets settled, I'm hoping it helps foster and grow things.

The Secret Club has been a really fun learning experiment, where I'm folding in lessons learned from the old Dribbble days on a micro scale. It's a great time to join us! I'll be starting monthly virtual meetings in a couple of weeks. It's become a really supportive group focused around type and design.

Have a great Halloween, and see you back here next Friday.

Cheers,