Studio Notes #68

Happy Friday, Friends. Here's issue #68 of Studio Notes™—quick bits delivered to you each Friday.

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I'm one of those people that really dislikes talking on the phone. But perhaps this throwback USB handset would help, taking me back to the days when it was the only way to contact someone immediately. Now, if it came with a rotary dial accessory I might be lined up to buy one.

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Speaking of throwbacks, TAPE is an iPhone enclosure and cassette system that turns any Spotify playlist into a tactile playing experience. The little details with this design are amazing, using NFC tags to change the tapes color and reel size display based on the length of the playlist, etc. Thoughtful stuff. Can't tell is this is just a 3D-printed proof of concept, or if there are plans to make it a real product. But damn, it's cool.

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Did an alien civilization send us a message in August of 1977? This video is a nice explanation of the "Wow! Signal", an intense, 72-second frequency burst detected by the Big Ear radio telescope at Ohio State University. It's remained unexplained for almost 50 years. And comes as a reminder for me to kick off my annual viewing of the movie, Contact.

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It's great to see that Sinners broke records with the number of Academy Award nominations it garnered this year. It's a great film by a great director with a great original story with great acting, cinematography, soundtrack and—well, you get the idea. It came out early in the year and I'm glad that didn't deter the voting. Awards shows are rather small and inconsequential in comparison to more important world matters—but a welcomed distraction.

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What are you working on?

I was struck by some lettering on an old box of candles and quickly found myself ankle-deep into what will probably be our next typeface. I could see this one pairing well with some of our other all-caps fonts like Parkly or Paint Factory. I found the lettering at Purveyors of Packaging, which is an absolute goldmine for vintage type inspiration.

Thanks for reading as always. You have infinite choices on where to spend your attention these days and if you've read this far on this little newsletter, well...you are very much appreciated and I hope you have a fabulous weekend.

Cheers,