Category Archives: Typography

Flair Magazine Annual is Back in Print

Flair Magazine 1953 Annual

Left is the original 1953 Annual, and right is a reprinted compilation of the critically acclaimed magazine.

While out and about last weekend I happened to wander into a Barnes & Noble bookstore.

As usual, I found myself in the Graphic Design section, and my attention was immediately drawn to a large red volume on the top shelf.

Pre-ecommerce, I had searched unsuccessfully for another copy, wondering if the magazine had been published for more than just one year. The volume in B&N was confined in a clothbound box and shrink-wrapped, so there was no opportunity to browse its pages.

Knowing Flair was again available, I checked it out on Amazon. Still, no opportunity to flip through the pages but with plenty of copies available, I snatched up a cheap one just so I could cut out the uniquely designed and printed pages.

Flair was quite innovative and was said to be “the first magazine that became an art form,” featuring the work of Salvador Dali, Matisse, George Bernard Shaw and Walker Evans to name just a few.

According to the Amazon description of the new publication, “this facsimile edition offers the same ingenious bookmaking of its predecessor, including multiple gatefolds with die-cuts, booklets, and accordion folder leaflets.”

If you’re a fan of uniquely printed art, you might pick up a copy of the Flair Annual 1953 while it’s still available.

Delicate Balance

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This image was cropped to a square to ready it for a square greeting card design.

This image was cropped to a square to ready it to print a square greeting card.

A tiny flying insect that I called a “fairy-fly” landing on the flowering Nandina, aka Heavenly Bamboo, inspired me to do a quick photo shoot on my lunch hour last week.

“No matter the time you live, no matter who, or what you are, every one and every thing is in delicate balance.” Should I add typography to this image? What words? Different words? The jury is out. What do you think?

 

Type Machinations for the Typophile in You

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TypoPaint portraitSearching for a definition of “typophile,” I ultimately found one that suited my purpose at Urban Dictionary, which, aside from its definition of typophile, is worth further exploration and I recommend you do so.

Suffice it to say, I am a lover of type, one might even say, I am obsessed with type. I’ve been that way ever since I was a child, and I suppose I’ll always love type.

Which explains why I was intrigued by an article for a Photoshop filter that aids in creating illustrations using, you guessed it—type.

It’s amazing how much creativity and technology programmers have packed into Typo-Painter. Illustrations like you see here can take minutes, instead of hours or days.

Typo-Painter is a fun little Photoshop filter that produces a typographic representation from any raster image. Of course the first thing I thought of Typo-Painting was myself, but people are obvious. Typo-Painter can be used on any raster image, using customizable text. It has a simple interface window for font, horizontal resolution and size. In all, a few simple controls yield a multitude of possibilities. Specially priced at $5 on Mighty Deals, it just might be worth a try.