Download or read book Helvetica and the New York City Subway System written by Paul Shaw and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2011-02-11 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How New York City subways signage evolved from a “visual mess” to a uniform system with Helvetica triumphant. For years, the signs in the New York City subway system were a bewildering hodge-podge of lettering styles, sizes, shapes, materials, colors, and messages. The original mosaics (dating from as early as 1904), displaying a variety of serif and sans serif letters and decorative elements, were supplemented by signs in terracotta and cut stone. Over the years, enamel signs identifying stations and warning riders not to spit, smoke, or cross the tracks were added to the mix. Efforts to untangle this visual mess began in the mid-1960s, when the city transit authority hired the design firm Unimark International to create a clear and consistent sign system. We can see the results today in the white-on-black signs throughout the subway system, displaying station names, directions, and instructions in crisp Helvetica. This book tells the story of how typographic order triumphed over chaos. The process didn't go smoothly or quickly. At one point New York Times architecture writer Paul Goldberger declared that the signs were so confusing one almost wished that they weren't there at all. Legend has it that Helvetica came in and vanquished the competition. Paul Shaw shows that it didn't happen that way—that, in fact, for various reasons (expense, the limitations of the transit authority sign shop), the typeface overhaul of the 1960s began not with Helvetica but with its forebear, Standard (AKA Akzidenz Grotesk). It wasn't until the 1980s and 1990s that Helvetica became ubiquitous. Shaw describes the slow typographic changeover (supplementing his text with more than 250 images—photographs, sketches, type samples, and documents). He places this signage evolution in the context of the history of the New York City subway system, of 1960s transportation signage, of Unimark International, and of Helvetica itself.
Download or read book NASA Graphics Standards Manual written by Jesse Reed and published by Thames Hudson. This book was released on 2015-09 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The NASA Graphics Standards Manual, by Richard Danne and Bruce Blackburn, is a futuristic vision for an agency at the cutting edge of science and exploration. Housed in a special anti-static package, the book features a foreword by Richard Danne, an essay by Christopher Bonanos, scans of the original manual (from Danne's personal copy), reproductions of the original NASA 35mm slide presentation, and scans of the Managers Guide, a follow-up booklet distributed by NASA.
Download or read book Just My Type written by Simon Garfield and published by Profile Books. This book was released on 2010-10-21 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Just My Type is not just a font book, but a book of stories. About how Helvetica and Comic Sans took over the world. About why Barack Obama opted for Gotham, while Amy Winehouse found her soul in 30s Art Deco. About the great originators of type, from Baskerville to Zapf, or people like Neville Brody who threw out the rulebook, or Margaret Calvert, who invented the motorway signs that are used from Watford Gap to Abu Dhabi. About the pivotal moment when fonts left the world of Letraset and were loaded onto computers ... and typefaces became something we realised we all have an opinion about. As the Sunday Times review put it, the book is 'a kind of Eats, Shoots and Leaves for letters, revealing the extent to which fonts are not only shaped by but also define the world in which we live.' This edition is available with both black and silver covers.
Download or read book The Parrot s Theorem written by Denis Guedj and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-08-20 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mr. Ruche, a Parisian bookseller, receives a bequest from a long lost friend in the Amazon of a vast library of math books, which propels him into a great exploration of the story of mathematics. Meanwhile Max, whose family lives with Mr. Ruche, takes in a voluble parrot who will discuss math with anyone. When Mr. Ruche learns of his friend's mysterious death in a Brazilian rainforest, he decides that with the parrot's help he will use these books to teach Max and his brother and sister the mysteries of Euclid's Elements, Pythagoras's Theorem and the countless other mathematical wonders. But soon it becomes clear that Mr. Ruche has inherited the library for reasons other than enlightenment, and before he knows it the household is racing to prevent the parrot and vital, new theorems from falling into the wrong hands. An immediate bestseller when first published in France, The Parrot's Theorem charmingly combines a straightforward history of mathematics and a first-rate murder mystery.
Download or read book Helvetica Forever written by Axel Langer and published by Lars Muller Publishers. This book was released on 2009 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Designed in 1957, the Helvetica font is an icon of Swiss graphic design, which was a model of sober, functional communication throughout the world in the 1950s & 60s. This text retraces Helvetica's 50-year history, compares it to the well-known sans serif fonts of the 20th century, & examines the phenomenon of its unparalleled spread.
Download or read book Helvetica written by Lars Müller and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2005-01-14 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An ode to the beloved typeface Helvetica is a sans-serif typeface. It is simple and clean, and commonly seen in advertising, signage, and literature. The R has a curved leg, and the i and j have square dots. The Q has a straight angled tail, and the counterforms inside the O, Q, and C are oval. It is an all-purpose type design that can deliver practically any message clearly and efficiently. It is one of the most popular typefaces of all time. Helvetica: Homage to a Typeface presents 400 examples of Helvetica in action, selected from two diametrically opposed worlds. Superb applications by renowned designers are juxtaposed with an anonymous collection of ugly, ingenious, charming, and hair-raising samples of its use.
Download or read book 99 Ways to Tell a Story written by Matt Madden and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2005-10-25 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 99 Ways to Tell a Story is a series of engrossing one-page comics that tell the same story ninety-nine different ways. Inspired by Raymond Queneau’s 1947 Exercises in Style, a mainstay of creative writing courses, Madden’s project demonstrates the expansive range of possibilities available to all storytellers. Readers are taken on an enlightening tour—sometimes amusing, always surprising—through the world of the story. Writers and artists in every media will find Madden’s collection especially useful, even revelatory. Here is a chance to see the full scope of opportunities available to the storyteller, each applied to a single scenario: varying points of view, visual and verbal parodies, formal reimaginings, and radical shuffling of the basic components of the story. Madden’s amazing series of approaches will inspire storytellers to think through and around obstacles that might otherwise prevent them from getting good ideas onto the page. 99 Ways to Tell a Story provides a model that will spark productive conversations among all types of creative people: novelists, screenwriters, graphic designers, and cartoonists.
Download or read book Revival Type written by Paul Shaw and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-18 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illuminating account of the design inspirations and technical transformations that have shaped the digital typefaces of the 21st century In this fascinating tour through typographic history, Paul Shaw provides a visually rich exploration of digital type revival. Many typefaces from the pre-digital past have been reinvented for use on computers and mobile devices, while other new font designs are revivals of letterforms, drawn from inscriptions, calligraphic manuals, posters, and book jackets. Revival Type deftly introduces these fonts, many of which are widely used, and engagingly tells their stories. Examples include translations of letterforms not previously used as type, direct revivals of metal and wood typefaces, and looser interpretations of older fonts. Among these are variations on classic designs by John Baskerville, Giambattista Bodoni, William Caslon, Firmin Didot, Claude Garamont, Robert Granjon, and Nicolas Jenson, as well as typefaces inspired by less familiar designers, including Richard Austin, Philippe Grandjean, and Eudald Pradell. Updates and revisions of 20th-century classics such as Palatino, Meridien, DIN, Metro, and Neue Haas Grotesk (Helvetica) are also discussed. Handsomely illustrated with annotated examples, archival material depicting classic designs, and full character sets of modern typefaces, Revival Type is an essential introduction for designers and design enthusiasts into the process of reinterpreting historical type.
Download or read book NYCTA Objects written by and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2017-10-24 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The evolving design of New York subway ephemera: a collector's story New York City Transit Authority: Objects originated as a photography experiment. In 2011, New York photographer Brian Kelley began documenting collections of used MetroCards in his Brooklyn studio, arranging them in various grids with the goal of perfecting the lighting of an image. His brother suggested he make the grids more interesting by finding other types of cards. Having exhausted his search for discarded MetroCards in many of the city's 472 subway stations, Kelley turned to eBay for new finds. The online rabbit-hole gave him a crash course in the history of NYC transportation. He discovered tokens dating back to 1860, a ticket stub from 1885 when it cost three cents to take the train across the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as patches, matchbooks, tokens, timetables, pins and signs, posting his photographs of these finds on Tumblr and Instagram. Six years on, many MTA employees follow and advocate his project, sometimes contacting him with information and tips on rare items. As the collection grew, Kelley recognized that there were no comparable digital archives documenting the city's transportation evolution. New York City Transit Authority: Objects is a story told through the evolving design that spans decades of the city's history. Kelley's objects tell a greater story of New York's past. For him, The NYCTA Project remains a photography experiment and self-funded hobby, archiving the culture of his home city. For the reader, it's an intimate view of the city's history that merges design and infrastructure over the past 150 years.
Download or read book Grand Central written by Sam Roberts and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2013-01-22 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rich, illustrated - and entertaining -- history of the iconic Grand Central Terminal, from one of New York City's favorite writers, just in time to celebrate the train station's 100th fabulous anniversary. In the winter of 1913, Grand Central Station was officially opened and immediately became one of the most beautiful and recognizable Manhattan landmarks. In this celebration of the one hundred year old terminal, Sam Roberts of The New York Times looks back at Grand Central's conception, amazing history, and the far-reaching cultural effects of the station that continues to amaze tourists and shuttle busy commuters. Along the way, Roberts will explore how the Manhattan transit hub truly foreshadowed the evolution of suburban expansion in the country, and fostered the nation's westward expansion and growth via the railroad. Featuring quirky anecdotes and behind-the-scenes information, this book will allow readers to peek into the secret and unseen areas of Grand Central -- from the tunnels, to the command center, to the hidden passageways. With stories about everything from the famous movies that have used Grand Central as a location to the celestial ceiling in the main lobby (including its stunning mistake) to the homeless denizens who reside in the building's catacombs, this is a fascinating and, exciting look at a true American institution.
Download or read book Art and Design in 1960s New York written by Amanda Gluibizzi and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-19 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Art and Design in 1960s New York explores the mutual influence between fine art and graphic design in New York City during the long decade of the 1960s. Beginning with advertising's "creative revolution" and its relationship to pop artists, the book traces design and art's developing interest in responses to civic problems such as the proliferation of billboards, navigation through the city's streets and subways, and issues of deteriorating infrastructure. The strategies exploited by these artists and designers resulted in similar approaches to visual imagery and shared techniques for thinking about and responding to the city in which they lived.
Download or read book City Beneath Us written by New York Transit Museum and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2004-12-14 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reproduces photographic prints from the collection of the New York Transit Museum.
Download or read book The Great Society Subway written by Zachary M. Schrag and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2014-08 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Metro stretches to Tysons Corner and beyond, this paperback edition features a new preface from the author. Drivers in the nation's capital face a host of hazards: high-speed traffic circles, presidential motorcades, jaywalking tourists, and bewildering signs that send unsuspecting motorists from the Lincoln Memorial into suburban Virginia in less than two minutes. And parking? Don't bet on it unless you're in the fast lane of the Capital Beltway during rush hour. Little wonder, then, that so many residents and visitors rely on the Washington Metro, the 106-mile rapid transit system that serves the District of Columbia and its inner suburbs. In the first comprehensive history of the Metro, Zachary M. Schrag tells the story of the Great Society Subway from its earliest rumblings to the present day, from Arlington to College Park, Eisenhower to Marion Barry. Unlike the pre–World War II rail systems of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the Metro was built at a time when most American families already owned cars, and when most American cities had dedicated themselves to freeways, not subways. Why did the nation's capital take a different path? What were the consequences of that decision? Using extensive archival research as well as oral history, Schrag argues that the Metro can be understood only in the political context from which it was born: the Great Society liberalism of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. The Metro emerged from a period when Americans believed in public investments suited to the grandeur and dignity of the world's richest nation. The Metro was built not merely to move commuters, but in the words of Lyndon Johnson, to create "a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community." Schrag scrutinizes the project from its earliest days, including general planning, routes, station architecture, funding decisions, land-use impacts, and the behavior of Metro riders. The story of the Great Society Subway sheds light on the development of metropolitan Washington, postwar urban policy, and the promises and limits of rail transit in American cities.
Download or read book Design Research Unit 1942 72 written by Michelle Cotton and published by Walther Konig Verlag. This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Formed in London in 1942, the Design Research Unit was the first consultancy in Britain to bring together expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design. This book accompanies a UK touring exhibition spanning more than three decades of their work.
Download or read book The Moon and Stars Can Be Yours written by Magali Duzant and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-19 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What began as a collection of psychic flyers found on the NYC subway system, soon turned into a freewheeling and far roaming investigation into the contemporary world of spiritualism. In an age of increasing uncertainty, digital answers are ever ready as part of the wave of modern mysticism that has swept in to fill the void left by shaky institutions and the effects of digital lives. The book weaves archival images, found ephemera, and narrative text that examines how spiritualism continues to thrive through scams, startups, self-care companies, and other lucrative industries.
Download or read book Subway written by Christoph Niemann and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-06-14 with total page 46 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Speed. Color. Sound. Numbers. Maps. Connections. Navigation. Subway systems may be specific to certain cities around the world, but the pure thrill of a subway ride is universal to all young children. Christoph Niemann’s graphically elegant and playful picture book is a tour de force for preschoolers and a stellar addition to the canon of books about trains, trucks, planes, and automobiles. Based on the author’s own underground adventures with his young boys—chronicled for adult readers in Niemann’s New York Times blog, Abstract City—this innovative picture book is an invitation down underground, where a system of trains and tracks delivers millions of riders to their destinations each day. “Underneath the city is this beautifully simple system of letters, numbers, and colors. The trains and stations are huge and impressive but also comforting, because nothing ever changes. My boys are in charge; they can read the signs, navigate the grid, and they always know what happens next.”—Christoph Niemann
Download or read book Design Vignelli written by Massimo Vignelli and published by Rizzoli International Publications. This book was released on 1981 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
