Franklin Gothic

For my Typography class, we were assigned to a certain font, write 300 words about it, and make a poster using only typography.

I'm not quite finished but here it is so far:



Those of you interested in learning more about Franklin Gothic or if you would just like a helping of my witty sense of humor, here's the essay I wrote and included in the poster:

Franklin Gothic is a sans-serif modernist typeface created by Morris Fuller Benton in 1902. It was named in honor of the American printer Benjamin Franklin. Hence the Franklin at the beginning. “Gothic” is a term for typefaces which originally meant sans-serif, and is becoming increasingly out-dated. Much like the contemporary Gothic culture.

Types of Franklin Gothic include: Franklin Gothic, Condensed, Extra Condensed, Italic and Condensed Shaded. Types of Franklin Gothic not included: Diet Franklin Gothic or Franklin Death Metal. (Although there is Hot Metal and Cold Metal). Franklin Gothic has been known by many different names such as the imaginative Gothic #1, Gothic #16, Square Gothic Heavy. Variations/copies of Franklin Gothic have been implemented by such companies as Alphatype, Autologic, Berthold, Compugraphic, Dymo, Star/Photon, Mergenthaler, MGD Graphic Systems, and Varityper.

Distinguishing features of Franklin Gothic are such things as (apart from being a bold sans-serif typeface) the double story g and a, the ear of the g (is it not cute?) and the tail of the Q. Franklin Gothic fell out of use around the 1930's, however, with fonts such as Futura and Helvetica, sans-serif fonts like Franklin Gothic experienced a revival and it is still popular today.

Franklin Gothic appears in many places, such as New York University, ROCKY, The Dark Knight, (the movie, not Batman), and Cardiff University. It was once believed to be in the famous opening crawl of Star Wars, but later it was said to be News Gothic. However, News Gothic is based on Franklin Gothic, and Franklin Gothic is still used in the subtitles of the Star Wars Films. Other places you'll find Franklin Gothic are the computer/quiz game You Don't Know Jack, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, section headlines of the N.Y. Times, the Showtime logo, and the Onion magazine's printed publication. In the 1980's, it was used in Nickelodeon's intertitle and in CBS Sports. Finally Franklin Gothic can be found in many places most of us may not have heard of like Frederator Studios, the art of Lawrence Weiner, The PBS Series “The Electric Company,” and many more.

And of course, this poster.

Happy Anniversary, to... my hip?

Well, it's been one year today that I had my surgery. It was a long painful process and I'm still not fully recovered. That being said, I'm still in much much less pain than I was before the surgery (and shortly after). I still can't extend my leg all the way but it's getting better/closer all the time. I've been able to put my own socks on for a few months, though I've only been wearing sandals or slip on shoes for a year now. I'm almost completely caught up on school from when I had to drop a semester, though regrettably that entire semester went down the crapper when I had my surgery. However, it all becomes worth it when I chase after Morgan and can catch him and play with him without howling in pain. (Until he kicks me somewhere extra sensitive, the surgery didn't protect me from that.)

Also, happy St. Patrick's day, and happy birthday to my friend James!

Picdump Number 3

Twenty thousand words- I did it

Roland is celebrating for me.

Draft one of "The Friends of Henry Paris" is complete. Is it genius? Hardly. Is it coherent/cohesive? Occasionally. Did I write every word? You bet your sweet bippy I did.

The longest thing I've ever written and completed, My old record was around 30,000 words but it was only practically the beginning, and was so bad I'm going to pretend it doesn't exist.

This story I think has a lot of potential, it is very rough and inconsistent, but that's what first drafts are. I'm just grateful it's complete and now it's time for me to start rewriting. Since I've never been very good at revision, I'm hoping this class will do a good job teaching me the technique.

But I did it! I really did it!

For those of you who don't know or forgot or would just love to hear me explain it again, The Friends of Henry Paris is a novella I've been thinking about for something like 3 years now. I've tried writing it as a novel once before and gave up, I tried writing it as a screenplay once before and gave up, I've plotted most of it out several times but found it boring each time. This class made it possible/necessary for me to just plow through it and I did it.

The plot of Henry Paris is a good but not great one, but frankly I'm a bit tired writing it out, if you want to know you can go to glassofrandom and read the synopsis there from 3 years ago, (exactly 3 years ago, in 2 days, to be specific) it suffices me to say it's a Western ghost story/coming of age story/mystery and I don't care what anybody else says I'm proud of it, I wrote it, I did it.

Now to make it coherent...

Morning Motivation

I can't be the only one. Now I know I'm not, thanks to nedroid.

Getting Older

I'm no stranger to feeling old. What are some of the hallmarks of aging?
Losing your hair, needing glasses, memory loss, hearing loss, thinking most modern music is just "noise" sound accurate? How about confusion with technology, or getting cancer? This all happened to me in high school. Last year I got my hip replaced. And I'm not even 30 yet. (Though it's getting closer).

But it wasn't until recently that I finally knew I was getting old. What did it for me? Two things, actually.

and

Not to mention the fact that neither of these are current news anymore, I might as well be complaining about microwave ovens or even the interhighway, talking pictures and steam engines or how the heck Ryan Seacrest is still hosting American Idol. But those things I was ok with. (Except Seacrest).

These things, not so much.

Can someone explain to me the appeal of twitter? To me it sounds like blogging for the lazy or remedial quotes from the illiterate. (And I already thought blogger was blogging for the lazy.) And I'm sure that my views of the website just further cements my age and status of no longer being 'with it.'

I think my contempt of Twitter began with news of Ashton Kutcher amassing twitter followers or "twits," as they are often called, (I'm sure I'm the first to make that joke). Ashton Kutcher is such a concentration of douche that if someone wrung him out the water would cover most of the world's surface in a grim reality of Kevin Costner's creatively named Waterworld.

I am avoiding twitter at all costs right now, though the closer I get to graduating and seeing most/all designers have a twitter feed on their portfolio websites, I feel I may have to abandon my dear principles and follow the crowd. And such dear, dear principles they are as well.

I'm no stranger to musicians/singers dressing strangely. After all, I grew up in the 80's.

Glorious, confusing, gender-bending 80's.

After all, my favorite singer growing up (and still, actually) what this man:

But Lady Gaga I just don't get. I think she dresses and acts that way not for any artistic statement, but for attention. Granted, it's not the lowest a person has ever gone to be famous,

picture unrelated

But it's definitely up there. Once Lady Gaga did her thing and wore garbage, bubble wrap and a midget hobo skin for attention, I decided I might not know what is cool anymore. (though the 5 o clock shadow on her armpit isn't cool, is it? I'm right about that, right?) Not to mention her repetitive dance beats that sounds more out of date than, something out of date.
Why can't artists be judged for their music alone? Why are musicians the only people who are regularly called artists nowadays? What ever happened to TV dinners, Jack Parr, vinyl records or the Studebaker? Why are over the hill wannabe hipsters who had cancer ranting about a female singer with a zipper on her eye instead of just accepting that he's getting old? Some questions have no answer. I don't know what's cool. Maybe I should just accept the greatest truth ever uttered by Grandpa Simpson:

I used to be with 'it.' Then they changed what 'it' was. Now what I'm with isn't 'it.' And what's 'it' is weird and scary to me. And it will happen to you.