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Defeated by Julia Roberts.

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Not close. Oh, well.

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Makes me think of . . .

When I saw this week's New York Times Magazine cover I was struck by two things.

The first was that the drawing was made out of bodies. Credited to Moses Pendleton's Momix dance troupe it reminds me of the contortions the dance troupe Pilobus used to do. Not that interesting, in my opinion -- but I like the white space.

The second thought was I haven't seen the typeface Windsor used for a long, long time. And it, to me, really brings back the feeling of ecology urges and Earth Day. A real early 1970's feeling. Windsor -- though in upper and lower case -- was used for the cover type on the "Last Whole Earth Catalog."

So, good choice for this "Green" issue!

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Puzzle fan? Type fan? Buy this issue!

The May 2009 issue of Wired is great. The logo has been re-drawn by House Industries -- and there's many more instances of House type and hand-lettering throughout. The issue also uses lots and lots of nicely-spaced Futura. Good ol' Futura has been around since the 1930s, and it just keeps coming back in style again and again.



The issue is "guest edited" by J.J. Abrams of "Lost" fame. He has a movie coming out this summer and this issue is certainly part of the hype for that. But, even if you don't care about J.J. Abrams, you can find things to like about this issue.

The type and many of the illustrations work hard to look old-fashioned. The department pages have been redesigned for this issue to fit into the 1940s-1950s trash-design look. The magazine's chock-full of "puzzles" and I'm sure there are "clues" sprinkled here and there as well. Very fun.

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Got her!

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Turner Classic Movie wallpapers -- the good ol' days

Way back in 2004, I discovered the Turner Classic Movies wallpaper download page. I was ecstatic. Four or five cool old stills per month. And they were presented, for the most part, without distraction. Most wallpapers were just a black-and-white publicity still surrounded by a black border. In the border was the advertising copy, the image was left untouched. Great stuff! Beautiful!

Occasionally there was a bit of type overlapping a picture, but usually the pictures were left alone.

These were great wallpapers.

Things change.
Current TCM wallaper designs showcase busybody designers churning out fake 1940s-style logo designs.

Every wallpaper has at least a fifth of its image area covered by a phony logo. It's very annoying. I think if they are going to cover some of the picture, they should at least use some actual lettering from the original posters or publicity materials.

These current designs make crappy wallpapers. They are just too busy.

Maybe TCM feels the pristine black-and-white photos are too stark. Maybe they like the fake-historic movie logos because they add a lot of color and activity to the black-and-white pictures.

But I think they are trying to guild the lily.

I wish TCM would stop trying to show the talents of their graphic designers. I want to appreciate the original stills and enjoy the talents of the original photographers and actors.

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