writing on the sun
“On some upland farm, a plough had been left standing in the field. The sun was sinking just behind it. Magnified across the distance by the horizontal light, it stood out against the sun, was exactly contained within the circle of the disk; the handles, the tongue, the shard—black against molten red. There it was, heroic in size, a picture writing on the sun.”
—Willa Cather, My Ántonia, 1918.
tiger-eye
“She was a dark child, with brown curly hair, like a brunette doll’s, a coaxing little red mouth, and round, yellow-brown eyes. Every one noticed her eyes; the brown iris had golden glints that made them look like gold-stone, or, in softer lights, like that Colorado mineral called tiger-eye.”
—Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, 1913.
a distinguished intellectual
“It is quite impossible these days to assume anything about people’s educational level from the way they talk or dress or from their taste in music. Safest to treat everyone you meet as a distinguished intellectual.”
—Ian McEwan, Atonement, 2001. Wow. What an amazing book. This book takes something to another level.
Logos Gone Wild
Another perfectly good logo has gone bad. The new $30,000 logo for the UK’s Office of Government Commerce has been abandoned, after a few additional seconds of careful consideration. The story is here, the wittiest commentary is here, and a few other Logos Gone Wild can be found here. (Thank you Bruce Dean.)
an interest in the ‘black art’
”You would naturally like to know whether in my childhood I showed an interest in the ‘black art’. And how! As early as my fourth year the blackened hands of the chimney-sweep made a great impression on me. To have such lovely black hands—and without being scolded for it—that was the truest bliss, and I shortly announced that I too wished to become a chimney-sweep.”
a less pretentious name than Optima
“For a serifless roman . . . I should have liked a less pretentious name than Optima, a name that should more justly express the striving for simplicity. Upon the original drawing of Optima appears the designation ‘Neu Antiqua’, a name I had myself desired.”
there ought to be a Gutenberg monument in Detroit
“Surely there ought to be a Gutenberg monument in Detroit—for Henry Ford should long since have had one erected to the father of modern mass-production. Also, the first Ford cars were all black, and here too I see a somewhat fantastic parallel with Gutenberg’s printing, before the lovely bright colors came into use.”
a great responsibility
—Hermann Zapf, About Alphabets: Some Marginal Notes on Type Design, 1970.
The man who has taught the ABC
“The man who has taught the ABC to his pupils has accomplished a greater deed than a general who has won a battle.”
Vernacular Baton Rouge: FREE TRIP TO HEAVEN
