A Little Friend

Sometimes it's nice to break with the 2-dimensional print world and design something crafty. Find this mouse as a free pattern download on Ravelry, the huge (2,000,000 members!) social site for knitters. Look for A Little Friend. 

The Best Mobile Aps

Writers Armando Rodrigues and Ginny Mies are true mobile ap geeks. This writing team filed a special round-up of 48 favorites in the February 2012 issue of PCWorld. I landed the assignment and was lucky to reel in illustrator Michael Byers, who drafted the perfect street scene. 

Pictured above are the opener and the first inside page from this 6-page feature.

Lighter than Air with PCWorld

The new laptop trend is the runway model sleek Ultrabook. When Editor Jason Cross filed his lab-tested round-up in the January issue of PCWorld magazine, I saw it as a chance to float these new products around the studio.

Not a single bad landing occurred during the making of this 7-page layout. Above are the opening and closing pages with photography by Robert Cardin and post-photo production by Marianna Whang. Interested in buying an Ultrabook? You'll find Jason's review here.

A Sweet Client Project for Kyle William

My client, knitware designer Kyle William, never ceases to amaze me with his design requests. This time he needed a type treatment for the twill tape he was using to reinforce the hem in a cardigan. Supergenius is the recipient's nickname. The recipient's spirit guide? Yes indeed, that would be the kewpie. Fun, yes? I want a yard for myself.

Font fans, the face on the tape is Louisianne Black, a lovely set of characters designed by Dieter Steffman. This freeware font is available from Font Squirrel. Find it here.

PS. I love comments. Making a comment here is a process, but you can do it! Click on the Post a Comment link below then look for the Submit button—labeled Create Post—at the top of the this page when the screen refreshes. Click that and you're good to go.

Reviving the PCW Font Backlist

PCWorld has been posting fonts to their downloads section since 1997. In the heady first days of the site, many listings were simply given blurbs instead of full reviews. Okaykate to the rescue! First up: Dactylographe, a demo file from French type designer, M. Burjadet. Unfortunately this early work by Monsieur Burjadet does not stand up to his claim that the style trumps Courier.

Looking up the word Dactylograph was great fun with references to sign language and fingerprinting, but all-in-all this was not the happiest review I've penned. Read my thoughts here, then come back and tell me what you think.

PS. I love comments. To make a comment here, click on the Post a Comment link below then look for the Submit button—labeled Create Post—at the top of the this page when the screen refreshes. Click that and you're good to go.