It is considered poor etiquette to type in all caps. Nobody likes to be SHOUTED at. I find it interesting that the same guidelines don’t seem to apply to handwriting. Like many people, I print in all caps and I have never heard the “shouting” observation made when it comes to penmanship.

I was reading the comments on a Flickr post by Shaun Inman where he analyzes his own penmanship and it seemed like many designers share my addiction for uppercase. Is it my imagination or this a trend? Time for another survey…

Design Survey Question 5: In your handwriting, what do you capitalize?

(If you were wondering about survey 4, it looks like Be A Design Group readers aren’t unbeige.)

Photo taken by Melody Simmons and provided on Weekend America’s site

This won’t be the first time I’ve confessed my NPR addiction and posted something drawn from it, and I’m certain it won’t be the last one, either, but I was struck recently by a short segment on Weekend America.

Among the newer programming offered by NPR, Weekend America is an even more freewheeling cousin of Weekend Edition or even All Things Considered from an “article” standpoint, and they offered up this curious and fascinating story a little over a week ago now about a Baltimore effort to garner money to fight homelessness in the city.

First, I’m struck by what an artful and highly conceptual fundraising effort this is (much like Benn Ray is in the story), and second, I’m struck again by this almost purely typographic physical illustration of the point Baltimore is trying to get across. As I listened to the story I was really fascinated by how much these parking meters successfully landed in a place in between fine art and design, and also captivated by a certain conjecture: what must it be like to walk up to one of these meters without any of the background on what they do, what they are, and what purpose they serve?

I’m curious to know what the BA readers make of them as well…

Although we’ve touched the art vs. design nerve here before fairly recently, I actually find these meters cross that gap far more effectively and insightfully without resorting to hitting someone over the head with their message or blurring that message to such a degree that few would tend to decipher it.

What do you think?

As my thoughts turn towards my Spring semester courses, and particularly towards the Typography class I’ll be teaching for the first time I’m reminded of this recent logotype “find” that appeared in an on-line banner ad. It’s really refreshing to see an identity designer utilize a design approach that likely came straight out of a typography class in their past: communicate an idea purely through the use of type forms, type orientation, and type relationships.

My eyes were caught by this fairly delightful identity solution a few weeks ago – glad to continue to see moments of good visual wit popping up in the midst of many designs that we’d sooner ignore or forget online!

For our second graphic designer survey question we tackle the subject of typefaces. Of the fonts in your personal collection, how many do you own? 100%? 50%? 0%? Cast your annonymous vote here, or just check out the results.

A new poll means that the voting booth has closed on our our Designism survey. You can view the results here, or here is a summary:

34% say “Design has always been about making the world a better place, so I don’t really get the point of inventing the word ‘designism.’”

31% have no idea what designism is.

13% are pumped about the idea.

another 13% were offended by the politics.

6% think it is a waste of time.

3% think designism is going to change the world.

For years, my parents kept boxes and boxes of childhood artifacts belonging to my brother and I in their attic back in our hometown of Fort Dodge, Iowa. Baseball cards, books, action figures, schoolwork, artwork going back to preschool, and more were sealed up in plastic boxes, sandwiched amidst fiberglass insulation and the like. They always told us that once we had room to store them ourselves, we had to either take them home with us, or throw them out.

Of course, I not only didn’t throw this stuff out when I moved into my house last year, I brought every last thing back with me so I could look through it all before deciding what could be thrown out. There’s a wealth of creative inspiration in that old stuff.

Amidst one of the boxes, I found a manila A-4 envelope marked “LETTER PEOPLE” in faded blue Bic. The unmistakeable handwriting of one Tom Nemitz, circa 1985 no doubt.

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