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Pallid Placards and Type Tats at Flickr
Flickr is quickly becoming the slickest, most active community on the web. Its tagging system makes it easy to find and share photos matching any specific keyword. My favorite typographical tags include found type, letters, lettering, and alphabet. There are even groups who gather in honor of such things as faded signage, neon signs, and typœgraphy.
Last week, Darren Barefoot compiled a list of all the Flickr people who burned type into their skin. Among the textual tattoos you can find some for which digital fonts were obvious models -- Sloop, Zapfino, Libra, and Adobe Caslon represent.
On a note that is only vaguely related, like-minded Flickrers are very welcome to join my group of furniture freaks: Mid-Century, Modern.
Posted by Typographica | March 09, 2005 | LINK|
Comments
Speaking as another recently Flickr Addicted photog, I have discovered a few choice areas for typographic wonderfulness as well... There is another, slightly larger group dedicated to neon signage - Atomic Number 10. Also, the One Letter group turns the drudgery of picking typefaces for that ransom note you're writing into one-stop shopping. And don't forget to click about other type-related tags such as type, typewriter, font, engraving, logo and signs. Grant Hutchinson | Mar 9, 2005 07:43 PM
Thanks for filling in the holes, Grant. "Addicted" is right. You know you spend too much time on a site when you notice the layout change, under your nose, as you're browsing. This just happened to me five minutes ago as I was puttering around the site and discovered the Flickr folks have changed the way the main navigation is formatted. Looks better. It's continuous, user-feedback-fueled improvements like this that helps make Flickr such a successful interface for community building. Stephen Coles | Mar 9, 2005 07:58 PM
stephen... i followed the links for the textual tattoos on flickr. dude, your comments sound like you're on a single contestant gameshow or something. ("Zapfino!") haha. but great links... brilliant stuff. never knew there was such a big world of tattoos of this type. :) jaffry | Mar 10, 2005 06:08 AM
Jaffry - Hehe, you're right. I need to settle down. My other hangout (the Typophile Type ID Board) is a game show and I've absentmindedly spread that notion to the rest of the internets. Stephen Coles | Mar 10, 2005 08:48 AM
Like my pal Norm says: bring back mosaics. Stephen Coles | Mar 10, 2005 09:03 AM
Great stuff! What does "Typœgraphy" mean? Oh, and that "I just used Word" was too much. I don't know if it's funny or sad that some people don't care to pay attention to the font even when it's burned into their skin... hhp
I, too, am an admitted addict of Flickr. I know exactly what you mean by seeing the interface change before your very eyes – it seems to happen almost daily! And bless the feed! BLESS IT. The type tattoos are wonderful and they are motivating me to get to work on one for the near future. One of the country's best 'typographic' tattoo artists lives in NYC. TypeCon field trip for tattoos anyone? Zara | Mar 10, 2005 08:29 PM
I, too, am an admitted addict of Flickr. I know exactly what you mean by seeing the interface change before your very eyes – it seems to happen almost daily! And bless the feed! BLESS IT. The type tattoos are wonderful and they are motivating me to get to work on one for the near future. One of the country's best 'typographic' tattoo artists lives in NYC. TypeCon field trip for tattoos anyone? Zara | Mar 10, 2005 08:31 PM
I don’t know if it’s funny or sad that some people don’t care to pay attention to the font even when it’s burned into their skin… I love to see custom-lettered jobs on flesh, but agree that choosing one of your system's bundled fonts to immortalize your favorite quote is corny. A few years ago before I had any working knowledge in the ways of type, I designed a tattoo for my dad using some easily accessible script (I can't remember what it is), and everytime I see it I have to cringe because I would have never made that choice now. But then I must remind myself that what is important is what the tattoo represents for him, that he loves it regardless of the font – the tattoo is my initials wrapped around his heart. Aww! Zara | Mar 10, 2005 08:48 PM
If you like some of the signage stuff mentioned in the original post, check out a lighthearted survey I did last summer of a typographic neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It's not what I'd call a scholarly scrutinization but there is a bunch of great stuff to see. http://www.coandco.ca/letterpeg/
Terrific links -- thanks, guys. I haven't really dug into Flickr yet, but I think I will be doing more of that now. I especially loved that one-letter group. Mark Simonson commented to me last year at TypeCon that he couldn't believe I wasn't walking around SF all the time just shooting signage stuff. At that time, I rationalized it as not having a digital camera. Now I have no excuse (well, except that I have a full-time job, but...). Cheshire Dave | Mar 14, 2005 10:59 AM
It's a little hard to tell but this looks suspiciously like Hobo. marian bantjes | Mar 15, 2005 09:45 AM
No, like that mom, Hobo has no descenders. hhp |
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