Playing with Earth and Sky: Astronomy, Geography, and the Art of Marcel Duchamp by James Housefield. Published by Dartmouth College Press.

The starry title on the cover is set in Sélavy, “a dotted display typeface loosely based on the punched-out caps on Marcel Duchamp’s 1934 ‘Green Box’”, created by Nina Stössinger and freely available from Type Brut. Sélavy is also used for drop caps and chapter numbers in the interior, and echoed in the dotted lines. The text typeface is Fred Smeijers’ Fresco, with its sans-serif companion Fresco Sans used for subheadings, running heads, and captions.

University Press of New England (UPNE):

Playing with Earth and Sky reveals the significance astronomy, geography, and aviation had for Marcel Duchamp—widely regarded as the most influential artist of the past fifty years. Duchamp transformed modern art by abandoning unique art objects in favor of experiences that could be both embodied and cerebral. This illuminating study offers new interpretations of Duchamp’s momentous works, from readymades to the early performance art of shaving a comet in his hair. It demonstrates how the immersive spaces and narrative environments of popular science, from museums to the modern planetarium, prepared paths for Duchamp’s nonretinal art. By situating Duchamp’s career within the transatlantic cultural contexts of Dadaism and Surrealism, this book enriches contemporary debates about the historical relationship between art and science.

via Connor Davenport

This site addresses complex issues related to Tibet, Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama as well as Buddhism in general.

The general typface for the site is OurType’s Meran and FF Dax. The typeface of the logo is Roboto. Since the vast majority of academic writing that uses Sanskrit is conducted in transliteration, another typeface, FF Fago, is used for those articles and is paired with OurType’s Fresco.

There is also a microsite that introduces a “lost dialogue” between Tibetan Buddhism, the XIVth Dalai Lama and modern art, together with an interview by Louwrien Wijers with the Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. This microsite uses Monitor and pairs it with Tiina for headers.

Today’s specimen is yet another pure example of how fundamental typographic principles can be applied to the web to improve readability and engender respect for an organization.

Screenshots from 8thlight.com. Click any image to enlarge.

8th Light is a software development firm whose brand emphasis is “craftmanship”. It’s appropriate, then, that their web presence demonstrates awareness of the craft of typography. The site was designed by Billy Whited, who (for the sake of full disclosure) attended this June’s Type Camp California where I was an instructor. It’s clear from his work on 8thlight.com that he didn’t have much to learn from us in the realm of web type. The man put some serious research and effort into making the site a fitting representation of his company’s values.

Just three colors (black in two shades, blue, and the occasional red for emphasis) and three fonts (Fresco and the bold and small caps from Fresco Sans) define the 8th Light identity. It’s a quiet, subtle palette, but executed with obvious care and respect for the reader. Despite being routed in the typographic fundamentals usually associated with printed work, the pages feel fresh.

The typeface helps. Fred Smeijers’ Fresco has a lively spirit that sufficiently distinguishes it from standard web-safe fonts. Fresco (the serif) is an informal, modern departure from Georgia but nearly as suitable for small text. Fresco Sans combines the clarity of Verdana and the Humanist aspects of Lucida Sans/Grande, but has more personality than either of those web standbys, making for more engaging, distinctive headlines. Unlike some sans/serif suites, Fresco and Fresco Sans are companions, not twins. They share a basic structure and style but are different enough to facilitate contrast.

Whited chose the “Plus” variation of the Fresco fonts, the ones with longer, book text style ascenders and descenders, but the standard versions with more contemporary proportions would probably work better for the short and technical content on this site.

So, what is at first glance a very simple set of pages without pomp and circumstance, is actually a very finely tuned and elegant piece of typesetting that improves the reading experience and speaks well of the studio. Small details matter:

• A clear typographic hierarchy using size and color, not furniture or ornamentation
• All text as HTML (webfonts), not images
• A consistent grid, broken occasionally for the sake of content and variety
• Adequate space between paragraphs and lines
• Reasonable line lengths
• Small caps with added spacing (though probably too loose)

See also: Billy Whited’s “Brief Primer on Typeface Selection” »