Author: Don

/ Don

Jung Lee’s Neon Type Installations

Korean artist Jung Lee is showing her first exhibition in Dubai at Green Art Gallery. Lee has two series—Day and Night and Aporia, which means “coming to a dead end” in Greek.

The Aporia series was inspired by Roland Barthes’s A Lover’s Discoursem which tells the story of the ineptitudes of people in love. According to Barthes, when one falls in love the beloved becomes a mystery and one will ceaselessly try to figure out the reasons for their mysterious feelings. The desire to express one’s love produces lies and conflicts leading to a dead end. For Lee, those empty phrases reveal the solitude and sorrow of modern people today.

In the works entitled Day and Night, Lee focused on ‘God’ and ‘Love’ as the two main words reflecting her interpretation of Dante’s Divine Comedy where he highlighted the belief that true faith and love would lead you to heaven. Lee produces a cluster of those “divine” words and places them floating over the sea as reproductions or in a heap, demonstrating one’s desire to salvation. Thus Lee’s constructed photographs evoke amorous intensity with a coolness that enables the viewers to find their own way into this world, to have their memories stirred, to consider what it means to be alive in time.

(via @designmilk)

Category: Pix
/ Don

Citarella Gothic Ultralight

I’m happy to announce that Citarella Gothic Ultralight is officially on-sale at MyFonts. Here’s the description:

About Citarella Gothic:
In seeking a strong, utilitarian gothic alternative for Helvetica, we’re left with few options for unobtrusive functionalism. As such, I decided to create the Citarella Gothic family. The ligatures are characteristic of the signage and architecture around Sarno, Italy, where the Citarella family originates. The sweeping arcs, broad counters, and clean swashes allow for the architectural design to be imbued with the warmth and humanity of its namesake.

Over time, I hope to extend the family to other weights and styles, but decided to start with the ultralight version and work my way through black. In the meantime, visit MyFonts.com to play around with the font. Your feedback is appreciated, as is, of course, your patronage.

MyFonts: Citarella Gothic Ultralight

/ Don

Making a Fireplace

1) If you ever have a printer shipped to you, keep the styrofoam and the box they used to protect it. Measure out and draw some lines.
2) Cut along the lines at a 45° angle to remove strips, making triangular grooves along the styrofoam.
3) Reshape the box to a fireplace shape, with an opening for the hearth.
4) Glue your styrofoam bricks to the outside.
5) Keep a few scraps of bricks for the chimney.
6) Paint it
7) Outline the bricks with a brush
8) Drape two strings of flashing Christmas lights, orange and white, in a grey silk.

Mike deserves 99% of the credit for this, but I’m not above taking my 1%.

 

Other Photologs:

Category: Pix
/ Don

Citarella Gothic

Citarella Gothic Ultralight

This is the beginning of a new type family that I’m working on, tentatively titled Citarella Gothic. I’m beginning with the Ultralight variant (seen above) and will be working through Black. I’d originally liked the idea of calling the font Citra, but a cursory Google search reveals there are already a number of brand names associated with Citra, so I may default to my last name. After all, I already have fonts named after this blog and my company, so why not create an eponymous one?*

The sizing and kerning are very rough, though your thoughts and feedback are certainly appreciated. Incidentally, here‘s a homework assignment from kindergarden my mom found in our basement. Apparently, I was designing fonts at Age 5.

* It’s not egoism if Francois Didot, Claude Garamond, Nicolas Jenson, Lucian Bernhard, Hermann Zapf, Giambattista Bodoni, Adrian Frutiger, John Baskerville, William Caslon, Eric Gill, Ed Benguiat, Frederic Goudy, and Herb Lubalin all did it.

/ Don

A Typical Friday Night at Hometown Bar-B-Que

Tumbleweed

This Halloween, I found myself crossing two rivers by PATH, subway, and bus, to attend the jungle-themed party of a sustainable furniture studio in Red Hook, Brooklyn. The venue was fantastic. And while the party, libations, costumes, energy, and attendees were stocked in excess, the food was not. It was then that we remembered the massive, metal barbecues that we passed, one lot east of us. The smokers belonged to Hometown Bar-B-Que, he said. And though the lot had been rented to prepare the meat, they didn’t have any to sell.

Strike One.

I walked back to the party, dejected, and spoke with Dan, my host. He said that they had to use Eventbrite for ticket reservation because the previous year yielded unprecedented numbers. This year, they decided to cap the list at 650 attendees before declaring the party sold out. He then fished me and my friends a craft beer from the ice tub, and ladled a hearty serving of jungle juice for my date.

I wasn’t going to last long with this guy offering me free, hoppy beers all night. I returned to the entrance and Googled Hometown Bar-B-Que. Mitchell answered. Read more