It is called Sans Forgetica. Developed by a group of psychology and design researchers at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia Sans Forgetica has one goal in mind - to help you remember what you read. It is "believed to be the world’s first typeface specifically designed to help people retain more information and remember more of typed study notes." The cleverly named font is based on the theory called “desirable difficulty,” which suggests that people remember things better when their brains have to overcome minor obstacles while processing information. “Sans Forgetica lies at a sweet spot where just enough obstruction has...
A Heavyweight For Illiteracy
Wladimir Klitschko is the World Heavyweight Champion. He currently holds 4 different championship belts and is pretty much considered the undisputed king of the ring. His latest fight might be his toughest yet - illiteracy; the global scourge that effects over 250 million children who do not have access to education. The project is called Klitschko vs. Illiteracy and it is the brainchild of the Klitschko Brothers Foundation in cooperation with the German charity organization BILD hilft e.V. Ein Herz für Kinder. For the project Klitschko dipped his gloved hands in blue paint and punched the 26 letters of the alphabet individually on canvas. Why blue? Because "blue is the ink of writing"...
The First Book with Page Numbers
© Copyright 2010 Heinrich Heine Universität Düsseldorf The book is called Sermo in festo praesentationis beatissimae Mariae virginis and it has the distinction of being the earliest known book to have page numbers. It was printed by Arnold Ther Hoernen in Cologne in 1470. More: The First Printed Page Numbers - I Love Typography Life Before (and After) Page Numbers - The Atlantic
Tell a Story: Bringing literature to the tourists
If you happen to be visiting Lisbon any time soon you might run into this blue book van at one of the cities main attractions. The project is called Tell a Story and was created by the Portuguese advertising agency MSTF Partners. The goal is to expose visitors to a wide array of Portuguese literature in translation, in other words, to tourists that do not speak Portuguese. What visitor to Portugal wouldn't benefit from a little José Saramago, Fernando Pessoa, or Eça de Queiroz ? Luckily, Tell a Story is not a one-way street. "There's no better way to remember a journey than a book. And...
Typography on Ice
Ice Typography is a series by Canadian artist Nicole Dextras that revels in impermanence.Dextras constructs provocative text out of ice, installs it on a wintry landscape and waits for Mother Nature to do her thing. For the "temperature determines how long it will take for them to change state from solid to liquid. This phase of transition becomes symbolic of the interconnectedness of language and culture to the land as they are affected by time and by a constant shifting and transforming nature."Dextras continues "The visual poetry in this series aims to subvert the authority of the English language and the...