A transmission from the deep south.
Letterboxd, the social film diary and review site I’ve been working on with a few colleagues over the past year, is nearing its public beta launch. We’ve continued to add to and improve the site since launching at Brooklyn Beta last October — film pages have had an overhaul as you can see above, among many other improvements.
If you’d like to be part of the private beta, drop your email address at letterboxd.com over the weekend, and we’ll get an invitation out to you early next week.
Offscreen magazine, a Kickstarter project from Melbournites Kai Brach and Jess Murray, is a little over $5,000 short of a modest goal with 3 days left to run on its campaign. Here’s the idea in their words:
Offscreen is a new, quarterly print magazine with an in-depth look at the life and work of people that create websites and apps shaping our digital lifestyle. We want to tell the less obvious human stories of creativity, passion and hard work that hide behind every interface.
The pair plan to print and distribute the inaugural issue regardless of whether they’re successfully kickstarted, and the list of interviewees for it is impressive: Tim van Damme, Dan Cederholm, Andrew Wilkinson, Drew Wilson, Blake Whitman, Ryan Singer, Lisa Bettany, Sam Brown and more.
Visit their Kickstarter page to contribute $25 (or more) to receive the first issue, or subscribe for email/Twitter updates.
The Dutch Icon collective, headed by Hemmo de Jonge, has an impressive collection of royalty-free work for sale. The examples above are just two of the 99 sets they’ve drawn to date, all of which are sold exclusively through iStockPhoto (which sadly means there’s no way to buy the complete series as a single set). The consistency and proportions are perfect throughout — alongside Drew Wilson’s Pictos sets, these are among the best stock icons I’ve seen.
For more similar resources, Meagan Fisher posted a great round-up of alternatives a month or two back.
For a good part of this year I’ve been working with the guys here at Cactuslab on a new site called Letterboxd. It’s a site for film lovers; a place where you can keep a log of the films you watch, rate or review them, and keep up with what your friends have been watching.
I demoed this service at Brooklyn Beta last month. The feedback has been terrific, and we are continuing to make improvements while in private beta mode. If you’d like early access, leave your email at the site, we’re inviting new users every few days.
Richard Miller’s Westin Black is a great take on the friendly slab, by way of Cooper Black. It’s now available for desktop and web use from Fontspring, as part of a new collection of rounded faces that also includes Museo Sans Rounded and Proxima Nova Soft.
Instapaper creator Marco Arment on Readability’s new service which enables users to financially compensate the content providers whose material they read:
Trust me, these guys really know their stuff, and their heads are in the right place: there are no sinister motives or shady practices. It works exactly the way you’d expect, and is one of the most positive, constructive efforts I’ve seen in the online publishing world in a long time.
Watch the promo video to see how it works.
(Source: marco)
Big thanks to the folks at Pictory for including my photograph of Auckland harbour in today’s showcase of New Zealand and its many wonders. The McCahon-inspired nameplate above is the work of Christchurch designer Tim Kelleher, and fellow kiwi Kris Sowersby had a hand in the creation of the Meta Serif typeface used to display the local trivia scattered throughout the article.
An advertorial publication from McSweeney’s editor-at-large John Warner and The Morning News founding editor Andrew Womack that presents paid advertisements for books that pass muster with John and his team of readers. Sharp design by Jason Santa Maria.
A selection of creative commons-licensed, base CSS templates from Russ Maschmeyer to get your web typography off to a great start. I’ll be contributing here as soon as I can.
Update: Russ has added my “Editorial” flavor to the site.
You must check out this completely awesome exploration of what’s possible with modern web typography, with installations by Frank Chimero, Jason Santa Maria, and Naz Hamid.
The project (codenamed Operation Condor) was unveiled today as Lost World’s Fairs, to celebrate the release of IE9 and its support for WOFF webfonts (pity about the rest). It’s a tour de force of texture, colour and bravura web technique. Hat’s off.
Written and designed by Matthew Buchanan. Colophon. Please give credit. Email
