Last week, Vincent Connare, the typographer who unleashed Comic Sans on an unsuspecting world, confessed his sins in an interview over at the Guardian‘s website.

After reading his account—and that of Microsoft program manager Tom Stephens, whose job it was “to match products to fonts, sort of like a marriage broker”—I was fully prepared to grant mercy, if not outright absolution.

Until, that is, Stephens said that “[w]hen you use Comic Sans, you’re making a statement: ‘I’m more relaxed, more creative. I may be working in this area, but this job does not define me.'”

Now, I may not be a designer, but something about that didn’t seem quite right. So I asked the crack design team at helveticka world headquarters to more accurately complete his quote.

“When you use Comic Sans, you’re making a statement…”

Skooch “…I’m probably a kindergarten teacher.”

Shirlee “…I’m still in kindergarten.”

Courtney “…I failed kindergarten.”

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment

Today, helveticka co-founder and part-time contributor John Richard Mraz turns 70! In celebration of this special occasion, we’ve been paying tribute to him all week: here, here, here, and here. That’s John in all the photos above: circa 1949 and 1956, and with his lovely wife Marilyn in 1998. (We thought about including a picture with this year’s cake, but we would’ve needed a fire engine on standby.)

Happy birthday, John Richard Mraz!

Wishing you and your family all the best.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment

We first met at Spokane Falls Community College when John Richard Mraz was a part-time faculty member in the design department. (He taught full-time from 1980 to 1983.) Although I had just one class with John, we struck up a friendship that, on January 1, 1988, turned into Anderson Mraz Design. For the next twenty years, before he stepped down as partner and into his current state of semi-retirement, John continued to forge a reputation as one of the region’s finest designers.

Known for his prowess designing logos, packaging, and printed materials, John’s most impressive—yet largely unknown skill—is designing and engineering custom-fabricated components for displays, exhibits, and 3D installations. Today, he continues to lend these skills to helveticka. His mastery of materials and knowledge of the fabrication process—as well as of fastening systems and hardware—is extraordinary. Combine this talent with an innate love for details, and you have one seriously anal designer.

John calls this the Mraz Curse, because it apparently runs in the family. He actually lies awake at night thinking through all the ways something can be easily fabricated while not only looking great, but also being simple to install. It makes him one of the world’s best installation planners, which may help explain why he always seems to be the most comfortable working in a hands-on mode: overalls, tennis shoes, tool belt, and a pencil behind the ear as he puts everything together. It turns out that his experiences growing up on a farm profoundly shaped his design career.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: the design life  |  make a comment

This week on the blog, we’re paying tribute to helveticka co-founder John Richard Mraz, who celebrates a special birthday this Friday. But before we officially kick things off, I want our readers to know that, along the way, I’ll be sharing a few insights about John that I believe—to the best of my memory, anyway—are mostly true. Whatever details I may miss, well…let’s just say that helveticka isn’t a news organization. And that fact-checking is overrated among friends.

Here’s John in 1965. Legend has it that the Colton High School Wildcat got most of his morning farm chores done before school, and that he was a below-average basketball player and a way-above-average student. (Of course, he graduated with only 18 classmates, so how hard could that have been?) In fact, Colton High’s valedictorian standards were sufficiently low as to enable John to achieve this distinction.

Interestingly, the Rolling Stones released The Rolling Stones No. 2; The Rolling Stones, Now!; Out of Our Heads; December’s Children (And Everybody’s); and Got Live if You Want It!—all in that same year. John, an aspiring drummer, remains a lifelong fan.

posted by: CK Anderson  |  category: the design life  |  comments(2)

Pretty much everything about this article, written two years ago and shared over a hundred thousand times since, is wrong. “While faster tempos can get you up and going,” writes Dan Scotti, “slower ones—such as the standard tempo of jazz music—will soothe both the mind and body.”

So…slower tempos are standard in jazz? That’ll come as quite the surprise to every jazz musician I know.

Then there’s this howler: “If you guys have a test coming up, or just want to be more creative—and more inspired—I recommend all of you download Coltrane’s entire discography, and start there. I have a feeling you’ll enjoy studying a lot more.” Mr. Scotti has clearly never listened to anything released after A Love Supreme.

That said, however, the article’s headline is at least two-thirds correct. Not only are we jazz listeners smarter and more creative, we’re also devastatingly handsome.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  comments(1)

The truly jaw-dropping line in this story about pet plastic surgery isn’t the one about botox for Dobermans’ ears. Nor is it that “New Yorkers have spent up to $8,000 a month on pet ‘maintenance’ such as nail painting, shrinks, chiropractors and massages.”

No, it’s the casual mention of “testicular implants such as Neuticles to help neutered pets regain their masculinity.”

Neuticles, folks. That’s a thing. So of course I checked out their website.

“It’s like nothing ever changed,” reads the service-marked tagline for a product that “allows pets to retain their natural look, self esteem [sic].” Unsurprisingly, there’s a photo of one of the Kardashians on the home page.

So what’ll these set you back? NeuticalOriginals start at $109 a pair; NeuticalNaturals $254. But hey, your pet’s worth it: spring for the UltraPLUS models—with ScarRetard!—at only $399. Of course, that’s for the XX Small. If you’re truly worried about your pet’s self-esteem, you’re gonna want to get the XXL. It’s just another $70, after all, which seems like a small price to pay for all that swagger.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

Which pronoun is best when referring to a person: who or that?

For a long time, I’ve labored under that assumption that it’s always who—as in “Courtney is the one who always eats the last donut.” Clearly, that’s better than “Courtney is the one that always eats the last donut.”

But, as Paul Brians explains, my aversion to that “may be praiseworthily sensitive, but it cannot claim the authority of tradition.” He goes on:

In some instances, “that” is clearly preferable to “who”: “She is the only person I know of that prefers whipped cream on her granola.” In the following example, to exchange “that” for “who” would be absurd: “Who was it that said, ‘A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle’?”

This is yet another case where your ear should make the final determination. And to train your ear to make the distinction, you need to read. In fact, someone once told me that anyone interested in writing as a vocation should, instead of enrolling in one of the many MFA programs out there, read all the back issues of the New Yorker. The cost of the former? $30,000 at your average public university. The latter? A buck a week for access to their archives.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment

“Billy Joel, bald and glistening, looks like a big, smooth stone, as if the years and the sorrows, like so much water, simply polished its surface but failed to penetrate its core.”

Pork Chops and Apple Sauce: Appraising the Brady Bunch’s Art Collection

Uh-oh: Looks like the Russkies are growing an army of woolly mammoths.

George Saunders in the Guardian: “Simply knowing one’s intention and then executing it does not make good art.”

Ted Gioia on the importance of actually owning music.

posted by: Aaron Bragg  |  category: random thoughts  |  make a comment