People like to see something of themselves in their favorite comic book characters and especially superheroes. So just like you …The NSA isn’t exactly everyone’s favorite agency right now. A lot of people aren’t too pleased about what they’re doing, and they’re not afraid to tell people about it. In artist Sang Mun’s case, he decided to show it.
Mun created ZXX, which has been dubbed as an “anti-NSA” typeface that’ll make it difficult for the agency (or any other agency, for that matter) to use machines to decipher your printed correspondence with other people. The disruptive nature of the typeface makes it difficult for OCR scanners to “read” your exchanges.
While the variants of the typeface are designed to be human-readable, you still might end up giving yourself and your intended recipients a headache by using this font for your documents. I think the ZXX is more of a statement, really, but if you want to download it, you can do so here.
[via Dvice]
If you thought that some people were just being paranoid when they said that there was always someone listening in on conversations or reading every message being sent, then I guess the whole NSA debacle proved you wrong. Since the news broke, anti-NSA programs and software have been floating around on the interwebs, although I think most of these don’t really work.
Sang Mun, a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, decided to express what he felt about the whole situation by creating ZXX, a “disruptive typeface” that’s named after the Library of Congress’s “no linguistic content” labeling code.
The font is difficult to read, since it looks like a combination of wing dings and randomly capitalized text. Mun has used a creative way to express his thoughts on the NSA scandal.
If you agree with his views or just want to use his very unusual font, then you can download it here.
VIA [ Dvice ]
Designer Alex Merto’s Effing Typeface is so effing unusual that I can’t help but be impressed by his creativity. His font is so overtly pervy that it’s enough to make me cringe at certain letters, but even I have to admit that he does a good job at staying within the confines of his extremely vulgar theme.
The Effing Typeface redefines the alphabet, where each letter doesn’t stand a chance against his determination to dirty them up. A isn’t so adorable now, unless that’s a baby’s bottom (which I don’t think it is.) B could be beautiful, but let’s not go to C, because that’s just plain nasty. And while most of the images are immediately recognizable there are definitely a few that I’m not too familiar with – which is probably a good thing.
Unfortunately (or is it fortunately?), it doesn’t look like the Effing Typeface is available for download or purchase online at this point.
[via TAXI via Incredible Things]
It’s not easy being dyslexic. Unfortunately, one in every ten people have dyslexia. Aside from having it rough trying to read traditional print material like books and newspapers, dyslexics also often have a hard time processing web pages because most of the content are usually text-based.
So Aberlardo Gonzalez decided to do something about it: he created a free font called OpenDyslexic which thickens the bottom part of most letters, which reduces a symptom that rotates the images that a person with dyslexia is looking at. As Gonzalez puts it, no good deed goes unpunished as he was threatened with a cease and desist letter from fontmaker Christian Boer, who accused the former of copying a commercial dyslexic-targeted font he had created a couple of years back.
Gonzalez pushed forward though and is still offering his font for free, which has been his work in progress for over a year now. You can get the font here.
VIA [ Dvice ]
Adobe really wants web designers to kick things up a notch. Not satisfied with where Edge has gone so far, it just released a full-fledged Edge Tools & Services suite to cover the bases for polished desktop and mobile pages on most any modern platform. Motion tool Edge Animate (formerly Edge Preview), automated previewing tool Edge Inspect (formerly Shadow) and mobile app packager PhoneGap Build have all arrived in the suite as version 1.0 releases, and come with both Edge Web Fonts as well as TypeKit to spruce up text. A pair of pre-release utilities, Edge Code (Brackets) and Edge Reflow, are also joining the group to tackle the nitty-gritty of editing web code and layouts. Any of the apps will readily cooperate with third-party software, although they won't always be cheap: while most of the Edge suite is free to use in at least a basic form as long as you have a Creative Cloud membership at any level, Edge Animate is only free during its initial run and should eventually cost either $15 per month or $499 in a one-time sale. For pros that want to burnish their corner of the web to a shine, the result just might be worth the expense.
Continue reading Adobe Edge swells to include Tools & Services, streamlines the designer web
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Adobe Edge swells to include Tools & Services, streamlines the designer web originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:51:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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What’s not to like about puppies? They’re cute, they’re adorable, and most of all, they’re incredibly cuddly. You could probably even manage to cheer up even the moodiest of grouches by showing him an image or two of puppies in all their fuzzy splendor.
It really doesn’t come as much of a surprise, then, that puppies now have their own font. I’m not talking about paw prints or caricatures of puppies packed into a Wingdings font. Rather, I’m talking about Puppytext, which features photographs of a litter of puppies positioned into various letters and characters for your typing pleasure. It’s not an actual font file in the strict sense of the word, since you can get your fill of puppy-filled text by heading over to the Puppytext website or getting its iPhone app which is priced at $1.29.
Go on, try it out. I know you want to.
VIA [ Geekologie ]
Scientists from Harvard University have been able to coax DNA into assembling themselves into numbers, letters, symbols, Chinese characters, and even emoticons such as the ubiquitous smiley. These tiny strands of DNA measure billionths of a meter long and represent the next stage in “DNA origami.”
DNA is usually arranged into a double helix, which looks like a ladder that is twisted. Researchers have “unzipped” the ladder and then cut it lengthwise. The team used short lengths of DNA each having 42 rungs that interlock with complementary stretches of the molecule to bend themselves into specific shapes.
The scientists were able to create 107 different designs including smiley faces and other shapes, including one that appears to be in the shape of a man and one that looks like an army tank (or maybe it’s a duck.) Each character measures just 64 nanometers by 103 nanometers, and has a total of 310 available pixels.
Coaxing DNA strands to take on specific shapes isn’t simply for fun and games. The scientists say that being able to create specific shapes could allow DNA to be used as a framework for at the molecular scale for building medications and more.
[via ABC]
Google Docs has lagged behind offline apps in the number of fonts and pre-made layouts to choose from, but that's just changed with a much larger catalog for both. More than 60 new templates and 450 fonts are now on tap to use in your presentations and reports. This comes on top of a handful of other recent improvements, such as Google Drive support, searching the Life Photo archive and boosts to accessibility and spreadsheet layouts. Apps Script gets both a Google Drive tie-in and new publishing control, too. Be forewarned: Comic Sans is one of the new font options, and it's clearly not an April Fools' gag.
Google Docs adds 450 fonts and 60 templates, sadly includes Comic Sans originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 May 2012 19:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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