The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway
December 6th, 2008
Exhaustive, loving, history of New York City subway signage, only incidentally about Helvetica.
Archive for the 'history' Category
In the Shadow of a Long Past, Patiently Awaiting the Future
December 6th, 2008
"We are used to these things. We are always here."
The First 100 Days
December 6th, 2008
Nice chart from Good Magazine comparing the first 100 days of the last 12 US presidents.
16th-Century Mapmaker Martin Waldseemueller’s Intriguing Knowledge - washingtonpost.com
November 30th, 2008
"How was it that a German priest writing in Latin and living in a French city far from the coast became the first person to tell the world that a vast ocean lay to the west of the American continents?"
Slavoj Žižek: Use Your Illusions
November 30th, 2008
Žižek on the presidential election and what the election of Obama means.
Colonial clue to the rise of HIV
November 11th, 2008
"The arrival of colonial cities in sub-Saharan Africa at the dawn of the 20th Century may have sparked the spread of HIV."
Annals of Democracy: Rock, Paper, Scissors
November 5th, 2008
History of voting. Secret ballots are an Australian invention, only adopted at the tail end of the 19th century in the United States.
The Measue of a President
October 6th, 2008
The result seems to be essentially meaningless, I think because the sample size is underwhelming. Might make more sense divided into pre-tv and post-tv. Notes: Carter's little interpolated grin is charming, G. W. Bush's hook hands less so; Madison was really small, and Taft was not.
Picturing the Museum
October 5th, 2008
The "Exhibition Preparation" section is, of course, particularly fascinating.
270 to Win
October 5th, 2008
Visual distribution of electoral votes for every single presidential election in US history.
Richard Price and Junot Díaz on the Death of Times Square and Importance of Ghosts
October 1st, 2008
"We always talk about New York as a 'global city,' but I think we have too much of a two-dimensional view of where it begins and ends. The same way that millions of people flooded into the city—for the first time, in a very concrete and dynamic way, New York has sent colonies to other places."
Une Certaine vision de l’histoire des caractères typographique
August 31st, 2008
Good illustrated survey of the history of western lettering and type, from Rome to the early 20th century (not in french).
A Brief History of Avant Garde
August 30th, 2008
"The only place Avant Garde looks good is in the words Avant Garde."
The Lady Was a Spy
August 28th, 2008
"So... Julia Child and a few of her male compatriots got together and literally cooked up a shark repellent,"
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 - 1940
August 19th, 2008
"The...collection includes 2,900 documents representing the work of over 300 writers from 24 states....2,000-15,000 words in length, the documents consist of drafts and revisions, varying in form from narrative to dialogue to report to case history."
Researchers make noises of pre-Columbian society
July 17th, 2008
Pre-Columbian audio anthropology.
Inventing the Internet
June 4th, 2008
How much does Larry Roberts look exactly like Ben Kingsley in Sneakers in this photo?
Scott and Shackleton’s abandoned huts in Antarctica
May 11th, 2008
Constant cold preserves the last camp of the Shackleton and Scott expedition.
Census Atlas of the United States
May 10th, 2008
"...is a large-format publication about 300 pages long and containing almost 800 maps. Data from decennial censuses prior to 2000 support nearly 150 maps and figures, providing context and an historical perspective for many of the topics presented."
Hypertext
May 9th, 2008
Another comprehensive article on the concept and implementations of hypertext, including Vannevar Bush's theoretical Memex, Ted Nelson's coining of the terms "hypertext" and "hypermedia" (at a conference at Vassar), historical wikis and Hypercard.