One of possibly several tests posts. Please ignore.

I’ll trade you one 6-story tall river otter ice sculpture on your birthday for one large assortment of German and American pastries on my birthday. As tradition stipulates, we shall meet at the Glienicke Bridge at dawn.

Bring napkins.

If you somehow missed the wandering minstrels, the sky writing, the telepathic dream messages, the (in hindsight perhaps unwise) flaming bus ads, or the web site, well then let me be the first to tell you about the fabulous KU Design Department Senior Show. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet face-to-face with a bunch of people who will soon be the rich and famous taste makers of the glittering future ™.

One aspect of the show we are all particularly proud of are the invitations. We created a simple postcard design blind embossed with the words “I Create”. Each of us then completed the design with whatever we “create”.  Here’s mine:

You can see the rest of the designs at the Senior Show Web Site, or if you’re in the area stop by:

Thursday May 6th, 5-9pm
Californo’s in Kansas City
4124 Pennsylvania, Kansas City, MO

What a sad and lonely state I have left you all in, my non-existent readers.  I know, I know, I said that I would make an effort this summer to make regular publications here a habit, and I have failed.  You must all hate me—if not the fact that you are all figments of my imagination.  <sigh>

But perhaps I can make amens.  Would it placate you to know I come bearing gifts?  Of course it would, and here they are.  Just look around you.  Completely updated and redesigned!  New templates.  New CSS.  New database backend.  New and improved!

Huh?  What’s that?  That snickering there?  Why…can’t you see it?  Well…subtle, yes.  It’s subtle.  Rather subtle, anyway.  But look at that…aaaa…the, um…well.  I mean.

Very well, I suppose you can’t really see the changes.  I mean not on the surface you can’t.  But can’t you just feel it?  Doesn’t it have that ‘new blog glow’ about it?  Doesn’t it? <sigh>

Alright fine.  I can do better.  No, no, I can.  Here, look.  Scroll on down to the bottom of the page.  See that! Ha Ha!  That’s right!  Twitter posts!  A whole new form of up to the minute web technology that I will soon grow tired of and abandon just like that whole silly blogging thin…  Well, I won’t make any promises this time.  But you never know.

Ok ok ok, I know what you want.  Fine, I give in.  You’re right.  It’s the least I can do (I mean after imagining you all up and then building this whole blog for you to read and then spending 4, no 5, 5 whole paragraphs apologizing for not updating it).

Huh?  What’s that?  No I didn’t say anything?  Hey, look over there!  It’s an honest to goodness new feature!  Comments! Now you can be critical even when I’m not around.  Aww, I know.  I love you guys too.  Just try and be civil—I’ve imagined some kids who come by here sometimes and I don’t want to get imaginary phone calls from their imaginary parents.

More to come, I (don’t) promise!

This last spring I had the chance to study lettering and font design with Josh Scruggs, graphic/font/web designer and all around talented article.  Josh keeps a blog called 26Symbols, and recently asked if I could make a guest post about my adventures learning font design.  While you’re there, check out Josh’s fantastic lettering work.  He does that BY HAND.  I’ve seen him do it.  

Have you ever wondered why the stereotypical Anglo-Saxon style old English phrase replaces the word the with the word ye? OK, I admit that I never really wondered either, but it’s one of those little tidbits of information that, once you know it, makes you feel like a better English speaker.

It turns out that what we’ve all been pronouncing as /ji/ (rhymes with tree) is actually not originally a y, but instead the Anglo-Saxon letter thorn, written as a capitol Þ and lower case as þ, and pronounced as a dental fricative—a th sound.

Þ capitol letter thorn—UTF-8: 00DE

þlower case letter thorn—UTF-8: 00FE

According to Wikipedia, thorn (or þorn) once originally accounted for both voiced th sound, as in the, and the unvoiced, as in think, but was eventually replaced with the modern th combination—and example of a digraph—and by the letter Y in a few stock mems like ye olde. The letter thorn, þ, is still used in modern Icelandic to represent the unvoiced dental fricative, and even appears on the standard Icelandic keyboard layout.

Incedently, Icelandic also includes the letter eth, capitol Ð and lower case ð, representing a voiced dental fricative. Eth also derives from old (Anglo-Saxon) English, and was once used interchangeably with thorn.

Ð capitol letter eth—UTF-8: 00D0

ðlower case letter eth—UTF-8: 00F0

There now, don’t you feel better? Incendentally, if you’re now concrned that you don’t know where thorn and eth appear in the alphabet, fear not, Michael Everson and Baldur Sigurdhsson can help you out.