Blue Pencil
Blue Pencil is a “slog”: a slow blog. It does not get updated daily or even on a regular schedule. Instead, it gets updated when there is something of value to be posted. Postings often take a long time to prepare and appear at intervals of a few weeks or even months. Sometimes there is a flurry of postings within the span of a few days. Blue Pencil may be unpredictable in its frequency, but not in its purpose. Blue Pencil is fiercely dedicated to the 3Rs: research, reading and writing.
5 December 2008
Jennifer 8. Lee has posted a blog about a day we spent together prowling the New York City subway system. It is entitled “How Helvetica Took Over the Subway” and can be found at the City Room section of the New York Times online.
1 December 2008
This is the second Blue Pencil installment.
After Mary Ann Bolger wrote a fairly favorable review of Graphic Design: A New History in Eye no. 66 (vol. 17, Autumn 2007), I wrote a letter to the magazine pointing out that it is “riddled with errors”, most of them relating to typefaces and typography. The letter was published in Eye no. 67 (vol. 17, Spring 2008) and led, several months later, to a response from Prof. Eskilson. He wanted to know what …
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30 November 2008
This is a slow blog. I have lots of material I hope to post but not enough time to properly prepare it. Thus, I expect my posts to be sporadic which will make Blue Pencil part of the nascent trend toward slow blogging.
I chose the name Blue Pencil for the blog because my original intention in establishing it was to post lists of errors—factual, orthographical, typographical, etc.—I have been increasingly finding in the various books I read. Many publishers have …
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20 November 2008
Read the complex story of how and when Helvetica entered the New York City subway system at AIGA Voice. The documentation for the article will eventually be posted here along with additional photographs of subway signage. In the meantime, to complete my research I am still looking for more photographs of the subway system taken between 1966 and 1980 showing signs, especially signs that have black lettering on a white background. (The sign pictured here …
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