Bhakti as typography
As the 1930s got into their full swing, a new demand for display and logo typefaces was seen across Europe. The expanding scale of industrial production meant that the global economy was orienting increasingly towards an ever-growing market of consumer goods and services. Large typeface design corporations like Monotype quickly…
The Hong Kong inquest into the death of superstar Bruce Lee in 1973 required a professor of medicine to be flown in from London. This is the story of that man.
I.
A Saturday evening in 1960’s Middlesex, UK. A young man, of about mid-twenty in age, is discovered brutally injured from fight injuries in a side-lane. He is barely alive and does not survive thirty hours in hospital. In their murder investigation, the police struggle to find evidence that will…
Edward Johnston’s diamond-shaped “tittle” and the origins of a classic typeface design
In London’s central Piccadilly Circus shopping and entertainment district, giant electronic hoardings encircle a statue of Eros that treads one-footed upon a fountain. An ever-flowing river of pedestrians, spilling out of shops and restaurants, circumambulates the fountain’s platform. The fountain is raised by a hexagonal rise of steps. Tourists and…
Hint: His favourite genre were German YA cowboy novels
Hitler’s racial supremacist world-view had many powerful sympathisers beyond Germany, especially in America and England.
Hitler loved cars and deeply admired Henry Ford. This was because Ford was not just an immensely popular industrialist, escaped from an Ayn Rand novel, but also a legendary anti-semite. Adolf Hitler prominently displayed a…
Relax. David Hockney can draw.
Let me simplify this for you: it’s called naive art (ordinarily, this term refers to art made by people without formal training).
Yes, I know you have an opinion. I mean who could deny you one? Yes, it counts. No, I’m not being sarcastic. Okay, a little. Yes. You do…
Why politicians use multiple pens to sign landmark documents
Watching Joe Biden getting ready to dismantle some of Donald Trump’s most odious executive orders in his first day in office as the 46th President of the United States of America, I was a bit baffled. …
Maggi Hambling’s tribute to Mary Wollstonecraft lit up a bleak winter with some social media pyrotechnics
One morning in November 1924, readers perusing their Morning Post (one assumes served by a butler, crisply-ironed on a tray with their bed-tea) were informed of a grievance in the form of a public letter.
The signatories demanded the removal of the newly unveiled sculpture in Hyde Park with as…
Adrian Tomine returns with evolved art, humour like a razor and an eclectic mix of narcissism and self-loathing
The Moleskine diary is one of those weird, sacred must-have accessories for writers and creatives. Personally, I no longer use the books, preferring to use cheaper and more customisable Muji B5 notebooks — yes, yes, we do love our rituals — but I did have a phase in my ‘career’…
Nike has shaken up a sport that was almost unchanged from the dawn of human civilisation
Alan Mathison Turing (1912–1954) is often referred to as the father of modern computing. As digital technology becomes the central fulcrum of global culture and commerce, Turing is treated as a modern Prometheus, and his fame is only increasing. His death, as dramatised in the Benedict Cumberbatch starring The Imitation…
Quentin Tarantino cannot hide behind artistic freedom to disguise how basic his sense of aesthetics is
As a thick-accented, returning citizen from Hong Kong, Bruce Lee found his path to American television and film barred by experts and advisers. Despite Lee’s demonstrable on-screen charisma, proven popularity with audiences (after outshining the lead as Kato in The Green Hornet and other bit appearances in Marlowe and The…
