Filed under: Uncategorized
What started as a nice little introduction to two new font technologies turned into something much bigger. I wanted to write a simple, informative blog post to introduce people to Typekit and Kernest. I thought you should know a bit more about the exciting new capabilities of @font-face specification in modern browsers. But as I began writing it, I found the issue of web-font-embedding was much more complicated than I had previously thought. So it turned into a great, big, informative essay called The Sad State of Today’s Web Typography: Fertile Ground for Font License Revolution. It’s up at Chank.com now, but feel free to post responses and comments here.
Filed under: Font News
Chank speaks about fonts and it’s always entertaining. See if he’s coming to your town; up next are Minneapolis, Chicago and New York. New spring tour dates are now up at Chank.com here: http://www.chank.com/tour/index.php . Hope to see you soon! Come out to the show and you might get a letterpress poster; see it at Beast Pieces and Spunk Blog.
Filed under: Font News
Like so many other businesses around the world, work has been a little slow around here lately. So I’ve taken this as an opportunity to not only plan my spring tour but also brush up on my social networking skills.
I got myself a copy of the Rosetta Stone course on Twitterish (Twitter English) and after 3 tough weeks, I think I can finally speak it fairly well. While it does alienate a lot of normal people who don’t understand the syntax and lingo, I do like the brevity of it, and it seems like a good venue for showcasing off-the-cuff links and pics of the fascinating little typographic tidbits I see every day. Works well with my new iPhone too. You can find me on Twitter as “chankdiesel“.
While I do enjoy Twitter quite a bit now that I understand it, I’ll keep updating this blog in plain English on occasion, too. In other social media updates, you can also find me on Facebook where I post regular updates to the “Chank Fonts” group. I don’t accept many new friend requests there, but if you post something to the group once in a while you might have a better chance of being my real world friend. Please join my FB group when you get a chance, and maybe we can be friends some day.
If you’d like to keep in touch with me as you bounce around from job to job, as so many of you do, you can find me on LinkedIn. I accept pretty much every connection request I receive there, so you don’t have to worry about rejection if you want to connect with me there. You’ll find me there as “Chank Diesel“, duh. I find that’s a good place to keep in touch with my fellow members of the AIGA, AAF and TDC non-profits, all of which I adore.
What am I not doing? I don’t spend much time on MySpace or Plaxo. I’m not in a band, and I don’t know what Plaxo is good for.
Social media is a surprisingly anti-social activity, but I enjoy it nonetheless. Seems like lots of other people enjoy it, too. You are smart and beautiful. Let’s keep in touch.
Did you know we’ve been using windmills to make our fonts for the past two years? Well, kinda.
The electricity at Chank Co is 100% supplied by wind farms. It’s surprising to me how few people know how easy it is to have your home or office powered by wind energy. The program, offfered here in Minnesota by Xcel Energy, is called Windsource® and it allows you to purchase up to 100% of your energy needs through wind sources. You can even opt to have a smaller portion of your energy supplied by wind power if you’d like. The program is available to both residential and commercial customers.
You just pay a little bit more every month to be a part of the program, and Xcel buys as much energy as you need from wind farms who supply their energy to the grid. In our case it costs an extra 10 or 20 bucks a month; that’s about how much extra it costs the average household here. And that’s not a lot considering it reduces our dependance on coal, oil or nuclear-based energy. Granted, manufacturing fonts doesn’t take a whole lot of energy; but at least we’re doing our small part to reduce our carbon footprint here at Chank Co.
Filed under: Chank Art, Font News | Tags: business cards, design, fonts, funny, type, video
Chank’s video response to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YBxeDN4tbk . Words of typographic wisdom from type designer Chank Diesel of Chank.com. Music by Pilotvibe.com.
Chank Art "HOORAY!"
You can see it listed here: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/chankdiesel
This painting is being sold in a fundraiser for the St. Anthony West Neighborhood Organization. It’s a big painting on thin plywood, measuring about 8 feet by 2 feet, so I’d really like to sell it to somebody in NE so I don’t have to ship it elsewhere. It’s my patriotic inaugural art which was on display as a public art piece on the Art Jones lawn at 2nd St & 3rd Ave NE. Now it’s been taken down and it’s for sale at a great opening bid of only $49.
Here’s a great chance to get a significant piece of Chank Art at a great price if you can come over here and pick it up in person. 100% of the sale price of this font will be donated to STAWNO to help them raise money to move the Pioneers statue over to the new BF Nelson park site. This painting was featured on numerous blogs in the past few months. Like these:
http://minnesotaindependent.com/23922/sign-season-hooray-and-hooters-for-obama
http://jakemohan.net/2009/01/20/better-angels/
http://twitpic.com/159pi
Visit my eBay pages to see more and make your bid for a good cause. Thanks!
http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/chankdiesel
IMG_2993, originally uploaded by mattdesmond.
Here’s Ding standing atop some urban rubble next to the Pioneers sculpture near the BF Nelson park site. The Pioneers sculpture weighs 25 tons and will be moved across the street once the area is tidied up a bit. The rubble will be hauled off later, too.
Nice birdhouse! A Chank art sculpture named “Ding” continued his tour of Minneapolis’ Third Ward today. He wishes GOOD LUCK to City Councilmember Diane Hofstede who’s running for re-election to her seat at City Hall. Hofstede is a big advocate of the arts, libraries, bicycle and nature and she is a good smart person who helps make Minneapolis great. She’s having a fundraiser at the Frank Stone Gallery tonight from 5-8. Come on down and wish Diane good luck in her campaign!
Ding goes for a little stroll around the neighborhood and finds Coke and mangoes at 2nd St & 4th Ave NE in Minneapolis on a brisk, sunny winter day.
Inaugural Chank art attracts an onlooker at the Art Jones Lawn Gallery on 2nd St NE, Minneapolis.
