[Maps] Google Maps Traffic Records The Eclipse

3473.

Sometimes it's more interesting to take an indirect look at something amazing. And, as amazing as watching Monday's total solar eclipse was, Google's live mapping of everything that moves under the sun brought an unexpected surprise.

Nobody wired is unfamiliar with Google Maps's traffic layer. It's useful in getting the idea of how tied up a place is and for enabling anxiety in getting from Out 122nd Way to the Woodburn to view the eclipse.

No need to take my word for it, just ask my wife.

After the event (and finally home from a three-hour trip from Woodburn back to town) I was checking in on line and caught a posting from a Facebook friend, Mike Selvaggio, which showed a screenshot of the southeastern United States in Google Maps with Traffic turned on, and the following explanation:

Easy way to identify where the eclipse path has been... Just look at a traffic map of the U.S. (as for us out west, we are *still* on our way home at 4mph.)

... and there, dawdling downward and rightward from Saint Louis, a handful of stretches of interstate highway along a curving path into South Carolina stood out in slow-n-go orange and traffic-jam red within a remarkably tight corridor.

As anyone who tried to make it home in a hurry from the mid-Willamette Valley knew that day, getting there was surprisingly easy. Apparently, everyone who was going had gotten there and was just waiting for the event. Going back, though ... well, picture it's like if the State Fair or the Aerosmith concert had gotten out, only 750,000 other people went and they all hit the road at the same time. For us, an 18-mile trip from Woodburn to Oregon City along Highway 99E was done at about 6 miles per hour on the average. A historic traffic jam to match the celestial event; no shit, there we were.

Mike's observation lit a fire and, before too much more time had transpired, I fired up Gmaps and turned on the traffic and did three screenshots of my own, stretching from Oregon to South Carolina, transcontinentally. And this is what I got:

The road network out here in the Great American West is sparser, but it still provided enough points to make a line. I do note that some jammy areas exist a little to one side; well, humans are a swarming thing. We aren't neat and don't obey the discipline an eclipse's umbra is; outliers are a thing.

But it's all close enough for jazz, and makes Gmaps traffic layer an indirect lens through which to view the eclipse all across the country. There isn't a stone you don't drop that doesn't make a ripple. 

[info] Uber, By The Numbers, 39 Ways

3322.

Uber ... love it or hate it, it's hard not to be fascinated by the beast.

Did you know, for instance, if you were an angel investor in Uber and you laid down $20,000, you might be $40,000,000 richer at this point? Or that 20% of drivers are women and 25% are over 50 years old?

Or that, if Uber had to engage its drivers as employees, it would cost Uber $4.1 Billion?

No matter what you think of it (for the record, I'm not a fan), it's an educational trip to get an awareness of the sheer numbers swarming around the phenomenon. This graphic ... 39 Facts About Uber, by Cardude of MisterBeep.com, gives the skinny. The original article is at http://www.misterbeep.com/39-facts-about-uber/.

Made by: Mister Beep

[map] 1,012 Years Of European Boundary Changes In 2 Minutes and 33 Seconds

2824.When I was a kid I got the standard, substandard American training in world history, meaning that, here in Oregon, it was all Oregon Trail (this was pre "you died of dysentery") with the occasional dash of Lewis & Clark, numerous attempts to correctly pronounce "Champoeg", and periodic field trips to the Oregon Capitol Building (which provided me with a love of architecture but not much of history). As far as American, US, and world history, I'm pretty much an autodidact.

When I started reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, I was still not completely clear on the fact that international boundaries are not permanent verities, although the 1990s really started to change that, at least insofar as the Germanies could reunite. Reading the history of Nazi Germany, with its de facto boundary changes due to out-and-out annexations (Austria, the reattachment of east Prussia, and such) was a real lesson for me.

Someone, somwhere, somehow, has done a huge service, though, by taking all the European boundary changes from the year 1000 CE to the present day and animating them. It's a flawed production: there should have been an animated timeline, and the colors that change are not defined. But to watch the boundaries fluctuate over time is quite compelling. If you're familiar with such things as the Holy Roman Empire (which was only Holy and Roman in that it was beholden to Rome; it was actually a German empire), the Ottoman Empire, the growth and decay of Lithuania and the numerous divisions of Poland, you'll have some idea of what's going on and when.

I was also surprised, by the by, when I found that, for a time, Rome belonged to the French. Like I said, I got the standard American education in history.

All that being said, the video.

[design] Infographic Cliches You've No Doubt Seen

2705.Design humor is at its best when it's metareferential, sometimes.

Via Google+ user Dustin Hoffmann (no, not the actor) and served forth from the blog of FastCompany, there's a very chuckle-funny summary of the most popular infographic cliches:

That's four of them. To see the whole magila, click on the graphic or the link in the text above to the FastCompany blog. The artist is Alberto Antoniazzi, whose site is http://www.albertoantoniazzi.com/

[map_design] Cameron Booth Gets Portland's Rail Map To Grow Up

2685.While i like the TriMet rail system map and have grown to like the new TriMet empire style, it has not been lost on me that, just as the old style (which I still miss) was destined to give way eventually, this style will too, eventually, give way to another look. And I've seen the direction it ought to go.

Cameron Booth likes designing maps, and he's come up with a brilliant take on the combined Portland area rail display that makes the current look rather … well, provincial. A bit of it is at right for illustration's purposes, and the rest of his work is at his blog here. Go there, because that's where all the closeups are.

The thing I enjoy the most of it is that this map feels like it could stand, style-wise, next to the great transit maps of the world - the NYC subway, the London Underground. By eschewing the ever-present 45-degree angle, using instead 60- and 30-degree angles, he's hit upon something the other map doesn't have … a high degree of congruence with the way the Portland street and ground grid actually looks, so it's easy to picture where you might actually be in relation to the reality, but it allows it to be schematic enough to clearly show the system in a usable way.

The choice of type face is quietly sophisticated, and the choice of using a dark background brings a sort of drama to it and lets the network stand out from the supporting background. Nice touch.

The real innovation about the map is that it shows all passenger rail services here in Portland - unlike the TriMet Rail System map, which reduces the Portland Streetcar line to an unannotated line that kind of fades into the background. Showing the Amtrak lines gives a sense of a link into the greater world. To top it off, it includes proposed or under-construction lines and stops extending to Vancouver and Milwaukie.

The whole effect is very big-boy, very sophisticated, information-rich without being cluttered … very grown-up. And very well-done.

[net_liff] How Fast Twitter Spread The East Coast Quake News

2670.Google+ User Matt Morain posted this fascinating animated GIF (direct link to post) illustrating the Twitter traffic for the first thirty seconds after the East Coast Quake of Tuesday.

Yeah, I know it's proves something somehow maybe, but it's damned interesting. Five … ten years ago … we weren't this well-connected.

Yeah we're livin in, in a modern world.

[design] Fantasy and Science Fiction Themes in TV Since Star Trek – Amazing Graphic Treat

2205.io9.com's Stephanie Fox is someone I am now a fan of. Her genius here is the chart, and her production goes to show how an aptly-designed chart can give you a distilled view of trends that you can get your brain around.

Starting the year after Star Trek's cancellation and last broadcast, the left hand column gives you an at-a-glance display of what TV shows were running, when, and how long. Looking right, you have tabulated the number of shows in which each one of a number of common themes (such as Magic, Robots, Space Travel, and Aliens). Connecting the dots gives a view of what goes popular over time, what seems t stay popular, and what was popular when televised SF and F was really big which, as it turns out, the top half of the 90s.

Here's the chart. Clicking on it should provide some biggenation; if that doesn't work, just go here: http://picasaweb.google.com/samuel.klein/BlogSupport#5377428635350131762:

Discussion and other biggenation can be had at this thread on io9.com: http://io9.com/5347631/at-last-a-graph-that-explains-scifi-tv-after-star-trek. Chart was used with permission (thanks, Stephanie!).

About the only way that I can think that this would be niftier is to add a timeline of world news and events. I'm of the opinion that SF and F television either reflects what we're trying to deal with as a society, or inverts that – in some way, SF and F portrays worlds that invert our fears and fantasies (taking us from powerless to powerful, from worried to confident), and this is because I've always felt that well-done SF really holds a mirror up to our present and compels us to question it.

But that's just me being a dilettante, maybe.

It is a nifty chart, though, and don't question me on this!

Technorati Tags: stephanie fox, io9, graphic design, information design, trend design

[liff] Closed Captioning Gone Wild: Maybe They Should Get A Room Then. (NSFWish)

2191.ProbablyBadNews.com (via Twitter, the incredibly Twitter-savvy KGW TwitterPilot at TheSquare) shows us what happens when the Closed Captioning second-string shows up for work – you get what can only be described as a CC FAIL.

Ew. Just eww.

On the other hand (sorry), you've got to admire the intense concentration that would allow you to accomplish such a deed. I think.

Best to move on, yes. Nothing more to see here, yes.

Technorati Tags: Closed Captioning, CC FAIL, ProbablyBadNews

[pdx] New Street Blades In SE and SW, and We Suggest A Transitional Form

2183.More new street blades out and about; this time we find the new format in SW Portland, in the Johns Landing area.

The area called Johns Landing is found along the Willamette River on the left bank, south of the new condo desert of SoWa. It centers on the venerable WaterTower shopping center and is served by both SW Macadam Avenue and SW Corbett Avenue; Macadam is, of course, the main road between Portland City Center and Lake Oswego City Center. Some of Portland's most notable broadcasters are also in this area, espcially notable is PDX's Clear Channel cluster, KEX, KPOJ, and others in the studio building in the 5000 block of Macadam.

SW Richardson Ct is the 5100 block, and here's a picture of that assembly.

The Richardson Court blade looks like it could use a bit of kerning between the S and W in the directional:

… Richardson Street and Court form the 5100 block south of Burnside. The blade for SW Macadam Avenue here missed something though:

… the block index in the upper right hand corner, which should be 0500 at this point. It's omitted from both sides. We've so far seen this at one other intersection in town, SW 57th and Barnes:

… and it frustrates us. We feel that simply because the intersection is a T (and the person on SW Richardson Ct and SW 57th Avenue, respectively, will find it a bad thing to go straight through the intersection) this does not mean that knowing the block of the street you're leaving might not be a useful thing. Especially since, if you proceeded one block south, the corner of SW Mitchell St and Macadam Ave, you'll find an old-style blade assembly with an address block tab on both blades and it, too, is a T intersection, we are led to the conclusion that the omisson of the block index on these blades is just that, an omssion, and we kind of wish it wouldn't happen. Chances for information are really being lost here.

Speaking of old-style blad assemblies, a real good example of one is at the corner of the Water Tower Mall's lot, SW corner of SW Macadam and Boundary Street. Here you go:

There are a couple valuable things to notice about this assembly. With tabs on both blades, one has to be bolted to the bottom of the bottom blade otherwise the top blade will be obscured to the point that the top blade really can't be read at all.

If you've followed me at all, you know how to read this display; if you don't, this article will give you background, and if you've followed me at all, you know that that 0 in the 0500 is important and necessary and this article will tell you about that.

During the documentation of this trend we've noticed the advent of Clearview in the Portland signage with some happiness. We like Clearview a lot. There's a new example up, at SE 60th and Division (the part that goes south from Division which, due to being in a different plat than the part north, jogs:

The new font is visible on the SE 60th blade above, and here's the SE Division Street blade:

I am starating to be sloppy in love with the Clearview font and the way it's being used in street blades. It just looks more sophsiticated. Remember, since Division jogs north a block between 42nd and 82nd Avenues, it's actually the 2400 block, and a short, discontinuous street called SE Windsor Ct amounts to the 2500 block.

Moreover, the sort of blade that the Richardson Ct/Macadam Ave assembly represent seems to be a midpoint between the Classic Style and the New Style, having features of both … the layound and design of the New Style with the letterforms of the old style. We'll dub this the "Transitional Style", because it forms a bridge between the two forms.

Many of these can be seen embiggened at my Posterous stream here.

Technorati Tags: Street Blade Gallery, typography, sign design, type design, Clearview, PDX Street Blades

More Capitolism: The US Capitols Photo Map, Take 2

2075.Got out the Cap Map and bashed it out a bit. As said before, I broke out the small states in the northeast so you can see the pictures a bit better, and added a list of states and capital cities:

Click to embiggen. I'm hosting this one on my Posterous account; Posterous is a nifty zero-config blog host, about which more later.

The shapes of some of the states weren't standing out so well against the light blue background, so I darkened that up. I rather enjoy the effect, myself.

Technorati Tags: state capitols, state capitol map, ZehnKatzen, Samuel John Klein, maps, Adobe Illustrator

What Would Wikipedia Look Like If You Printed It Out?

2070.Like this:

Yes, it really apparently exists. See Rob Matthews' blog for the other picture, which will give you a better idea of scale.

(H/T This Twitterer)

Technorati Tags: Wikipedia, weird stuff

More Zines I've Seen

2059.More zine coolness available at your local Multnomah County Library (seriouslys! They have a zine collection!). Contact information, where available, embedded within the review, taken striaght from the publications. Typos are mine.

The Zine Standard Deviation by J.V. Whimper (jvwhimper@gmail.com) bills itself as "Science for you, not for them", and lives up to that promise. The main feature of the hand-sized zine, "Caffeine from Green Coffee Beans", noting that green coffee beans (unroasted, that is) have more caffeine in them than roasted, is an experiment designed to see if the high-test beverage can be extracted and consumed via one of two cold-brew methods. Short answers: yes and yes (though it be tasting as crap), and the buzz is quite real.

The zine rounds out with an advice column (Ask Dr. Dūm), a quick bit of myth-busting (Science Will Break Your Heart), Graphs!, and a 4 panel comic on the back cover (Scientist and Robot).

I thought this one a bit of fun, and actually seems like it would be a great introduction to the scientific method – the procedure of the caffeine experiment seems solid.

The next two zines are perfect for those times when life is leaving you cold and you just want something that'll give you a little lighthearted smile.

Monsters Make A Stew, by Lisa Eisenberg (lisa.rosalie@gmail.com, http://i_draw_pictures.livejournal.com), is just what it says it is; a gently funny, simply drawn series of panels showing some kinda squishy, cuddly, friendly-looking monsters getting together at a friend's house to make and share a stew. I don't know if there was any sort of message there except "get together and share good times with your friends", but whatever there was, it left me with a light feeling.

The comic is almost completely wordless, save for a monster on the cover saying that he could bring the peppers (and he did) and one of the monsters at table at the end signifying his satsfaction with a petite burp. Most charmingly cute.

Above: Scene from Monsters Make A Stew, by Lisa Eisenberg.
Copyright, the artist.

Super Crazy Cat Dance, by Aron Nels Steinke (http://aronnelssteinke.com) is billed as a "super fun crazy comic for kids and grownups alike", and it also lives up to its billing. All black and white and using a joyously simple illustration style (see scene below), we get to see a girl celebrating all the cats she knows, teaching another girl how to do the SCCD, dancing to the moon, and then returning. It's the kind of stuff that makes you smile to read even if you are a dog-person, because even the dogs and the kitties lay down together at the end of the comic. Gently funny, and done by someone who must be a gentleman, as it's dedicated to his girlfriends three cats, which I find nifty.

Scene from Super Crazy Cat Dance by Aron Nels Steinke, copyright the artist
How can you not like this stuff?

Two more and I must dash.

Oregon 101 features Angela Wyrens and Chris Phillips (ohthedrama2003@yahoo.com) car tripping down the Oregon Coast (hence the title). They see the Sea Lion Caves, explore tidepools, sleep in the car, panic over getting something stuck in they eye, and have a minor car repair issue.

In other words, the same sort of thing that just about all of us go through on a car trip to the coast on a tight budget. I really related to it.

Scene from Oregon 101, by Angela Wyrens and Chris Phillips
Copyright, the artists.

Finally, a serious one with a lighthearted tone. Just about everyone has heard of the Dvorak Simplfied Keyboard layout (it's an option on just about every computer) but just what is it? The Dvorak Zine: Changing the World One Keyboard At A Time by Alec, Frunch, and GCB (http://DVzine.org) wants to not only show you but bring you over. They are Dvorak keyboard enthusiasts and evangelists, and not only want you to know the history of the typewriter and keyboard but bust some myths along the way:

• Sholes, perfector of the Typewriter and the iconic Qwerty layout, didn't do that to slow down fast typists – since the board was laid out before the typewriter was even released, there still were no typists, but did it because the original mechanism was likely to jam.
• After the typewriter was released by Remington, Sholes tried to come up with a more logical arrangement, but it was too late – The Qwerty had already taken the world by storm, as had the typewriter
• Dvorak is hard to learn – actually it's quite easy. And since it's available in just about every computer made, you can have a Dvorak keyboard at any time.

You may be fine with Qwerty (as I am) but if you want to learn Dvorak, this conversationally-written and graphically-friendly zine, complete with three interesting personalities, should get you well down the road. It even functions as its own learning aid, and is replete with references.

Frunch introduces us to Dvorak. A scene from the Dvorak Zine,
copyright the artist.

Technorati Tags: Zines, Dvorak keyboard, cats, liff, monsters, PDX Zines

You Are Here. Are You Here? Why Are You Here?

2044.Referred to me by an acquaintance who knows that I quite like this sort of thing, a thing left on a post somewhere on Southeast 11th Avenue, a poster, apparently taken back in February:

The text reads as follows:

SEEKING: CARTOGRAPHERS OF ANY SKILL LEVEL to assist in locating a sense of place. Curiosity, open eyes and ears, and a sense of humor a plus. Open to maps on paper as well as movement, music, narrative and video. Please send a draft of how you "map out" your experiences, discoveries, and psychogeographical landsapes to: mostlandia@gmail.com. Willing to barter with homemade ice creatm. Sincere inquiries only.

That sound easy enough. But how do I email them my blog?

Technorati Tags: liff, liff in PDX, Portland scenes, miscellany, map design

TriMet Map Cover Designs: 1995, 1996

2041.Now we move up to the years '95 and '96. Here they are:

The designs from these years are very different in style and mood.

The 1995 map is very businesslike and celebrates the most charming feature of the TriMet graphic oeurve from prior to 2001; the TriMet Sector Symbols. I'm saving the meat of that idea for another article, but the idea is that, like a pie, the landscape was divided into seven radial segments, all pointing toward The Portland Mall, going, from the north clockwise: Purple Raindrops, Blue Snowflake, Brown Beaver, Green Leaf, Yellow Rose, Orange Deer, Red Fish. The sector lines were grouped into their respective shelters along Fifth And Sixth Avenues on the transit mall, and the lines serving each shelter along with the sector symbol could be clearly seen on illuminated signage that was visible from at least a half block away.

The genius of this system can hardly be overstated. If you're unfamiliar with the system, all you need remember is the color and symbol of the route that brought you in, look for the sign, and you're halfway there. If you do know the system and you just want to be "in the moment", just look for the sign. The simple shapes were charming and the colors were interesting.

The 1996 design doesn't invite too much commentary, and that's a statement on the strength and appropriateness of its look. There is no overestimating what appropriately-chosen type, a screened-back monochrome approach, and simple graphic elements can do. This design is niether too much nor too little, but it's just right.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, Transit Graphic Design, Map design, graphic design,

The Evolution Of The TriMet MAX Map 2: MAE West

2034.Through the middle of the 1990s planning and construction activity actively worked to extend MAX west from its origin to serve Washington County.

Noting that, properly, the initialism was MAE, rather than MAX, a certain wag during the time (it was in Jonathan Nicholas' Oregonian column, if I recall correctly) opined that it should be called MAE West.

Ahh, lost opportunity.

Anyway, after a couple of years work by Bore-Regard and furious track laying to downtown Hillsboro, what we called at the time Westside MAX opened in 1997-1998. Mapping such an extended line to fit within the confines of the typically small paper publications TriMet produced for customer edification required a different approach. A map at the proper proportion, given the meanderings and the spacings between stations, would be difficult if not impossible to straitjacket to within the confines of a pocket schedule. Abstraction was called for ... and what abstraction (clicky to embiggen, or better, go to the Picasa Web album page for this one and use the zoom tool to get a real good look):

The simplification took no prisoners. The meandering route has been straightened, all stations sit in nice intervals, all spaced out evenly, happily. The only concession to scale is in the interval between the Washington Park station and the Goose Hollow/SW Jefferson station.

This is reducing something to its schematic parts and making it work. For instance, as is well known, the distance between the Washington Park station and the Sunset TC station is no short walk. However, on this line, it's enough to show that one follows the other directly to see that it works and works well for the application.

The only concessions to geographic awareness is the North arrow and the position of the Willamette River, and the quadrilateral in the middle which approximates Fareless Square. The line parallels the river before turning sharply to cross it, which, in this simplified way, is as it should be.

Since there was still, effectively, only one line, there were no colored stripes. That was to come later, with the debut of Airport MAX ... to be known as the Red Line.

But I get ahead of myself. Next time.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, MAX Light Rail, Transit Graphic Design, Map Design, Transit Map Design, Graphic Design

TriMet Map Cover Designs: 1991, 1992

2033.From 1988 through 1992, we didn't live in Portland but rather Corvallis. We therefore were not able to get a TriMet Guide for every year, though I was able to obtain a couple when visiting up here in PDX.

The Tri-Met Map had adoped a different approach to layout, as far as the cover fold went; a bit of type that matched the type style on the cover, but no cover art as such. The title panel became more of a place to house the title art, cartouche-style; when it was folded, you could see that it was, in fact, the map, but no cover art was transfered into the design from the cover of the schedule book.

The maps themselves didn't change too much. The style of the maps themselves will be the subject of another series of posts, though.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, Tri-Met, Portland, Portland History, Portland Transit, Transit Graphic Design

The Evolution Of The TriMet MAX Map 1: The Portland-Gresham Era

2032.Along with the changes in TriMet's print collateral style comes evolution in another arena which makes several of my favorite things collide: the MAX System Map.

Each of the following graphics should be clickable for a better look.

When MAX opened in 1986, of course, there was just the one rail line, from Southwest 10th and Morrison/Yamhill to Northeast Cleveland Ave near 8th Street in Gresham.

We wags liked to call it the "Almost Orient Express".

If you like the look of transit maps you probably find examples such as the famous London Underground maps a work of art. This style, which eschews geographical accuracy for the sake of schematic accuracy, has become iconic, and its multiple colors, station icons linking to bridge more than one line, and absolute adherence to lines that are either absolutely horizontal, vertical, or diagonal have defined the style and has inspired copycats the world over.

In the beginning, though, the London tube maps were geographically more correct – and the earliest MAX System Maps were similarly geographically correct.

This first example, off the 1986 Tri Met Transportation Guide Map, is very spare information-wise – it's even still merely called Tri Met Light Rail:

Just the facts. Station name, Park and Ride, Transit Center, and Which Way Is North.

The next example, taken from a July 1993 pamphlet for new riders called Meet MAX, shows some sign of beginning to evolve. More information, appropriate for promotional flyer, has been integrated. You'll find your way to MAX with this, and have some idea where to go downtown to meet the train. Station names in Gresham have additional information to help the tyro MAX rider help them find them. A train icon now appears, and the type is a little more refined.

This map, produced about the same time for the system map and route map publications, though, really starts to bring the info. Not only do you have the route and the stations, but the standard connecting route information and icons in the style of TriMet route maps appear, as well as the by-then commonly used MAX system logotype.

The MAX system was still a very simple system, but the graphic treatment over this time suggest the attitude by the agency and the public went very quickly from "shiny new fun toy" to "just another part of the system" – albeit a very shiny, fun part of the system.

Portland sure seemed to get on board MAX, and this single rail line helped cement Portland's reputation for transit. As we all well know, MAX was only starting to grow.

Which we will treat in the next discourse.

Technorati Tags: TriMet, MAX, Metropolitan Area Express, Map Design, Transit Graphic Design, Graphic Design, Portland Transit

George Of The Jungle Would Ignore This Warning Sign

2028.One of the most awesome yellow diamond warning signs ever can be found in Tualatin, on Southwest Sagert Street, about one block east of Southwest Boones Ferry Road. And here it is:



These signs are necessary because Tualatin really loves its trees. An intersection on Southwest Avery Street, not too far away, has a Heritage Tree in it, and was designed around it. This particular tree (which you can see in the distance there) just protrudes into the right-of-way.

If you go up closer:



You get a very good idea of why that sign looked the way it did. But that little tree on it (made maybe of a couple of arrowheads) is just so full of awesome, it hurts.

Technorati Tags: Funny Signs, Warning Diamonds, Sign Design, Teh Funnay, Sagert Street, Tualatin

Logo And Branding Case Study: Swiss Water Process Decaf

2025.I drink a lot of coffee and listen to a lot of radio. Whether or not you drink a lot of coffee, if you listen to enough radio you'll hear at least one of a series of commercials promoting Swiss Water Process decaffeinated coffee. Designed to sound like a series of short programs on coffee appreciation hosted by a coffee conoisseur with an "aw, shucks" voice, they strive to raise awareness of the beneficent benefits of preferring decaffeinated coffee produced through the Swiss Water Process as opposed to typically-decaffeinated coffee using a chemical.

We care a great deal about coffee around SunDial Earth Station, so hearing so much promotion about decaffeinated coffee couldn't help but pique my interest. Not only that, man, I'm from Portland, where coffee culture was born, so I gots to represent, yes?

Decaffeinated coffee has always held a certain fascination for me for a handful of reasons. First, while I at current eschew decaf, I know a great deal of people who prefer it (for nutrition and health reasons). Also, I grew up in a world where Sanka was decaf. Moreover, it intrigued me that you could get coffee without an essential part of its very substance – I imagined it was a bit like getting deoxygenated water.

A final one might be that I, who have been drinking coffee longer than I care to remember, have never found a decaf that I've liked. I can't put my finger on exactly why, but when I drink a cup of decaf, there's a difference that escapes description.

So, I found out about what decaffeination means. Was really pretty surprised.

What decaffeination entails is essentially using a solvent to render the caffeine out of the green beans. In the most commonly-used process, known as the direct process, that chemical appears typically to be methylene chloride or ethyl acetate. The green beans are steamed, rinsed repeatedly with one or the other (they are an organic solvent, which is why they work to render out the caffeine) until more than 97% of the caffeine is gone, then steamed again to remove any traces of the solvent.

In contrast, the Swiss Water process (which is adequately documented for anyone to see at the Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Co.'s website (it's angled at the retailer but I found it gently humorous with its retro-style and quite accessable)) uses only water. In this process, green beans are soaked in water to extract the caffeine and coffee solids, creating a green coffee extract. These beans are then discarded. A new batch of green coffee beans is then washed through this extract, which gradually displaces the caffeine, which is filtered out of the extract, which is then returned to wash over the green beans again, over and over, until the caffeine is gently removed to within accepted standards.

This process was originally pioneered in Switerland in the 1930s, which is where it gets its name. The company that does this bit of magic, however, is located in Vancouver, BC ... which is geographically appropriate to the great centers of coffee culture (the Cascadian coast).

Now, for some logo talk.

Yesterday evening I was talking with some acquaintances and the conversation happened upon satisfying words. These are words that evoke such pleasant feelings, it's fun just to say them. I love the word roast, for instance, for all the tasty stuff that roasting produces – dry roast peanuts, beef and pork roast, pot roast (and I suppose it's no coincidence that these are all culinarily oriented).

For me, Swiss is such a word. Think "Swiss" cheese (Emmentaler, actually, yes); Swiss confectionery and pastry is world renowned. Many high-quality associations come with the idea of lifestyle when viewed through our perceptions of hardy, active, mountain-climbing, ski-crazy Swiss.

There is also a school of design thought known as the Swiss school, which gained prominence in the mid-20th Century, famous for clean, simple design that only includes what was absolutely necessary.

The idea of Swiss design is realized quite skillfully in the Swiss Water Process logo. The type is clean, spaced-out, and sans serif simplicity. Colors are chose which reflect purity, placidity (and here's a bit of our color reference knowledge – blue is seen typically as promoting calm and quietude, and the saturation is dialled back), with a severly limited palette that could also suggest the glacial colors of the mountains, referring to the purity and wholesomness of the ingredients. The design is just the right degree of bold, and the majuscule S and the wave not only say "Swiss Water" in a semiotic way but also seem to form the digraph SW.

The tagline "Decaf Defined" is clever phrasing that strives to claim the category in an essential way.

The Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Company's whole approach accentuates overall a postive and wholesome message with honesty and access. That's a good thing, and I admire the way they've accomplished it.

I'm still not one for decaf, but if I was looking for it, I'd certainly give it a try.

The company's website is http://swisswater.com.

NB: The logo of the Swiss Water Process is copyright Swiss Water Decaffienated Coffee Company and is used here solely for illustrative purposes in the spirit of fair-use. Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Co in no way endorses or supports this blog.

Technorati Tags: Logo Design, Swiss Water Process, Swiss Water Decafeinated Coffee Co, decaffeinated coffee, branding, corporate identity

San Francisco Sign Geeks Find Little to Like About New Blades

2014.Proving that I'm not the only "blade-head" in existence, or at least, not the only sign geek who obsesses about the little things, a post I stumbled on on San Francisco Metblogs exhibits some SFers displeasure with an update on an old classic. Here's a blade identifying the 500 block of Precita, older (there was some wear, we see, where the block index tab meets the main blade):

I love SF Street blades. They are a participant sport.

Anyway, the above graphic (as well as the one below) of a new and old (respectively) blade for the 500 block of Precita Avenue in SF were nicked from Metblogs San Francisco, at least some-of-whose participants are as passionate on the basics of good street blade design as I am. Look upon this graphic just a moment:

What caught my eye was the "stripy" visual texture to the sign's actual stock, which is all but identical to the sheet stock that seems to be used by Portland right now. Compare:

It's visible on the white areas (which is where the stock shows through – and I just noticed this, did you? – in SF, they apply the letters to the background, whereas here in PDX they obviously cut the letters out of the background. Anyway, digressing here).

I came for the new blade on that post but I stayed for the commentary, because the posters there noticed some things which may seem minor to most but are compelling to blade heads and even if you think it's minor and unimportant, my point is here, you noticed it, even if you aren't a typographer or designer. From SFMetblogs commenter cmarlboro:

I think it’s the same font, but they’re digitally stretching the type to (sort of) fill the space rather than using it centered at its normal set width. It’s most noticeable on short street names like NOE. It looks like crap, but that’s what happens when you rely on jail labor rather than hiring a typographer.

Cmarlboro may or may not be a designer or a typographer, but he's nailed it absolutely to the wall here.

The type is indeed justified left. This is great for the typed page, but horrible for the street blade, where unless there's a manifest reason for type to be forced over, it just seems to look better centered in the blade. That's my visual experience, as well as cmarlboro's, and I've got the gut feeling that that's the way it works for most people.

The other thing that the commenter noticed, the "stretching of the type", is also something that should be avoided. Typographyers call this "extended" type, and there are two ways to get it; to design a type that's extended, and to do so digitally.

If you want extended type to fill a space, it is vastly preferable to use type designed as such. Artificially extended type looks stretched and bad, and people will notice that it's ugly. Type designed as extended is true to its own internal structure and every bit of it looks as though it was meant to be that way. That may sound a little abstruse, so looking at it from the other way, if you stretch type to create an artificial extended type, what's thick becomes thin, which leaves the parts that didn't get stretched looking thicker than they should and wrong.

I don't think everyone aspires to be a designer, but I do believe that everyone registers crappy design, if only in the back of their minds. This is why design has to be tight, has to work; if it strikes a sour note, people will notice, and if they don't disrespect you out loud on a blog somewhere, you will lose credibility with them in the mind.

I don't know if SF in particular makes their blades with jail labor, as cmarlboro suspects, but as far as hiring a pro typographer, I'm all for that! Where do I send my rezumay?

And taking this SF street blade thing as far as I can: One commenter on the SF Metblogs post described the blade illustrated right (and gleaned from the link to Google Maps (which you can dial up yourself by Google Mapping the intersection in SF), at 21st Avenue and Anzo Street in the city's Richmond district, to be an "abomination". I wouldn't go so far as to say that, but then, I'm not emotionally invested in the look of SF's blades as the commenter (who I'm assuming is a local) would be.

I think the design has much to say for it, and is a logical evolution of the SF blade (by reducing the number of parts you have to attach and rivet on, you reduce the difficulty level of actually producing the item and the cost). The type is preserved, the black-on-white look is still there, the omission of the generic from the named street, the black stroke around the edge of the sign ... all very SF looks.

The fault I'd find with this is that the numbered avenue blade breaks the rule of eyeflow: your natural eyeflow in the Western mode tends to go left to right and up to down, so you are as prone to read the sign as 21st 500 Av rather than 21st Ave (500). This can be fixed by putting the Av generic over the block index and arrow.

Technorati Tags: San Francisco Street Blades, Unfortunate Typography, Street Blade Gallery, sign design, typography, information design

NB: The Precita Street blade pictures and comments from SF Metblogs are copyright the creators and are used for informational and illustrative purposes only.