Talking type with Phil Baines
I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Baines today for an 8 Faces interview. I’ve been a long time admirer of his work since I saw his beautiful, typographic paschal candles that appeared in Typography Now: the Next Wave in 1991.We met at the stunning Central Saint Martins building in the heart of London’s Kings Cross redevelopment area, and settled in to the typographic archive room for a chat. We went through some of Phil’s recent work and spoke about his experience and views on design and typography.
‘Carpe diem’ doesn’t mean seize the day – it means something gentler and more sensible. 'Carpe diem’ means pluck the day. Carpe, pluck. Seize the day would be 'cape diem,’ if my school Latin servies. No R. Very different piece of advice.What Horace had in mind was that you should gently pull on the day’s stem, as if it were, say, a wildflower or an olive, holding it with all the practiced care of your thumb and the side of your finger, which knows how to not crush easily crushed things – so that the day’s stalk or stem undergoes increasing tension and draws to a thinness, and a tightness, and then snaps softly away at its weakest point, perhaps leaking a little milky sap, and the flower, or the fruit, is released in your hand. Pluck the cranberry or blueberry of the day tenderly free without damaging it, is what Horace meant – pick the day, harvest the day, reap the day, mow the day, forage the day. Don’t freaking grab the day in your fist like a burger at a fairground and take a big chomping bite out of it. That’s not the kind of man that Horace was.
Place Lope de Vega à Valence, remploi d’élément gothique dans une arcade murée de l’église Ste Catherine. juin 2013.
L’Himalaya vu de Nagarkot, au-dessus de Katmandou, le matin. février 1988.
Alpa Reflex Camera with printed manual, designed 1944. Switzerland. Photo: Hans Hansen, Hamburg
And they pressed so hard on him that he was constrained to rest himself upon the towers of Notre-Dame.Louis Chalon, from Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel vol. 1, by François Rabelais, London, 1892
(Source: archive.org)
Listen, I understand it must be tough to see someone you love break the circle of death and rebirth when you’re nowhere near accomplishing it. But the fact is, I glued myself to my meditation cushion all these years while you bedazzled yours to use as an accent pillow. Your negative emotional state toward me won’t get you close to enlightenment, believe me. That’s assuming you still want it. And can relegate your scrapbooking habit to the back burner long enough to open chakra one.I know you’re upset about me abruptly quitting my job, but do you really think that an enlightened being should work the garden section of his local hardware store? After the Buddha emerged from under the Bodhi tree, did he start stacking bags of mulch? I always knew that at its core work was folly, but now I can’t ignore that fact any more. And, no, this has nothing to do with being overlooked for the assistant manager position, though that’s a case of spiritual discrimination if I’ve ever seen one. Did I tell you they wouldn’t let me wear my Ganesh T-shirt under my little red vest? Truth is, if I have to attend another Monday morning staff meeting with that asshole co-worker Brad, I’ll flip out and be back to spiritual square one.
long-horned orb weaver; photo by Nicky Bay
A frightening and violent mob swept through the normally quiet seaside community of Huntington Beach last night following a surfing competition in the area. Businesses were vandalized and looted, portable toilets overturned, and brutal fistfights waged right out in the open. It was an ugly display and a sad day for California. But more than that, it was a reminder that we must begin to seriously consider the values of our thuggish white youth.Many people don’t want to hear this kind of tough love, of course. They’d like to bury their heads in the sand and pretend that all white children are as sweet and harmless as Taylor Swift. But the reality is that the statistics tell a different story. For instance, according to research from the Department of Justice, 84 percent of white murder victims are killed by other white people [PDF]. Similarly, white rape victims tend to be raped by other whites [PDF]. White-on-white violence is a menace to white communities across the country, and yet you never hear white leaders like Pastor Joel Osteen, Bill O'Reilly, or Hillary Clinton take a firm stance against the scourge.