Type Triangle

I wanted to make a graphic about fonts. Then I realised that placing a few letters on a regular —and inevitably square— two dimensional plane would only give me two variables to play with. Boring. So this post has become more an experiment in graphing than a perfect commentary on typography.

Here, I've tried to represent a plane with three scales on it (formal–informal, masculine–feminine and classical–modern) that explains some fonts.  Each point represents the extreme of a different scale, the opposite extreme being approximately spread over the adjacent edge. I found that it does not work so well unless the three points are polar opposites, which does not work in itself if the three points represent ends of different spectrums. But the real trouble with the triangular plane is that not all combinations of the attributes are possible, for example you cannot place a font that is feminine but neither classical nor formal. (Such as Curlz MT?) Nevertheless I think it is an interesting thing to look at!

If you fancy yourself a type buff, see if you can name each font shown without looking them up. The ones I've included are: Century, Futura, Garamond, Gill, Helvetica, Minion, Modern, Optima and Times.

It's Not About Winning

This weekend was spent at State Youth Games, a popular Christian sporting event where it is well understood and well insinuated that fun—rather than winning—is the aim of the game. Meanwhile, I am one of the most competitive people I know, and struggle to compete without wanting to win.

And so I thought it would be good to take a few statistics during the weekend of how my sporting success affected my mood. I took some basic number notes after each match of the four sports I played over the weekend, and came up with the following results. Note that I've rounded off the would-be ridged line to give a more realistic interpretation of the two variables measured.

But this graph doesn't really answer the question of how much winning affects my mood. So I've taken these raw results and shuffled them onto a new plane. On this graph, the closer my measurements are to the diagonal line, the more related my happiness and success apparently are, or in other words, the more important winning is to me.

It seems that I don't stick too much to the diagonal line, but definitely do hover around it. I guess this means that winning helps my mood, but doesn't control it. There are many other conclusions that can be drawn from this chart, but I'll leave you to make them. I'll just note one thing I find particularly interesting, and that is that my mood seems to be most happy when I am at a particular level of success. So too much winning equals bad. Who would have thought?

Guitar Sound Desk

I was trying to explain to a friend the other night about different electric guitar types, how they vary and what you'd use them for. It is things like this that really need to be explained with a diagram, and so what better way to set off on this blog adventure than by doing just that.

The information graphic above exhibits the five most common electric guitars that you can buy, and demonstrates how they sound in both tone and clarity. These include the the two most popular Fender and Gibson models respectively, followed by a generic hollow-body guitar (since the hollow-body guitar isn't a style of guitar particularly characterised by a specific brand).

In addition to the guitars shown, I've plotted some of the most common electric guitar genre zones within the diagram. These zones indicate where you would want to find a guitar if you were wanting to play that specific genre. As you can see, many genres overlap around where the Stratocaster is, which is probably why it is the most popular model of electric guitar around. However, it can also be noted how far away the Strat is from the metal zone. This means that as far as metal guitars go, the Strat sucks.

Please get angry if you disagree with my knowledgeable interpretation of guitar sounds. I would love to have an argument with you about it, and would be happy to adjust this diagram if you defeat me in said argument. This, however, would require commenting. So please comment. Don't bottle it up. That would be bad. Sad bad.