Message of fonts If you write it down, we're going to judge it. Not just the words, we're going to judge you even before we read the words. The typography you use, whether it's a handwritten note or a glossy brochure, sends a message. Some typefaces are judged in a similar way by most people you're addressing (Times Roman in a Word document or Helvetica on a street sign or Myriad Pro on a website) but even when you choose something as simple as a typeface, be prepared for people to misunderstand you. If you send me a flyer with dated, cheesy or overused type, it's like showing up in a leisure suit for a first date. If your website looks like Geocities or some scammy info marketer, I won't even stay long enough to read it. Like a wardrobe, I think a few simple guidelines can save amateurs like us a lot of time: 1. Invest some time and money up front to come up with a house style that actually looks the way you want it to, one that tells the story you want to tell. Hire a designer, put in some effort. A headline font, a body font, one or two extras. That's your outfit, just like the four suits you rotate through your closet. 2. “What does this remind you of?” No need to be a pioneer (unless that's the story you want me to remember). Find a combination of typefaces that remind your chosen audience of the sort of organization you want to remind them of. Hint: italic wedding invitation fonts in the body of your email remind me of nothing except other people who have wasted my time... 3. Be consistent. Don't change it when you get bored. Don't change it when your staff gets bored. Change it when the accountant and marketing guys tell you it's not working any longer. – sethgodin.typepad.com What security? While people from all over the world were scrambling to get donations in to Haiti, the Guardian reports that passengers of a Florida cruise company were sunning themselves 60 miles from Port-au-Prince on Friday, at the heavily guarded private resort of Labadee. Granted, there was a notable division among passengers, some of whom could not bring themselves to dislodge from the cruise in light of the recent tragedy brought on by the earthquake, but not all were so moved. Tourism is an important source of revenue for Haiti and the author of the article mentions that Royal Caribbean International employs 230 Haitians and has even pledged 100% of the proceeds from the call to the relief effort. However, the image of vacationing tourists enjoying themselves on a private beach forbidden to the native inhabitants of a country remains a telling metaphor for the vast disparity that exists in this world we live in, especially when the leasing of the peninsula to the resort also speaks of the inequitable privatization of the impoverished country's coastline. Meanwhile the United States and other countries like Canada have been sending armed soldiers to the country in the name of “security,” and Jeremy Scahill reports that even private mercenary firms have been offering their “services.” All this while the US has been hindering aid and relief workers from entering the country on a timely basis by annexing off the airport. Fortunately, Democracy Now! has recently entered Haiti and has been providing excellent ongoing coverage of the event while also including badly-needed context which helps explain Haiti's state of destitution, something that almost all mainstream outlets have mostly avoided. On her Facebook and Twitter page Amy Goodman has also been providing telling status updates about the Haitian people's suffering and the despicable way in which some groups have been responding to the chaos on the ground – pulsemedia.org India's Jyoti Basu India desperately needs charismatic and respected political leaders who can lead coherent policy-based opposition to the Congress Party and its coalition governments. Only two men have qualified for this statesman role in recent years. One is Jyoti Basu of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), who died yesterday aged 95. The other is Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 85, a former prime minister and leader of the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), who is in ill health and is no longer politically active. Both Vajpayee and Basu could have ranked alongside earlier leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, but they never managed to achieve the same stature because they were held back by their parties' limitations. Basu was hemmed in by the CPI(M) which threw away an historic opportunity to grow and lead the country when it refused in 1996 to allow him to become prime minister of a coalition government that was then being formed. (The job went to two far less significant politicians, each for a year – Deve Gowda from Karnataka and then Inder Kumar Gujral from Punjab). That confined Basu to his base in West Bengal, where he was chief minister for 23 years till he retired in 2000, remaining active in party politics till recently. – ridingtheelephant.wordpress.com Space shuttle for sale Space shuttle for sale, fully loaded, air conditioning, one careful owner. It's the ultimate bargain. NASA has cut the price of a space shuttle to $28.8 million. The vehicles will go on sale after they finish constructing the International Space Station, scheduled to be later this year. The New York Times reports that NASA had hoped to get $42 million for each vehicle but lowered the cost in the hope of sealing a deal. It has three to sell, although one of these, Discovery, is already promised to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. If an entire shuttle is beyond your budget, consider a main engine instead. NASA had hoped to charge up to $800,000 for these but lack of interest has forced it to slash the price. They are now available for free: a bargain in anybody's language. Just bear in mind that the buyer must pay for postage and packaging.
