April 19, 2011

It has been said that a strong typeface is made stronger when it is applied to a thoughtfully considered composition. Helvetica, perhaps the strongest of all typefaces, even starred in its own film. But to every thing, there is a season, and we here at YWFT feel that for every beautiful, perfect Helvetica movie starlet, there is a twisted, long-haired, misfit smoking in the bathroom. And so we introduce you to YWFT QUE.

YWFT QUE is a display font that follows a new design mantra: “Conservatively Absurd.” It was developed to be the anti-Helvetica; to send a middle finger to legibility. It snarls at Times New Roman and dropkicks “the norm” out da building. YWFT QUE journeys into the unknown, where sometimes letters look nothing like they should, and kerning has a mind of its own. YWFT QUE will conquer any poster project, sex up any website and take your motion work straight to the top of the World Tango Championships.

Simply put, it follows no rules. Why sometimes, it’s even impossible to read.

YWFT QUE was originally drawn as the handset ELSE in 2009 by Taechit Jiropaskosol, then re-mixed/designed/formatted to opentype by Michael Paul Young in 2010. Each individual weight contains 240 glyphs, a total of 480 in the complete family.

Taken with iPhone 4

Michael Paul Young with Lullatone at OFFF Festival
Paris, France on June 26, 2010

Creative Director: Michael Paul Young
Lead Designer: Michael Paul Young
Assistant Designer: Jackkrit Anantakul
Font: Cumulus and Foam by Stefan Kjartansson
Soundtrack: Pajama Party Pop by Lullatone

Special thanks to Stefan Kjartansson for letting me dip into his Cumulus and Foam source file for many of the visual designs on this song.

Michael Paul Young with Lullatone at OFFF Festival
Paris, France on June 26, 2010

Creative Director: Michael Paul Young
Lead Designer: Michael Paul Young
Soundtrack: Pajama Party Pop by Lullatone

Buamai Select, now designed exclusively for Apple’s iPad.

Your deadline is 24 hours away, and you’re staring at a blank document as the S.S. Inspiration shoals out on a sand bar and the cursor flashes on through the night like an SOS to nobody. Well, fear not, design sailor, because the good ship Buamai is here to throw you a life preserver.

Chosen as an iTunes staff favorite in May, 2009, Buamai was created to grab images from our server in order to cure your creative boredom and bring design inspiration directly to your iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Images are posted by a closed collective of artists, graphic designers, programmers, architects and fashion designers based in various cities around the world. Images loaded by Buamai are mainly inspired by graphic design, art, and architecture, but some random strange images are thrown in for variety.