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I don’t write very much about my personal life on this site, but one of the few exceptions I’ve made has been for our rats Abbi and Addi.

This past weekend, while cleaning out their cage, I discovered that Addi had a lump under her front left arm. We made an appointment with the vet for Tuesday, to have it looked at. Given the particular size of the tumor, it was necessary to schedule surgery and have it removed. Unfortunately, they discovered the tumor was much worse than first expected, once in surgery. Addi held on for a couple hours after the surgery, but in the end, she just didn’t have the strength left. Addi passed away at 2:46pm, Tuesday, February 19th, 2008.

Lauren and I are devastated and miss her very much.

These pictures were taken just before surgery, at the Veterinary Hospital

It’s a lazy Saturday morning. I woke up, brewed some coffee (helping myself to some more right now), sat down at my computer and started browsing through my RSS feeds. That’s when I came across an article by Adrian Shaughnessy, on Design Observer, Look and Feel / Nip and Tuck.

It’s kind of a silly thing to write a follow up on, at least at first glance. I set out for a languid read and then found myself involved. So the question, to unjustly reduce the article to a sound bite is this.

Today, the term [”Look and Feel”] has seeped into everyday usage, and it has become widely used by commissioners of graphic design. Why?

The speculation goes on to consider its’ increase use, on the importance of usability in modern design, to referencing overall branding within design. Needless to say, “look and feel”, as a term to describe anything, is vague at best (unless of course you are talking about a car, and even then, it begs for articulation).

In scanning through some of the responses to Brian’s article, one jumped out at me with a poignant questions:
Are we trying to keep this shit a secret?

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The search for new sans-serif fonts is always a chore for me. Finding a sans-serif font, that has the right balance and play in its characters and does not assign meaning or dominate the stage, is perhaps the great challenge of the graphic designer. This is why, time and time again, I return to Helvetica.

That said, I thought I’d share three new fonts I acquired, that definitely show some promise and got me excited (and they are all free, which is a bonus).

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