#HTE

The Ultimate Typographic Analysis of Blade Runner and Who Knew That They Used to Pave City Streets With Wood Blocks?

Core77’s editors spend time combing through the news so you don’t have to. Here’s a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.

Smart Talk With Yayoi Kusama

After getting lost in down an internet rabbit hole, I stumbled on this series from Lost Paradise TV called SMART TALK. Each film approaches the often inaccessible world of art through a conversational lens, giving back story and history to many popular artists who are creating work today. This one, in particular, sheds light on the life of Yayoi Kusama, her somewhat unconventional introduction to art, and how she uses her work to confront her own mental illness.

—Carly Ayres, columnist, In the Details

In the Breuer Archive

Research this week led me down the splendid rabbit hole of the Marcel Breuer archive at Syracuse University, which has digitized over 50,000 drawings, photographs, letters and project records. Beyond the typical treasure trove of design sketches is an amazing time capsule of personal ephemera such as old invoices, contracts, itineraries and lists that give a true sense of Breuer’s day-to-day design process. 

—Rebecca Veit, columnist, Designing Women

Wood Block Alleys

Who knew that the streets of Chicago (and Boston) used to be paved with wooden blocks? It sounds like a terrible choice of material, and would slowly wear down in height, but apparently it was the go-to in areas where cobblestone wasn’t readily available.

—Rain Noe, senior editor

How Unions and Regulators Made Clothing Tags an Annoying Fact of Life

Why are there so many different tags inside our t-shirts? Beginning with unions and federal regulators and ending with textile printers, this article sheds some light on one itchy fact of life: textile labeling.

—Molly Millette, editorial intern

Typeset in the Future: Blade Runner

An insanely rigorous analysis of typography in Blade Runner: “Blade Runner’s opening crawl is distinctly un-futuristic in its choice of font. It uses Goudy Old Style—designed by Frederic W. Goudy in 1915—as part of a veritable typographic cornucopia.” (Hat Tip: Wired) 

—Eric Ludlum, editorial director

Why the Humble Notebook is Flourishing in the iPhone Era

This article delves into why, ironically, the rise of notebook users has a lot to do with the quest for more and more likes on social media: “There’s an irony in seeing such an old-fashioned technology as the notebook so widely celebrated online. But in another sense, bullet journal pages seem like a natural fit for the aspirational lifestyle motifs of social media. Looking at perfectly planned, beautifully penned bullet journal pages online quickly gives rise to the fundamental pair of emotions that Instagram seems to have been designed to elicit: "Why doesn’t my life look like that?” and “Maybe, with the right pen, and the right notebook, and the right handwriting, and the right stickers—maybe, my life could look like that!”

—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant