Sean McCabe about his font Jokal:

“Jokal is a hand-crafted font made specifically with designers in mind. We love the design community so much we are releasing it for FREE. This means free for non-commercial AND commercial projects.”

Ben Suarez about his font Vincent:

“Intended to be used as a title font. Named after my grandfather who drove a 76′ Chrysler Cordoba and smoked out of an old wooden pipe. He was rad.”

Nick Slater about his font Woodshop:

“So it is done! I really owe the credit to Joe Prince… with out him this would’t have been made! I attached a working font. So enjoy and please take your time to check out Joe’s work!”

Pedro Arilla about his font Valentina:

“Valentina is a classic didone with many of the characteristics of the antique Spanish punches of the eighteenth century.”

Hendrick Rolandez about his font Magna:

“Magna is a free typeface created in April 2012 and based on a “vintage” style. The typeface contains all main characters (from A to Z – capitals & lowercases are the same for the moment) and numbers (from 0 to 9).”

Pablo Impallari about his font Cabin:

“The Cabin font family is a humanist sans with 4 weights and true italics, inspired by Edward Johnston’s and Eric Gill’s typefaces, with a touch of modernism. Cabin incorporates modern proportions, optical adjustments, and some elements of the geometric sans. It remains true to its roots, but has its own personality.

Michael McMillan about his font Baffled:

“This display font is meant for custom print headings. Baffled looks best when uppercase & lowercase letters are mixed and matched.”

I know it may sound beyond generalizing, but let’s try to establish a common thread as to why people are actually on twitter. How a person experiences Twitter depends on the accounts he/she follows, that’s for sure. So maybe a more relevant question would be: why do people follow the accounts they follow?

Compair it to real life: who do you like hanging around with and why? I personally like it when people have a good sense of humor, a sharp view on current affairs and/or shares common ground with me (music, graphic design, hometown etc.). I think these elements are an important factor in picking who to follow on Twitter as well, at least for me they are. Also a significant reason but of a different nature, is the everlasting urge for affection every person has. The need to be heard and to belong to ‘a group’.

Three types of tweets

On the other side are the advertising agencies. The way I see it there are three common items they (and any other company or person for that matter) tweet about. Of course they overlap and also there obviously are tons of other things they tweet about as well but these three are relevant to this post:

✓ They tweet about what they make, know and do professionally, this is – in my opinion – the most obvious thing to tweet about. Nothing wrong with it though. It can actually be pretty cool for followers since they are obviously interested in what the agency does.

✓ They tweet about things they see, notice, do etc outside their job that they think is funny, interesting or at least worth mentioning. This shows that the agency consist of people of flesh and blood which you as follower can relate to. It enables followers to have the impression they are very close to the agency, heck, they share their daily life with you!

✗ The third thing I noticed agencies tweet about and made me write this article, is offering their services. Some agencies see their Twitter account as a sales channel, a direct sales channel. The exact content of the ‘tweet in question’ (translated from Dutch, I won’t mention names) is:

“Want to get a quick communication job done? Call us! #communicationagency

I doubt anyone reading this doesn’t understand why this way of using Twitter should be forbidden by law, especially for agencies. Ironically, the first two kind of tweets I described are more likely to give you new clients/projects. Because they represent two of the most important reasons people pick their supplier/agency/company etc: You are good at your job, or because you are a likable person or company (you create goodwill).

So what are you saying Floris?

If your goal is to offer your service or products through your Twitter or Facebook account, at least do it subtle. I know brands who offer their products through their social media accounts perfectly fine. They give their followers the impression it’s worth following them because they offer them specials, discount or a sneak peek of new stuff. It shows appreciation and generates goodwill. You have to be careful though, it’s a thin line that separates a special offer from blatantly offering your service or product.

When your core business is selling paper books in stores, you’re probably having a hard time these days with the e-readers, tablets and online shopping making your essentials inferior. Two Dutch brands, De Slegte and Selexyz recently joined forces in a desperate fight of survival.

Even though Selexyz has a 13% market share, they are pretty much considered a sinking ship. And even though they have a pretty looking symbol and clever name, the brand doesn’t stand out. No real unique selling point what so ever. De Slegte however is a well known, and loved, bookstore mainly selling stocklots and used books.

‘Tomorrow Design’ from Amsterdam came up with the idea to launch the website vraagteken.info (vraagteken means question mark). On the website and through social media they hope to start a conversation and brainstorm with an audience to eventually come up with a new concept of selling books.

Why this idea stinks

Crowdsourcing only works this way if there is a clear idea of purpose over profit. It has to be fun to contribute.  The website vraagteken.info functions as a request for ideas as well as a sales channel. Bad thinking if you’d ask me.

The branding of the conversation concept is not even remotely subtle. It’s straight up in your face. I don’t know, but when I’m asking someone for advice or ideas I’m not likely to shout at them, let alone trying to sell stuff. The colors of the website make me think of some kind of cheap hardware store (click the image and scroll, it gets worse). And the symbol, a questionark, is in no way memorable. It’s the website’s flagship with no flags.

So where the brand in my opinion has to convey the vibe of a friendly environment, perhaps give a hint of what’s to come and make a lasting impression. It shouts at people, tries to sell them stuff even though they say they want to brainstorm and has no personality whatsoever (which is really important when you want to start a conversation).

I just hope this brand identity is in no way connected to the concept they’re building up to. And if it does, there is a big obstacle to take, one they’ve created themselves in the first place.

Easily one of the coolest things I’ve found on the web past few weeks is this lovely portable turntable. The vintage trend is really catching on and you see more and more brands making awesome products like these. I’ll probably be posting more turntables in the future but for now this Crosley Spinnerette is what defines coolness for me.

Some really cool industrial design, a pen tray by Jorge Diego Etienne: Choose Your Bullets.

“Inspired by World War II fighter planes, our chair’s aerodynamic curves are hugged in aluminum accented with exposed steel screws, the seat swathed in leather with the softness of a vintage bomber jacket. A low seat and raked back give it true flyboy swagger” ~Restaurationhardware.com

This ‘Watch Clock’ (yes, clock: 23 x 137cm) is a perfect example of less is more. Andrew Neyer has some very cool items for sale on his website, check it out.

Last but certainly not least: Hotdog bikes. You may call me a hipster all you want, but I saw the bike you see below in both the picture and the video at a local bike store and instantly fell in love with it. I googled the brand and it turned out they have a whole bunch of awesome bikes, check them out.