Typography Tuesday... er, Friday.

Yeah, so obviously I'm still getting a hang of this whole regular posting stuff. To my credit, I was on vacation this past Tuesday, so better late than never, right? And I'm not even into next week yet! How great is that!?

Anyway, the typographic inspiration for this post comes straight from my living room. All over my living room. This is the kind of typography that really hurts to step on. Nonetheless, it is one of my favorite applications of typography: the humble alphabet block.

As for my household, we have the simple, straightforward, inexpensive, ubiquitous (and most importantly, locally purchased) blocks. These are the classic chunks of wood in red, blue, yellow, and green, set in some relative of Clarendon. Ours in particular are Schylling Big Blocks.

But these are one of countless possibilities for block design. There are more possible block variations than there are extant typefaces. So what else is out there?

To begin with, there are the numerous elegant block sets created by German toy maker Lindenwood, under their Uncle Goose brand. When I first saw these things, they made me drool. Honestly. Check it out:

They make so much more than these beauties. They also make a sans serif line...

 

... foreign alphabets...

... and even patterns!

So cool! Check out all the different variations (from Latin-based alphabets to Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, and even Braille) at the Uncle Goose Brand Blocks site.