Bad words, fine typography

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Theo Olesen's "Beautiful Swear Words" is a blog of bad words presented in lovely hand-drawn typography. Beautiful Swear Words (Thanks, Lisa Mumbach and Jason Tester!)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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VincentV1977

Hmmm…. that’s funny, Friends of Type have been doing this exact same thing since they started. And I’m sure there was someone doing it before them. It’s probably a coincidence but funny how the internet works. http://friendsoftype.com/tag/profanity/
MacBookHeir

The main problem with the advent of so-called “desktop publishing” is that everyone and their moms thought they themselves could design letterheads, signs…the whole lot. A lot of folks think typography exploded in wonderment after 1982 or so. Nothing could be further from the truth. We’ve got all the font toys, but no one has the patience to make a word (or sentence or page) look good – no one.
Anonymous

Excellent!

Converting to 4chan background colors now. . . .
angusm

Font designer Chank Diesel used to have (may still have) a font called ‘Asswipe’. The download page explained that it was actually pronounced ‘ah-swee-pay’ …
- irksome
  
  “Ah-zhwee-pay” translates from Portugese into “asswipe”.
deejayqueue

The kerning on AssWipe is terrible. Paul Rand could of done it better.
jeligula

I agree with deejayqueue. The kerning is awful. Attending the Art Institute of Seattle was great, because they didn’t care what words you used in typography class, just so long as your hand-painted type was comped correctly.
John

Check the blog. He fixed it in the digital version.
allan

And did you guys know Theo is only 17? And what about t-shirts? Here’s some more info: http://www.missionmission.org/2011/07/19/cavalcade-of-curses/
jfrancis

Whenever I check a font online I usually type something like that in.
Donald Petersen

I gotta say, “Clusterfuck” and “Rat Bastard” are particularly evocative. Certainly suitable for t-shirts.
- knoxblox
  
  I really like “Crap”, even though it’s less offensive. It reminds me of some of the elegantly awful things on Etsy and the (more concise) collection on Regretsy.
Mitch_M

The kerning on “Asswipe” is off, and people who care about kerning tend to be incredibly annoying. This brings back very bad memories of typography class!
- freshacconci
  
  Well, caring about kerning is kind of essential in typography.
  - Mitch_M
    
    Hence the bad memories of typography class!
    - freshacconci
      
      Everyone in my typography class was too comatose to care about kerning or anything else. Our prof was great but you could see the deep sadness in his eyes when people would put up their work for crits.
bmcraec

Bad kerning is only ever painful if you’re the one being accused of it.

It feels GREAT to be the first to point out something off with someone else’s work.

I guarantee you that it’s not the actual words that come out that are important, it’s the style and argument for why they were used that counts.

Cue the religious wars in criticism circlesâ€¦
freshacconci

Given that the guy is 17 I’d cut him a bit of slack. I did nothing at 17. My only nitpicky bit of nonsense to add is that the A in “Asswipe” has the thick and thin strokes backwards.

But I’ve seen pros make worse mistakes. On the lettering for the sign on the John Labatt Visual Art Centre at the University of Western Ontario, the “V” is backwards. That’s inexcusable and as far as I know it’s never been fixed. But then nobody gives a damn about correct typography.
- Brainspore
  
  But I’ve seen pros make worse mistakes. On the lettering for the sign on the John Labatt Visual Art Centre at the University of Western Ontario, the “V” is backwards. That’s inexcusable and as far as I know it’s never been fixed. But then nobody gives a damn about correct typography.
  
  I never understood how those mistakes can happen. Every time I see a sign with a backwards letter I want to track down the person who made it and ask HOW COULD YOU MISS THAT YOU MAKE SIGNS FOR A GODDAMN LIVING YOU TYPE-RAPING BASTARD IF I PUT UP SOMETHING LIKE THAT IN PUBLIC I WOULD NEVER SLEEP A NIGHT REST OF MY LIFE KNOWING WHAT I HAD DONE.
  
  Then again, I’m a graphic designer by trade so my reaction might be stronger than most.
Anonymous

Reminds me of this: http://www.etsy.com/listing/73647662/in-the-nicest-way-possible
Mitch_M

people doing exactly fifty thumbnail sketches for an assignment to do fifty thumbnail sketches, threw a fit when more people didn’t make redundant comments after a few people made insightful and complete comments about a student’s work during a critique, and behaved more like an authoritarian grammar school teacher than a college level instruction. (In contrast with my Perl and XML teacher who treated students like customers, which we were, and even called us “customers”.)

So, the experience of having something I found to be fun and creative being approached in such a rigorous and anal way kind of turned me off, and all the creativity within rigidly defined boundaries in design and particularly typographic design was not to my liking. The class at least helped me to figure out that I didn’t want to be a designer after all.

So my comments coming from a disgruntled typography student are meant to be taken with a grain of salt and I hope that comes through. Of course I left a big opening for people in design to exclude themselves from those who “tend to be annoying”!
bmcraec

But we need the kind of people who can date exactly our really exciting archeology dig, just by looking at a shard or two of pottery!
bmcraec

But we need the kind of people who can date exactly our really exciting archeology dig, just by looking at a shard or two of pottery!
DoctressJulia

I did this 15 years ago in college. I should dig them up and scan them…

Double posty? Dui bu qi, of I did.
DoctressJulia

‘IF’, dammit… lol
Thad E Ginataom

Brilliant.

It’s so good, I’ll let you have five of those awful “steampunk” posts as a reward ;)