Zero to one-eighty in nine seconds (& stitches)

CHETAN KRISHNASWAMY forwards an example of fine public service advertising, against overspeeding.

Also read: If public service is God’s service…

Line, length, swing in the air, nip off the pitch

Writers Shashi Deshpande and Girish Karnad at the inauguration of an exhibition of cartoons of the late Maya Kamath, cartoonist of the Asian Age and Deccan Herald before her demise, at the Indian Cartoon Gallery in Bangalore, on Monday.

Photograph: Karnataka Photo News

Can a boy-actor hold a candle to an editor?

Tongue firmly in both cheeks, Sans Serif is pleased to announce a global campaign for Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter (top, right) to be drafted to play Tintin.

Reports in the British papers suggest that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson have zeroed in on 17-year-old Thomas Sangster (top, left) to play the boy-reporter who (sigh!) never has to sit down to type out a story of his adventures, face heartless bosses, or fill up a travel voucher.

Sangster is the veteran of movies such as Love Actually, etc, but—sacrilege!—claims he had never Herge’s 23 books till recently because he wasn’t that “big” on reading.

Continuing coverage: If Steven Spielberg has a casting problem…

All fun and no work makes Tintin a good boy

Tintin publisher Raymond Leblanc passes away

Tintin publisher Leblanc passes away

Sans Serif records with regret the demise of Raymond Leblanc, the Belgian publisher behind the comic-book hero Tintin. He was 92. The iconic boy-reporter, created by Herge, had first appeared as a character in 1929, but it wasn’t until the association with Leblanc began that he became a global hero. Tintin first appeared in a  fortnightly magazine in 1946, and later became a stand-alone star of the Lombard publishing house.
Also read: All fun and no work makes Tintin a good boy

If Steven Spielberg has a problem in casting Tintin…

Billions of blue blistering barnacles!!!

Reading a paper without getting your feet wet

The 15th international yoga festival was held in Pondicherry last month, and blogger Ursi showcases one of the many brilliant posters on view.

Link via Boing Boing

Look, who inspired R.K. Laxman’s Common Man!

As India gets ready for its annual budget exercise, amid hints of its likely to be a populist one on the eve of a general election, M.J. Akbar, editor-in-chief of The Asian Age and Deccan Chronicle, writes in the Khaleej Times:

“The Common Man is getting a budget; does the Common Man have a face? Actually, yes. That brilliant Times of India cartoonist, R.K. Laxman, has given us the emblematic face of the Common Man. I chanced upon a Laxman original of Mahatma Gandhi in a friend’s office, and it struck me that Laxman’s Common Man, who has appeared for decades on the front page of the Times, is a variation of Gandhi. Gandhi redefined India and Indian nationalism, took it away from the grasp of elites and handed it over to the Common Man for safekeeping. Six decades after his death, the Common Man is getting one budget out of five. I suppose the Common Man should be grateful for small mercies.”

Photograph: courtesy The Tribune, Chandigarh

Also read: Making all of us smile can make one of us cry

What if that logo had looked like this?

On Wired, Sonia Zjawinski writes of how Ruth Kedar came up with what has now become one of the world’s most easily recognised logos.

Kedar met Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page through a mutual friend nine years ago at Stanford University, where she was an assistant professor. Page and Brin, who were having trouble coming up with a logo for their soon-to-launch search engine, asked Kedar to come up with some prototypes.

“I had no idea at the time that Google would become as ubiquitous as it is today, or that their success would be of such magnitude,” Kedar says.

View all the designs here: How Google got its colourful logo

Link courtesy Krishnakumar P

Making all of us smile can make one of us cry

The “Indian of the Year” shows of the various television channels, that has comfortably stretched into the first month of the new year, has largely been a case of much of the same. So similar were the “brand” objectives; the award categories;  the selection methodology; the “beautiful people”; and the target audiences that had the shows mistakenly appeared on a rival station, nobody would have noticed. Not that anybody would have cared.
Except…

Except for a flash of inspiration that struck the head honchos of CNN-IBN.

At a time when the political class was falling over each other putting in applications for the Bharat Ratna, the channel conferred a “Lifetime Achievement Award” on  a real jewel: Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Laxman, the Mysore-born cartoonist whose common man has held a mirror to the birth, rise and growth of a nation on the front page of The Times of India for well over 50 years now through “You Said It“.

The adjectives flowed freely, and for once unquestionably justly, as Laxman, now bound to a wheelchair after a paralytic stroke three years ago, was ushered in on stage.”For a lifetime of contributions to society, for a lifetime of achievements,” said anchors Vidya Shankar Aiyar and Suhasini Haider. “For having done the nation proud, for having been a part of our lives,” said Rajdeep Sardesai.

But when the citation was read, the 84-year-old Laxman bawled like a baby as former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and vice-president Hamid Ansari joined the audience in standing and saluting a common man who has become uncommon in modern India:

“For being one of the most incisive observers of post-independence India; for making millions of Indians smile every single morning for over 60 years; and for giving the common man of this country, a face, a voice, an identity and a consistent presence and importance in every aspect of our lives.”

Also read: How one family produced two geniuses

The world’s most famous Mysoreans

Cross-posted on churumuri

What does your choice of font say about you?

Handwriting experts decipher personalities by looking at signatures. The Boston Globe looks at the choice of fonts chosen by the American presidential candidates to decode what it says about them.

Hillary Rodham Clinton: “far from fresh… it projects recycled establishment. The type has a tired feeling.”

Barack Obama: “contemporary, fresh, very polished and professional…. Young and cool. Clearly not the old standards of years past.”

Read the full article: What font says ‘change’?

When a coffee is more than just a coffee

Buying a cup of coffee can be a harrowing experience these days.

Stanley Fish wrote about it in the New York Times and got roasted by Slate.

Lokesh Dhakar too was intimidated by the number of available options and “new words with accented characters”. So, as a designer and developer, he decided to do something about it. He created an illustrated coffee guide, which is a standout lesson in easy-to-use, easy-to-understand graphics.

Link via Innovations in newspapers