Chance is an interactive series I’ve been working on for a Multimedia Design class at SCAD for the past few weeks. It consists of three flash applications that all deal with random chance in some way. You can click through above to interact with the pieces. Below I’ve pasted the description of each piece.

The Evolution Machine is a very simple simulation of the process of evolution. DNA is represented by a simple integer generated at random. That DNA can be bred by selecting a mate and hitting “Reproduce.” The offspring will be generated as an average of the two DNA strands, but with the random possibility of genetic mutation. Once a child is born, the child becomes the parent in the next generation by hitting the “Next Generation” button. This process can be repeated infinitely. All the circular creatures are generated dynamically based entirely on the DNA integer. If you’d like the see the evolution of your species, you click the “Show Evolution” button the top right.

Chances of Death in America takes the popular minesweeper game and turns it into a simulation of actual probability of death in America. Every time a player clicks a square, they risk clicking on a cause of death, based on actual 2002 statistics. The player can choose to click on the squares very quickly and die of one of the hidden causes, commit suicide with a button in the bottom right, or just wait for their life to run out as the years (seconds) tick away.

The Infinite Monkey Generator is a simulation of the infinite monkey theorem. The infinite monkey theorem states that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will almost surely type a given text, such as the complete works of William Shakespeare. The generator allows the user to plug in a line of Shakespeare, or any word(s) they’d like, and watch as random strings of letters are generated. The application continues to generate a series of completely random letters until the user’s selected word has been stumbled upon, at which point the application will stop and let the user know the word has been found. Note: if you select a high speed it may slow down your machine. words longer than 4 letters long can take a very long time to generate randomly.

My typefaces Raleway and Orbitron are now on Typekit. If you’ve ever wanted to use them on your websites, it’s now easier than ever.

I just posted Raleway on The League of Moveable Type. It’s free to download. If you find any problems with, please let me know. The font features old style and lining numerals, small caps, a pretty complete set of diacritics, and an alternate stylistic set.

FontAid IV: Coming Together is now available at MyFonts for $20. It’s features 485 ampersands and all the proceeds to go Doctors Without Borders. Go buy a copy.

(I designed ampersands #25 and #26 above.)

Allerta is an open source typeface I’ve designed for use in signage. Allerta was designed to be easily and quickly read from a distance. Each letter exploits the most unique aspects of that individual letter so that each character can be easily distinguished from any other.

I’ve released Allerta as an open source project so that those countries, communities, and/or organizations without a proper signage system may have a way of quickly designing and implementing one.

The name Allerta is derived from the origins of the word alert (adj. swift, v. to advise or warn). The Italian origin all’erta literally means on the lookout.

While Allerta is complete with a large character set, because it is open source, modification and expansion is encouraged. I also intend to continue working on it to improve the spacing, add more kerning pairs, add more useful icons, and maybe even add more weights in the future.

For a full overview, check out the PDF and visit the minisite I’ve set up to download it.

I just finished my first project in AfterEffects for a Multimedia Design class here at SCAD. This is the result. It’s a title sequence for the movie Perfume. I’d never used the program before this but I think I might have to spend some more time figuring it out. I’m definitely excited about what it’s capable of.

Allerta is an open source signage typeface I’ve been working on for a SCAD class. This is one piece of that project, The Allerta Kit. I designed the kit using the Stencil version of Allerta. The kit contains a series of locking letters so that messages can easily be assembled and spray painted onto multiple substrates quickly.

I’ll post more about the entire project soon, with a link to download the typeface and kit.

This was one of the ampersands I submitted to FontAid IV. If you’d like to see other submissions, check out the typophile thread. FontAid will be releasing a font full of all of these ampersands in the very near future for $20. All the proceeds will go to Doctors Without Borders. I’ll post a link to the font when it’s complete.

Today on Read Between the Leading Aaron and I got a chance to interview Scott Thomas, Design Director of the Obama campaign. We got to talk to him about his work on the campaign and his new book Designing Obama. You can listen here or get the podcast on iTunes.

If you haven’t checked out Read Between the Leading before, it’s a design podcast I co-host with a friend. We try to have interesting guests on to discuss a wide variety of design related topics.

It’s been a little while since the last post. Since then I’ve been working on some more academic projects. Here’s a little peak at a piece of a new project.

This is my final packaging project for the academic quarter. The project brief called for us to design a brand and packaging for a hypothetical food company. The brand I came up with was for an all natural juice company that I decided to call Orchard & Grove.

The packaging solution I came up with is a bit different than standard beverage packaging. I decided on a standard size of 8 ounces per juice box. I designed the top of the juice box to unfold, revealing a drinking spout, similar to a milk carton. It uses no extra materials to drink, unlike the straw required to drink from a Juicy Juice box. The 8 oz juice boxes can be easily assembled into a four packs using the 4 pack case. The 4 pack case is made of two pieces of paper that can be slid together using simple notches on the top and bottom of each piece to create the case (no glue required). The hooks in each side of the case can then be used to hook into cut slots on the side of each juice box. If you look at the box and 4 pack case dielines, you’ll see both the hooks and and slots highlighted with red circles. This method of hooking boxes in place requires no extra glue. It also requires less material than some other packaging like the standard 6 pack for carrying beer bottles, that needs enough material to cover more than half of each bottle and requires glue to assemble.

I also designed a 1 quart container that features a screw top for multiple use. The 1 quart container takes up exactly the same amount of space as four 8 oz juice boxes placed together to create a modular system that allows for the most efficient use of space for shipping and stocking purposes.

My goal with this project was to use as little plastic as possible (only used as polyethylene coatings to keep the juice box packaging aseptic and a screw top for the 1 quart container), as little glue as possible, as little material in general, as well make for the most efficient use of space when these product are shipped and stored.

I just submitted my latest typeface, Raleway, for voting on The League of Moveable Type’s Typelog, so click through and vote

Raleway is an elegant sans-serif typeface, designed in a single thin weight. It is a display face that features both old style and lining numerals, as well as a stylistic alternate inspired by more geometric sans-serif typefaces than it’s neo-grotesque inspired default character set. If you’d like to see more characters, check out the PDF specimen.