New University of Sydney logo

I like that they have gone modern while keeping the traditional motif. It’s not a disaster a la the Macquarie University logo.

The new typefaces for the University are FF Scala and Scala Sans. Much fresher than the staid Times they’ve used for God knows how long.

Compare the screen-shot on the top with the one below. Identical you say? Well almost. Notice how the bottom one is slightly crisper and easier to read.

Both are blurry to an extent due to something called subpixel rendering download Intervention — where the OS increases the apparent resolution of your screen by subtly filling in the blanks. There are competing philosophies on how best to achieve this — Apple prefers to faithfully recreate fonts on-screen, whereas Microsoft prefers to make them more readable. Which is superior is a matter of preference.

The problem with Pages so far has been that it ignores the system preference, resulting in display of text in an unacceptably blurry fashion. In the images above this may seem like anal-retentive hair-splitting, but if you’re dealing with large bodies of text, say for example, in an essay, the blurriness becomes very fatiguing. This is now thankfully fixed. Thanks Apple! And it’ll only cost $129.

as a DVD. Don’t know whether to get it or not, though designers and other hangers-on are raving about it

. Having it available worldwide is good, but it would defeat the necessity of a Sydney screening. Especially since it has already aired to a sold-out audience in Melbourne. Hmm…

• buy Gang of Roses

Compare and contrast the old and new logos:

Boy A psp

• The Rocky Horror Picture Show move

The stodgy ‘ALP’ has receded in favour of ‘Labor’ — a tacit wink-and-nod to the punters that Industrial Relations is front and centre. Internal polling probably showed that ‘ALP’ had negative connotations, and ‘Labor’ was a more positive brand to sell. The garish amalgam between the wordforms and the Southern Cross has been split to create a pleasing motif positioned under starry skies. The typeface too has been updated from rather lifeless caps, to the wonderfully kerned and elegant Helvetica. The new colours though are a little odd. The new red and blue hues strongly convey a (possibly radically) modern feel, and detract from the “conservative” image K-Rudd has been plumping ever since he got the leadership.

The new branding extended to the props used at the National Conference:

The “Fresh Thinking” slogan lacks cadence, but it at least avoids the cringe of “Ease the squeeze”. Again the branding choices here went against the “conservative” grain. The choice of Lucida highlights the “freshness” — it is modern and crisp.

The mixed messages the branding sends is inherently tied up with contortions of Labor’s overall message. It wants to portray Howard as past it, and out of touch; it basically said as much. The corollary of this attack is that Labor is new and dynamic. At the same time however, Labor knows it can’t afford to give up the middle ground.

So Labor’s mangled communiqué to the masses is that it’s fresh, but not too fresh, and conservative, but not too conservative. The strategy is all too predictable: be the same old catch-all polyglottal party that it has been been for the past decade that tries to appeal to everybody. Fortunately for Rudd, the current polling shows that it hasn’t yet fallen into the hole of appealing to no-one.

Hatchet film

The King of Kong divx