The Tremendous 10 link roundup, #105

1. Adobe Illustrator is 30 years old | “My favorite application is Adobe Illustrator, which turned 30 this week. I have used it for decades and still learn new things about it almost evert week. Here’s a great video series about the beginnings of Adobe Illustrator. In the first episode, graphic designers talk about Rapid-O-Graph pens, rub-on letters, French curves, and how Adobe worked to digitize those tools. My only complaint is that the series wasn’t longer.”
2. How the Futura Typeface Escaped Widespread Use by the Nazis and Instead Landed on the Moon | “In a fascinating episode of Vox Almanac, host Phil Edwards talks about the history of the distinctive Futura typeface famously designed by the legendary Paul Renner in 1927. The typeface was rejected by the Nazis as too modern, but found its popularity elsewhere in the world. When the Nazis were ready for a new look, the design had become too popular throughout the world and later, outer space.”
3. Pentagram And The Case Of The Forgotten Typeface | “A branding project solves a design mystery involving a famous type designer, a bequeathed inheritance, and a shrewd rare books librarian.”
4. Designing the graphics for the Harry Potter movies | “MinaLima (aka Miraphora Mina and Eduardo Lima) is the design studio that designs all of the graphics, signs, newspapers, decrees, posters, labels, maps, book covers, and packaging that you see in the Harry Potter movies.”
5. How (not) to refute a lie | “But there is one big drawback to fact-checking and lie-correcting. The more often a lie is repeated, even in the context of debunking it, the more believable it becomes. Familiarity provides the impression of truth. Furthermore, false statements, even when we know they are false, influence our emotional response to people and events. So, we need to be judicious in our zeal to correct.”
6. Surprise Maps: Showing the Unexpected | “…often when we analyze data we are not interested in business as usual: what we care about are exceptions to the rule, outliers, and generally the unexpected. Nobody brings out the red ink to circle data when everything is normal. And yet, when we present data visually, exceptions and outliers may get lost in the sea of usual variation. We need a visualization equivalent of Ehman’s “wow!” annotation.” (Hey, that’s what we did in this market activity project from a few years ago.)
7. Why the Internet Didn’t Kill Zines | “In theory, the maturation of the internet should have killed off the desire for zines entirely. The web is a Gutenberg press on steroids, predicated on free software platforms created by companies that invest considerable sums to lure people to their sites and make exactly the kind of content I craved growing up.”
8. This site is “taking the edge off rant mode” by making readers pass a quiz before commenting | “If everyone can agree that this is what the article says, then they have a much better basis for commenting on it.”
9. 13 Things You Should Give Up If You Want To Be Successful | “Sometimes, to become successful and get closer to the person we can become, we don’t need to add more things — we need to give up on some of them.”
10. NOPE | “Save yourself from distracting coworkers. Press a button to send a call to your phone. Apologize sincerely as you pick it up. Then watch them walk away.”

Image: via Boing Boing, link #1.