Design Marshall

Leave it to Lego. Fucking badass.

Sketch Block is based on a clever concept – not new, but smartly executed. It is basically a bold slab serif (or block serif, hence the name), hatched with a marker or ballpoint pen. Its effect resembles the mockups that art directors used to make to simulate display type: by hand-sketching the type exactly the way they wanted it set. As Sketch Block closely follows the shapes of the most famous and streetwise slab serif of all, Rockwell, it is a natural display companion to that font family. It works well as a standalone solution too, and the Light version is surprisingly readable at small sizes.

I've noticed over the past week or so, that a lot of designers are trending to a new technique. Some places of note are the home site for Atebits (makers of Tweetie) Maximilian Schoening's vCard site and MixCSS. It's by no means a tough industrial texture to reproduce, but in the right environments will be extremely compelling. No doubt this is inspired by Apple, as was gloss and matte, so add this one to the books as anodized aluminum. To recreate this, drop in some noise, and add gradient and a spotlight. Bam!