Yikes

Diné Weaver Venancio Aragón

"From researching historic twill patterns in museum collections to dyeing wool with Kool-Aid, Diné (Navajo) weaver and instructor Venancio Aragón interlocks research and experimentation to expand the visual and technical vocabularies of Diné weaving. Working on the Diné upright loom, Aragón is part of a generation of Diné weavers who reinterpret ancestral knowledge through experimentation, carrying the medium forward on their own terms. As he stated in our interview with him, “I am not a purist.”

Based in Farmington, New Mexico, Aragón is trained in cultural anthropology and Native American and Indigenous studies, currently teaching at Diné College, the Navajo Nation’s tribal college. Before transitioning to full-time weaving and teaching, Aragón worked as an interpretive park ranger at the Mesa Verde, Aztec Ruins, Bandelier, and Petroglyph National Monuments, where he led tours and developed public education initiatives. He was born to the Tó’aheedlíinii (The Water Flow Together People) clan and born for the Naakaii (Mexican people). His maternal grandfather is of the Tsénahabiłnii (Sleeping Rock) clan, and his paternal grandfather is of the Naakaii (Mexican people)."

Futura (1927) [Daylight Fonts · Fonts In Use · Identifont] is one of my favorites out of the well-established sans serifs, but one thing that annoys me about it is how C and c have vertical terminals, while G and e have angled terminals.

Besides being internally inconsistent, I find the vertical terminals ugly. (I dislike Antique Olive (1962) [Daylight Fonts · Fonts In Use · Identifont] for the same reason, but at least it uses its vertical terminals consistently.)

I recently learned the reason for this (from the book Paul Renner: The Art of Typography): Futura was designed first and foremost for writing German. In German the letter c only occurs before h and k, and in traditional German blackletter typography, ch and ck are obligatory, inseparable ligatures.

Futura doesn't have joined ch/ck ligatures, but ch and ck were still cast on a single piece of metal, with a smaller gap between the c and h/k than between other letters. The vertical terminal on the c was necessary to allow these letters to be placed so close together.

recently saw this screenshot in the wild and lost my mind because i knew it wasnt supposed to say girl. its ladykins. its get off the cross ladykins. i know this because ladykins is not something my brain could make up and i remember ladykins. and i was sincerely wondering if someone put in the work to censor ladykins for some inscrutable purposes but then i looked it up and

We boycottinggggg 🫡