unicode

Ned Batchelder's PyCon 2012 talk gives a quick overview of what Unicode is, then focuses on what a Python programmer needs to handle text correctly. It presents the 'Unicode sandwich' strategy: decode bytes at input, work with Unicode internally, encode at output.

Tom Scott explains for Computerphile how Unicode and UTF-8 grew out of messy older character encodings to become the web's standard. It covers why the design works and how it handles worldwide text.

Tom Scott shows a full-size real-life emoji keyboard built from 14 keyboards and over 1,000 hand-placed stickers, covering all of Unicode 8.

The SILE author's FOSDEM 2015 talk introducing SILE, a TeX-inspired typesetting system with frame-based layout, Unicode, OpenType and a Lua-based extensible design.

A kinetic typography animation set to Stephen Fry's spoken essay on language. Fry argues against grammar pedantry and for the way language evolves, including the verbing of nouns.

A documentary on the last day the New York Times was printed with linotype machines in 1978, following the process from the newsroom to the press. It marks the move to computerized typesetting.

Posy gives a short history of the computer mouse cursor, from early straight pointers to the tilted arrow, comparing Apple and Windows designs. He then explains why he designed his own cursor set and offers it as a free download.

MinutePhysics explains that computers store brightness nonlinearly, so blurring and blending colors in raw RGB gives wrong, dark results. It shows why mixed colors, such as in gradients, look off.

NativLang's 47-minute animated documentary traces the birth and evolution of writing, from early cave marks to modern scripts. It presents the history of the world's writing systems as a story.

The 1969 pitch film in which Saul Bass presents the Bell System logo redesign to AT&T, part of the largest corporate re-identity program in U.S. history.

Tom Wildenhain's SIGBOVIK 2018 presentation of WordTeX, a Microsoft Word template that mimics LaTeX typesetting output. It is a joke research project executed with serious effort.

jan Misali traces the history of the letter W, including why it is called double u. The video is part of a series of deep dives into individual letters.

Roman Mars gives a funny TED talk on vexillology, laying out five basic principles of good flag design and why many city flags fail them.

Steve Jobs's 2005 Stanford commencement address, in which he tells three stories about connecting the dots, love and loss, and death, including his remarks on typography.

Computerphile with Professor Brailsford on how a 1979 Bell Labs team reverse engineered a Linotron 202 phototypesetter over a summer to get high-quality print output. It covers typesetting history and the later 2013 rebuild of the famous vacation memo.

A kinetic typography animation for Jonathan Coulton's song 'Shop Vac', made by Jarrett Heather with Illustrator, After Effects and other tools over 500-1000 hours.

Glenn Vanderburg presents Cló, a Clojure library that reimplements TeX's core typesetting algorithms as composable functions. He shows what translating procedural, literate-programming code into functional form teaches.

Weird Al Yankovic's 2014 parody of 'Blurred Lines' that scolds common grammar and usage errors, with a kinetic typography video. It is a catchy music video about language mistakes.

The Futur's guide to pricing design and creative work, arguing against hourly rates and for value-based pricing. It features Blair Enns and says to price the client, not the job.

Professor Brailsford of the University of Nottingham describes how the university set out to print its own mathematics exam papers in the 1980s. The story centers on getting a Mergenthaler Linotron 202 typesetter to work with their own software.

Technology Connections explains how RGB light and color work, from hue and saturation to color vision and how objects appear under different lighting. It uses a studio setup with colored lights to demonstrate the effects.

Tom Scott and Matt Parker investigate some of the small deceptions and oddities of the London Underground, such as misleading signage and map distortions.

Tom Scott explains why a vivid pink pigment by artist Stuart Semple cannot be fully shown on a screen, and touches on the dispute over exclusive rights to the blackest black pigment. It is a short explainer on color gamuts and pigment politics.

An SNL sketch in which Ryan Gosling's character is obsessed with the font choice (Papyrus) in the movie Avatar's title. It is a comedy bit about a widely mocked typeface.

A colorized clip from the 1970 Polish comedy film 'How I Unleashed World War II' in which a character must pronounce the tongue-twisting name Grzegorz Brzeczyszczykiewicz for a Gestapo officer.