Monday, December 9, 2013

Shoji Yamamoto • Shiiin cs

Shoji Yamamoto
Shiiin
Worthless



For me Worthless has mainly been know for two things: excellent HNW and the entire audio track of killer movies on cassettes. They do those super well and I always love what they decide to put out. This  particular release is a little unusual for them because it is soft and beautiful drone but it is fitting because it's super fucking good. This has played on repeat all day today and I am in a much better place for having heard it. It's hard to describe but impossible not to love. Check it out.


The art is simple and sprawling, just like the music. The only issue with the whole thing is a typographical problem. Not a huge deal but I have to say something. When using all caps you must letter-space them. In other words you have to have some air between all caps. Capital letters in no font are designed to be next to other capital letters. They are meant to be next to lowercase so when they are crammed up together you get all these awkward spaces and uneven gaps. This is where kerning comes in. I could go on and on about this but I recommend everyone do a couple things. First, go to your local bookstore (not amazon) and buy The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst. This is the bible of type and although you won't retain it all—I've read it three times and still screw up constantly—you should have it as a reference. Second, whatever program you use for layouts start experimenting with kerning and tracking. I think everyone has been doing beautiful stuff in the last year and it's a joy to see but we can always do better… That rant wasn't really directed entirely at this release. This release has a total of 4 words on it and only two of those need to be addressed but I have been wanting to mention this for awhile. 


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