Categories: General updates, Inspiration
Last night, House Industries held an evening event at the Eames Office to officially unveil their new typeface set, Eames Century Modern. This morning, I had the opportunity to spherically photograph House’s temporary exhibit, preserving it for posterity.
Categories: Case studies, Inspiration
I’ve been on a bit of a “ribbon lettering” kick lately. For this brochure/identity design, I was heavily inspired by a number of different sources, both old and new. I wanted to conjure the notion of “link,” without using a cliché chain illustration in the process. The idea of roads and paths intersecting felt apropos […]
Categories: Inspiration
Souvenir platter from the Century 21 Exhibition / 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, scored on eBay.
Categories: Inspiration
Just scored this wonderful Dan Reisinger poster on eBay, from the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. It even came with the original envelope in which it had been mailed to Sarkes Tarzian, Inc. / WTTV in Bloomington, Indiana, from Brussels, Belgium in 1958. According to Wikipedia, Mr. Reisinger won first prize for this poster design for […]
Categories: Case studies
This project has been previously detailed, but I recently photographed the actual booklets for posterity. Here’s how they came out.
Categories: Inspiration
After the last treasure trove of matchbooks I came across, the idea of starting a collection of my own has been on my radar. I found a few on eBay that were from Torrance, California, the current location of three steps ahead and a subject of particular interest to me. The same seller had a […]
Categories: Case studies
My fiancée Alyssa and I are not typical when it comes to our wedding planning. For one thing, we’re getting married at an unconventional venue, the Los Angeles Natural History Museum. Moreover, we both work in design, and there’s no chance in heck that we’d buy any prepackaged save-the-dates or invitations. No sir. So we’ve […]
Categories: Inspiration
One of my favorite aspects of living in Southern California is the local architecture and its accompanying signage. Many of the schools in my area were built in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and lots of them utilize gorgeous, low x-height, geometric titling faces like the ones on which Neutraface is based. The Southern California […]
Categories: Case studies, Inspiration
(Update: photos of the printed booklet are now up.) New York University’s Leonard N. Stern School of Business engaged with three steps ahead this summer to create a set of program booklets to be distributed to incoming students at Summer Orientation. Our work for Stern thus far (NYU Stern CACE Poster & NYU Stern IBEX […]
Categories: Inspiration
I’m a sucker for well-designed books—the paper, the printing, the typography, the illustration, the binding. Yum. Unfortunately, well-designed, well-printed, well-typeset books are the exception nowadays, not the rule. I learned by watching the Antiques Roadshow that it became common practice in previous centuries for publishers of expensive books to sell them by subscription or in […]
Josh Korwin has been running Three Steps Ahead, a creative design studio, since the late 1990s. He has been a typography nerd for as long as he can remember, and rabidly collects (and sometimes sells) just about everything with neat type or lettering on it. While graphic design and web design fill most of his days, he dabbles in photography and letterpress printing.
