Super Bowl Update

The ultimate gift for the font-loving chess player, Hat-trick design's Jim Sutherland has created a typographic chess set based on the character forms from the Hoefler & Frere-Jones typeface Champion Gothic.





The limited edition - only 50 sets have been produced, uses laser-cut acrylic for the pieces. The King, represented by a capital K, is 50mm tall, the pawns 30mm. While Champion lends itself well to this new use, Sutherland says he had to make a couple of adjustments – the Q and P have been redrawn to make them more stable and the Kt ligature (for the Knight) has been redrawn.


Sutherland's sketches for the playing pieces:


The board itself is made from 2mm greyboard foiled in black. "It was a really tricky production in order to get the fine detail and the counters sharp, plus making sure everything stood up properly," Sutherland says. "The hope is that we will go into a longer production run in the future."





A sheet in the packaging includes information about moves and chess notation as well as a selection of chess-themed quotations. A set of postcards, also included in the pack, show how each piece moves.



Type Chess Set Details, Price and Ordering info:


A typographic chess set based on chess notation designed by Jim Sutherland.
The forms are based on typeface Champion (Lightweight) by Hoefler Frere Jones.

Limited edition: 50 sets
Pieces: Laser cut from 25mm acrylic
The King is 50mm tall, the pawn is 30mm
Packaging: 2mm greyboard foiled in black
Board size 364mm X 364mm
Published 2012

Price £275 ($440.419 USD)
Delivered by registered post
UK: £6.50 Outside UK: £22

Buy it here.

Brought to my attention via Creative Review, all images courtesy of Hat-Trick

The most common belief is that the tradition of breaking the wishbone at Thanksgiving began with the ancient Etruscans and Romans who dried chicken wishbones and touched them as they made a wish. Lacking enough bones to go around the Romans fought over them - breaking them in the process. The Romans were said to have later introduced the practice into Great Britain.


stock photo courtesy of Bill Frymire

For more than two centuries, wishes were made on these unbroken clavicles. It was not until later that the expression “lucky break” was applied to the person winning the larger half in a wishbone tug-of-war. The person with the larger end of the bone would have his wish granted. In some places of the world, guinea fowl, geese, and turkey have replaced the hen, most likely for practical reasons.


above: The furcula, commonly called a wishbone, is the forked, flexible bone in a bird's breast

In honor of Thanksgiving, I have culled some interesting pieces of art which feature, or were inspired by, the wishbone. The 18 works I've chosen include sculptures, installations, paintings, drawings, typefaces and a video I found to be of interest - the oldest piece dating back to 1864.

The illustration by Winslow Homer below is from the December 3, 1864 edition of Harper's Weekly:

above: Winslow Homer, Civil War Drawing, Thanksgiving-Day In The Army. After Dinner: The Wishbone

Andrew Wyeth's painting Wishbone (exact year unknown):


Norman Rockwell's image of children pulling at the wishbone was on the cover of the 1921 issue of The Country Gentleman, the Saturday Evening Post‘s sister publication:


BROOD is an installation by artist Kate MccGwire in which she arranged hundreds, if not thousands of wishbones, (photos by Jonty Wilde):




Arthur Ganson is a renowned kinetic sculptor. He makes mechanical art demonstrations and moving artworks. His construction in the video below is a set of wire gears tethered to a chicken's wishbone, equipped with miniature spikes and made to "walk" back and forth along a miniature roadway.

Machine with Chicken Wishbone:

You can watch Arthur Ganson discussing his moving sculptures at TED here.

Cordelia Cembrowicz, 2005, Wishbone/I Wish I Only Ate Free Range Chicken, Copper Plate Etching on Paper, Edition of 11, 33cm x 27cm:




Mark Brown, Picking A Bone With The Tea Fairy, 2009, 12 x 16 acrylic on canvas:


Wishbone by artist Mark Handforth is a 7-½ foot tall aluminum sculpture (shown here on display at MOCA North Miami in 2010). Handforth digitally enlarged an image of a chicken wishbone to produce the massive sculpture:


Steven Kenny, 2011, The Wishbone, 30" x 28", oil on canvas:


Cass Samms' Furcula, 2011 is four stylized bronze wishbone pieces which interconnect with one another creating an interactive space:

The sculpture, oxidized in the photo below, is approximately 1.6m wide, 2.7m long and 1m high and sits on the edge of the rocks overlooking the beach and river crossing.


Furculae is a collection of artfully composed wishbones by artist/Photographer Jamie Newton of Concrete Wheels:




Christina Donato's Wishbone sculpture is made of Bloodwood and sterling silver:


Artist Charles Price has both sculpted and painted a series of wishbones:



Lucky Seven is a wishbone pinwheel by artist  Janelle Iglesias:


Two graphic designers have even created Wishbone fonts.
Wishbone by Casey Finn (free download here):

Wishbone by Emilee Higgins:


Wishbones are 'en vogue' in terms of decorative objects and jewelry. There are several wishbone prints, paintings, charms, objet d'arts and more available to purchase on etsy and in many online stores.




Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you get the larger end of the wishbone.

A special edition of the classic Scrabble board game made of solid walnut wood tiles which each feature a variety of fonts has been created by Andrew Clifford Capener.





The game board is lined with slip free cork and made up of six panels which come in a walnut wood storage case with drawers.





Metal tile racks and a Birch wood box complete the set, which is signed and numbered.




all images courtesy of Andrew Capener

Only 2100 sets were made and there are very few left.

Key Features:
• Beautiful solid walnut storage case with drawer
• Six-panel solid walnut magnetized gameboard lined with slip free cork
• Beautiful solid birch cover
• Metal tile racks
• Solid walnut tiles featuring a variety of different and exciting fonts
• Each limited edition set will also be signed and numbered

Product Dimensions: 19.00” x 17.50” x 6.00”

Pre-Order Now Here
Price: $199
Available: August 2012

Thanks to Daily Design Joint for bringing this to my attention via Materialicious