Al Gore Calls Out Indiana on Green Jobs

Al Gore’s Climate Protection Action fund has two new TV spots that are going to be airing shortly for TV viewers in Indiana and Maine. Here is Indiana’s ad:

Frankly, I don’t believe climate legislation in any form is going to boost Indiana’s economy or anyone else’s for that matter. It’s just good stuff that probably needs to be done anyway, but for anyone to claim it’ll give us an extra 10,000 jobs or otherwise boost our economy just doesn’t seem plausible. At least in Indiana, where a good number of folks work for otherwise “dirty” industries that would be negatively impacted. It’s more or less just going to shift jobs from one part of the state to the other.

When Al Gore Calls

Could you imagine what it must be like to have a former or current sitting President or Vice President call you to ask that you modify something you’ve done?

Last summer, I received a phone call from Michael, a designer from mgmtdesign in Brooklyn, New York. After the initial how-do-you-do’s, he explained that they were designing a new book for Al Gore, Our Choice, the sequel to An Inconvenient Truth.

…

They had chosen Brioni, one of our typefaces, for the body text.

“And this is why I am calling now”, said Michael, his voice dropping a level. “You see, Al is really involved with the project and we spend a lot of time working together in the publisher’s office. When he was reviewing the proofs, he had a comment about the typeface.”

I took a deep breath and asked what the comment was.

“Basically, he wants you to change the numeral one.”

“Interesting”, I said. “And how did he come to this conclusion?”

“Well, in the book there’re a lot of examples of scientific nomenclature and this particular numeral one is causing confusion when it’s combined with capitals.”

Brioni is a book typeface and comes with old style figures. Because of the fairly low x-height, the numeral one looks like a Roman one, like a shorter version of a capital letter I. It looks very elegant, but when combined into acronyms, it could be confusing.

I reckon when Al Gore calls, you get right on that project.