Four Oh Four.zip

Commemorating Extratone Errors

Extratone’s two or three joke 404 pages may have legitimately been my favorite part of the website. Since I’ve now made a personal commitment to learning Adobe InDesign, I thought I might get myself to actually finish my first .indd project by making something almost purely commemorative. 1

This (compressed to hell) screenshot is all that’s left of Extratone‘s very first 404 page… Heartbreaking.

This (compressed to hell) screenshot is all that’s left of Extratone‘s very first 404 page… Heartbreaking.

No, I doubt I will ever replicate such originality again. I have no idea where I came up with the idea of using the Zenon movie poster, but the snapshot of myself with all of the televisions came from the introduction video to my pre-Extratone online magazine project, which was shot on the single set we built for Children of The Corn 30.

https://twitter.com/extratone/status/880254494935662592

I would love to claim that “turn the crank” came from the infamous Vannevar Bush essay, “As We May Think:”

It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.

The truth is, though, I have it in my hands right now, have been reading it, and can’t say whether or not I have before. Regardless, you’ll find links to the typefaces I used below as well as a download for the whole InDesign package. Feel free to do whatever with it.

Typography

  1. There’s nothing like reflecting on when you were at all creative and/or funny to get the fluids flowing! It’s also wonderful to have those old disdains for “common sense” design principles to draw back out to conceal incompetence beneathe a mask of designed elitism.