After Hours

Why bookstores need a shop cat.
      A trade card dating from the late 19th century according to Chuck Whiting who first posted this on bibliophemera. Whiting noted that this card was printed by Mayer Merkel & Ottman Lithographers in New York. It takes a good ephemera sleuth to recall their business card was archived over at Sheaff Ephemera. Nice work Whiting! 

Adventures in Book Cover Design

A very nice brand new set of classics designed by Jessica Hische for Sterling Publishing and Barnes & Noble. Art direction provided by Jo Obarowski. The six books are leather bound and foil stamped in two colors on front, back and spine, with marbled endpapers inside and painted page edges. See more images here.

The Magic of ASCII

From the typewriter of Jennifer Daniel who likes unicorns. More on her L8R. :=)) Letterpress business cards by Cranky Pressman.

And more analog artwork from the typewriter of Nadine Faye James <:') Nadine does typewriter portraits while you wait.

Got Game?

One of the most trying tasks as a young designer is to develop a look and name for your own design services. Do you use your own name or make up an identity? Do you spell it in all caps or lower case or some composite of each? Or do you just use a glyph like Prince or whatever-his-name-is-now? Then you have to consider; is the domain name available? That done – what about a trademark search? Who knew this would be so much work? And this is before you even sit down to do any design work.

This is your singular moment to express your design skills in just one simple business card. Not to put too sharp a point on it, but it IS the DNA of your entire design career. It speaks volumes about you and your work. If you cannot simply express what it is you do well, why would anyone else trust you can do it for their business? The key is learning to edit your own work. With experience comes more confidence to discard those ideas that aren't working. So you have to learn to discern the difference between the good and the great. Learn to abandon your better ideas in order to arrive at the very best solution. Design is work and requires perseverance and determination. And those that learn how to reject and revise early on, will likely excel. In the words of Don Draper on Mad Men, "I want you to show me more work I can reject!".

Marian Bantjes Business Card

She just continues to amaze!