Monster Type

Not that kind of monster type. This monster type is a paper sculpture created as a  letter V. It is the work of my student Donovan Nguyen who created it for a type assignment in another class Winter quarter. The task was to make a letter as a face of a monster and to use any media or material. His monster type is a letter V and is about 3 feet tall. It was the first sort of paper sculpture Donovan has ever produced. I really hope he continues to create an entire monster type family now!

Tin Types

Great little video on the tin packaging designs for old typewriter ribbons. First come the ribbon tins and then begins the typewriter collecting. Brought to you by Richard Polt, keeper of The Classic Typewriter Page, and owner of nearly 200 typewriters.

Sign Spotting

As seen in the hood recently and posted on FB by an apparel design student. Gotta love the telephone pole dialog prompted by one bad ass type crime. Thanks for sharing Dorothy! 

Sort of a Chalky Little Wine Label

Chalk-lettered wine label for the Nagging Doubt winery in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. This blackboard wonder is from the hand of Brooklyn designer Dana Tanamachi who works at Louise Fili Ltd. by day and moonlights as a chalk lettering artist by night. The only way this could get any better would be to kick back with a glass of wine and enjoy watching her design it. Then see more of Dana's type-lapsed wonders here and here.

Nagging Doubt Viognier from Dana Tanamachi on Vimeo.

Culinary Classics Cover Countless Cultures

This simply gorgeous Great Food series makes me hungry for the entire collection from Penguin Books. They are brilliantly designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, senior cover designer at Penguin, with the lovely lettering of Stephen Raw. The paperback covers feature spot varnishes and embossing to enhance the lettering and patterned photos of the background images. The patterns, each based upon ceramic surface designs specific to the period of the book's text, spill over to the rainbow-colored spines. Old pottery marks were the inspiration for placing the title lettering inside the culinary containers. Penguin released the series in the UK in April, but those of us in the US will have to wait until late October to get our mitts upon them. 

:: Found here and here.

Alan Trotter of Greater Than or Equal to, interviewed Bickford-Smith recently about the Great Food series in this video below. Delightful!

A serious interview with designer Coralie Bickford-Smith about her Great Food series for Penguin from Alan Trotter on Vimeo.

Russian Advertising & Entertainment Posters

Napolean's Invasion, 1931, by Khodasevich Valentina Mikhajlovna

Let's Get Food Program into Life!, 1989, by Ulanov Oleg
Aleksandrovich

5 Year Plan of the Sugar Industry, 1933, by Bulanov Dmitrij
Anatol'evich

5 Year Plan of the Public Catering of the LSPO (Leningrad Union
of Consumer Societies), 1931, by Bulanov Dmitrij Anatol'evich

Budgets, 1988, by Bukheevy, S.N. Bulkin, and E.A. Mikheeva

A Laureate of International Competitions, 1975,
by Dobrovinskij Evgenij Maksovich

B. Brecht. Mother Courage and her Children, 1978,
by Tsvik Efim Semenovich

All the USSR Writes With the Furthers, 1929, Unknown

Take Care of Birds, 1978, by Karakashev Vilen 

Surenovich and Levshunova Lilija Jakovlevna

At the Exhibition of Achievements of the National Economy.
The Nature Protection Pavillion, 1975, by Karakashev Vilen Surenovich

All the People Smoke the Cigarette Box,
Mosselprom, 1928, by Zelenskij Alexander
Nikolaivich

9 March 1945, 1969, by Evgenij Abramovich Kazhdan
1922-1984

Aeroflot, 1973, by Evgenij Abramovich Kazhdan 1922-1984

A Flea, 1927, by Kustodiev Boris Mikhajlovich

From the Museum of the Russian Poster.

Summer Reading

Dames in dunes. From Jan Willemsen's Flickr page.

Early 20th century image of man floating in the Dead Sea. You can see the stereo version of this photo on Thiophene Guy's Flickr page.

Student Book Reports Part 2

This H.P. Lovecraft book, Pilgrimage to Azathoth was designed by my student Joe Uccello. I first met Joe about 2 years ago at our annual graduate's Portfolio Show which coincidentally happens again today. Joe was a Publishing Arts student at our school at the time and was interested in letterpress printing, typography and book design. Weeks earlier, the school administrators announced they were eliminating the 2nd year of Publishing Arts program because of budget cuts which prevented him from completing his degree. Discouraged, he hoped to transfer to our two year graphic design program which I encouraged him to do, especially after he showed me the copy of Jost Hochuli's book, Detail in Typography he was carrying in a pocket of his pant legs. He said he considered this and Robert Bringhurst's book, Elements of Typographic Style, his two favorite typography references. 

      The text of the Azathoth book you see above is the only surviving work from an incomplete collection of stories which Lovecraft intended to publish. The goal of this book, Uccello writes, "was to complete the novel Lovecraft planned by using disparate, yet thematically related stories from the author's body of work, the whole to be disguised within the structure of a pilgrimage, a record of a mystical journey...".

      The interior text pages were printed on a laserprinter and includes an 11x19" letterpressed folding plate printed on Rives paper sewn into the front matter of the book. This folded plate explains each of the marks he illustrated to portray the stations of the pilgrimage. The main text font is Stern Pro, the only font issued digitally and in metal simultaneously, by the recently passed master font designer and printer Jim Rimmer, and he created it in memory of Washington State printer Chris Stern. In addition, Joe had some of the text translated to Arabic and mirrored it to the text on the contents page and chapter ends. He claims "the Arabic font was chosen for its inspiration in ancient Kufic writing forms, as it references Lovecraft's mingling of Arabic lore and legend".  

     The black leather binding with a red inlay on the spine was art directed by Joe and bound by Ars Obscura Bookbinding in Seattle. It also includes gold foil stamping on the front and back cover and the spine. The full edition will be 46 books, which is how old Lovecraft was when he died. These books will eventually be for sale at Joe Uccello's website. 

      Now, two years later, Joe graduates this week with more passion and enthusiasm than ever about carving out a career in book design. Although he has been absorbed with several of H.P. Lovecraft's works this past year and is now working on a likeness of a 16th century codex to be released this Fall, he is also eager to learn more about the mechanics of eBook publishing. No doubt he will. 

                                                     *  *  *  *  *  

The next student work belongs to Rebecca Shapiro who, along with Joe, I have acknowledged earlier in this space. Rebecca is a former English major and another who has the passion for the book. She is a big fan of the work of Jorge Luis Borges and chose his work The Garden of Forking Paths as her choice to redesign. It is a collection of short fiction currently available as the first half of the collection Ficciones. Most of these stories are about the nature of writing and books. 

     Rebecca's illustrations are photographs of dioramas made from hollowed books that reflect some nature of the story they accompany. She claims "the tone of the book is studious and mysterious; it stresses curiosity about language and the world. It aims to push the imagination and especially the tools we use to describe the imagination. It is incredibly beautiful and elegant, each word placed with precision. The typography and design must reflect this solemnity and beauty". I think she has nicely achieved this.

Below are 3 book cover designs Rebecca chose to create entirely on her own. She wanted to include more examples of cover designs in her portfolio and determined a series would be better than just one. 

This last cover design of Rebecca's seen below was inspired by a challenge Penguin Books presented to design students this past Spring. They had a call for entries to design One Hundred Years of Solitude and the winner was to receive £1000 and a 6 week internship at Penguin Books in the UK. Sadly, her busy school schedule did not permit her to produce this design before the due date. Had I seen it earlier, I might have counseled her to scrap the schoolwork, as I believe this one would have been a great contender. Someone hire this girl!