Make Ready is a journal featuring news and observations on letterpress, book arts, typography, design, and other fine delectables - slightly caramelized, with a healthy dollop of ephemera.
Extant Marginalia
New to typography? Get the rundown on Designing with Type.
Mass consumption. Objectified.
Harlem in 13 gigapixels. It’s 2,045 photographs taken over a period of 2h10m. Amazing. Via Phirebrush and Rel. 53. Sweet as well.
Broken. Shaved. Bitten. Worn. Sharpened. Every pencil you ever wrote with in grade school is here. Passed/past love notes wistfully withdrawn.
When you’re serious about gaming, get a professional mouse. Like the Steel Series Gaming Mouse whose “chassis [are] shaped to accommodate the three predominant methods of grip utilized by gamers today: Swipe, Claw, and Palm… [And they] have an anti-sweat and slip-resistant surface coating to improve mouse control during intense gaming sessions.” Via Blr
If you’re enjoying whisky sours then do so in style.
“Not bound by rules but excelling over those that delineate without restraint.” — Chen Hongshou (1768-1822)
The Jebel Hafeet Mountain Road in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is the “greatest driving road in the world.” It stretches for 7.3 miles, climbs nearly 4,000 feet, it boasts 60 corners plus a “surface so smooth that it would flatter a racetrack.” Day or night this road’s for driving. (Where am I now on the Ferrari F40 wait list?)
The mini-biography of Gerald Giampa of Langston Type (owned by P22) has resurfaced. If not a tad self-aggrandizing, according to master printer Gerald Lange, it offers “one of the most visually stunning (and informative) presentations of letterpress practice in the last quarter of the twentieth century.”
“Peanuts as business cards? Tabue Me. Maybe. Maybe not.
Eva Zeisel’s coffee table is beautiful.
Introducing, the letter G.
Dear Beach, “you could really learn a thing or two from The Mountains. Hey, I’m not saying The Mountains are better than you. The two of you are totally different. Moreover, you are clearly in the top echelon of ecosystems. Really, you blew past The Desert, like, a million years ago. And let’s face it, people may say all sorts of great things about The Jungle, but who really wants to hang out there? … [Please don’t] rest on your laurels.
If you’re absolutely undecided as how to pack for a trip, use the universal packing list (UPL). My two-day weekend trip which includes a glacier walk and my digital camera, requires 134 items. Add a Sherpa (of which there are probably none in Iceland) the list jumps to 173. The UPL assumes that women need to pack more.
Want to learn about typography? Take it online, sort of. Here’s what Ellen Lupton is teaching her students at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
As if knowing how to print your own money wasn’t difficult enough. Now, one has to add tiny lenses to them (650,000 for C-notes) to make them pass for glory.
Living With Things is a “series of seven everyday objects, modified in their functionality. They explore how and to what degree an object can be subjectified by a person’s imagination and emotions, and how intimate moments can be created between a human and an object.” Enhance life. Everyday. Poetically. Via Slow Design
A quick six-minute video on how to screenprint from our friends at Make magazine.
Give me an hour.
Girl printers are everywhere. In this case, Carolyn Fraser. (She’s interviewed here about 80% in.)
“The capital letter, Sofia Pavlovna, is the beginning of all beginnings, so let us begin with that. It’s like a first breath, a newborn’s cry, you might say. Just a moment ago there was nothing. Absolutely nothing. A void. And for another hundred or thousand years there might still have been nothing, but suddenly this pen, submitting to an impossibly higher will, is tracing a capital letter, and now there’s no stopping it. Being the pen’s first movement toward the period as well, it is a sign of both the hope and the absurdity of what is. Simultaneously. The first letter, like an embryo, conceals all life to come, to the very end–its spirit, its rhythm, its force, and its image.” Time to pick up the nib. Calligraphy is sexy.
“With hundreds of LEDs mounted in a filed of miniature wind turbines, this installation symbolically and literally reduces the gap between the power and the powered, emphasizing the potential of renewable energy as a means to fuel the future.” Wind to Light and Jason Bruges
Design & Typo: le Site de “[t]ypographie et valeurs sémantiques, décryptage des courants graphiques et typographiques.”
Love this. An origami boat with instructions blind embossed onto its sails. Via Peace of Paper
The D*S guide to letterpress. Via CP
Slick. Moleskine popups. Via The Daily Max
Perfect for everyone’s bar. Make drinks wicked quick with the cocktail builder.
Temporary light graffiti. Too cool for words.
Paula Scher on type as an image. Noteworthy is her comment that clients pay for process. So, even if you solve something quickly. DO the process. It gives them a sense of value. Hmmm. Via Type for You
The Design*Sponge guide to San Francisco Design.
Jeepers, it’s Loripscream. Making lorem ipsum generatively delicious.
Researchers at Northwestern University have fabricated a new type of paper called graphene oxide. It’s stiff, strong, and lightweight with thicknesses from about one to 100 microns. Not recommended for letterpress printing.
I just love this. Type the sky. Type is everywhere. Lookup. Hello sky!
Books carry their own weight on the See-Saw Bookshelf. Via Not Cot
DQ, a variable geometry project born from a four hands graphic improvisation: Festo meets Telmolindo in Invasion. Relax. Enjoy the music. Where’s the party?
Smash type on paper and see what happens. See Boris Müller’s testbed of “small typographic experiments.
“Sans serif is not simply a letter denuded of its serifs…” What’s that type face? (PDF: 2.8mb)
No longer neglected. “The Stump Project was established to honor neglected spaces. In these cases, “[t]o upholster the sidewalk [tree]stump was a way to honor that which had been diminished, and bring it back into relationship with the neighborhood.” Upholster a tree stump today.
Helvetica. We hardly knew you. The unfortunate death of Helvetica. R.I.P.
Endless possibilities. Silkscreen a Moleskine. Via GDB
Always inscribe books that you give. Always. It makes people smile and provides meaning. Need a few examples? Consult the book inscription project.
Free Fonts Today. Everyday. These are “typefaces for the public domain. These [generous] designers are participating in the broader open source and copyleft movements, which seek to stimulate worldwide creativity via a collective information commons.” We love typographers! Via design.lab
Contextual. Memory. Interactive. Almost too cool. Type for all seasons.
Helvetica, the film by Gary Hustwit is playing at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago this weekend, beginning June 15. (If you can’t make it, there are other screenings.) Thanks for the headsup Chris, pin.monkey.press.
Retro futurism. The LAX Theme Building has always reminded me of the Jetsons. Via The Aesthetic
Very cool. Lure is a “new monthly gathering for people to come together and create. Bring your own project and supplies,” hang out and connect. This happens at 3 Fish Studios, second Sunday each month from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Via 2Modern Design
“The one they think they already know; the one they comfort awake each morning and rotate within their minds, is less whole than the world of the book. You ponder this, pausing for a moment to let the idea sink in. Is every book more real than an existence?” Black ink on an infinite canvas.
“The process is the same in every case: culling through a collection of books, pulling particular titles, and eventually grouping the books into clusters so that the titles can be read in sequence… Taken as a whole, the clusters from each sorting aim to examine that particular library’s focus, idiosyncrasies, and inconsistencies — a cross-section of that library’s holdings.” The Sorted Books project contains over 130 book clusters. Via JSM
A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. Via Mandarine
“It’s not so much about what you make, it’s more about what you learn making it.” — Jim Coudal
“For a long time I toyed with the idea of applying Fourier analysis to a typographic page . It seemed to me that certain hard-to-define visual qualities of a perfectly set page can be revealed and perhaps even measured by taking a close look at its Fourier spectrum. It remained just an idea until I came across the wonderful Peter Burnhill’s book on Aldine typography.”
A wonderful collection of vintage hankerchiefs.
The fashion magazine H. Only online. Via Suspect Device.
The typographical streetmap of London and without numbers. Where do you live?
Printers, save the world and use less ink. FSI has released FF Mt. It employs “obscure but powerful techniques like vwl mmssn and cap reduction, FF Mt uses up to 50% less paper, screen, and wall space than other text faces without a single condensed letter.” Download it free, in OpenType.
“One of the qualities that makes current Iranian graphic design unique is its typography. The country has a rich history of visual arts and moreover the better part of this heritage consists of calligraphy. Throughout the times calligraphy has been inventing and reinventing itself and has influenced other forms of art.” Arabic script is quite beautiful.
In Colombia, the key to making fake money begins with good paper. “[C]hoice among counterfeiters is the $1 note. Through a bleaching process, the bill is washed of its ink, so that what remains is blank U.S. Treasury paper — the perfect texture and weight, the correctly colored microfibers embedded in the paper, everything but the paltry denomination.”
This American Life’s, Episode 1, in it’s entirety. Very Waxy
“Two meters in the wings and everybody leaps… The girls would race off the ramp in the second act and we’d have someone there to catch them and push them off to the side, a bit like a football or handball, so the girls didn’t go smashing into the wings.” The Sydney Opera House is due for a serious makeover.
Whoa Nellie! Concert Vault features 382 historic concerts and counting, iin their entirety. Rock on!
Are intelligent [magazine] designers are like gods? In Japan, maybe?
Mastering the operation of Heidelberg Windmill is not among the 16 things it takes most of us 50 years to learn. Via Kottke
“I often wonder who invented the box, or even if boxes could be invented… The box is not just an object, it is also a mathematical entity: a cube.” A box wants to be more than a box.
Vintage hotel luggage labels. 761 and counting. Via City of Sound
The Octonauts are a “crew of adorable animals who roam the ocean in search of adventure and fun! From their undersea “Octopod” base, the eight talented critters (including a valiant polar bear, daredevil kitten, and big-hearted penguin) are always ready to embark on new exciting missions.”
I have the habit of measuring everything in points. Hey, let’s stop measuring the screen with your pica rulers. From points to pixels. Convert, please.
Have you heard? Deep Woods Press, a letterpress printer from Mancelona, MI, is printing currency. Please, please tell me more.
The classic Saks Fifth Avenue, newly-revised. Subdivided onto sixty-four squares you get a kajillion combinations.
Always worth a revisit. An art bag laid bare — the pens, pencils, and brushes of a someone who loves to draw.
Just when you though India had disappeared, she tells us How and When to Wear a Tuxedo Wrapper for your books.
“Like so many other crafts in Indonesia, making wayang golek is a skill handed down through families. The master puppet-maker usually makes the head because it expresses the personality of the puppet. Ceremonies are performed before commencing a deity or a demon.”
“I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it’s a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life’s realities.” Dr. Seuss
We’ve launched a new food website, as if there aren’t enough. Our’s is called Whip & Grind. It’s “about sustenance and feeding the senses – dressed liberally with culinary musings and sorted pleasures of miscellany.” We hope you like it.
“Blackletter type is popular in Mexico because it communicates “tradition” unlike Roman type. It’s beautiful. Different. And that’s all that matters. Via Coudal
“Your red rubber ball is what grabs you by the soul. It’s what captures your imagination. It’s what you do when no one tells you what to do, when you’re alone in your room, on the playground or in your head. It’s what you daydream, and that dream can be come your life’s work… if you let it.” Commit to your passon
How to fold a stellated curved tetrahedron. One starts by folding a circle.
“Folding circles appears to have little history. There is no precedents, no references for folding the circle… Somewhere in the history of origami lies the circle, unrecognized and discarded.” Fold a circle.
Get rich by printing cookbooks on a table-top platen press. Best of luck to ya! Via BB
Small is the new big. Impress four people.
The amazing juggling finale. Start juggling today.
Garrison just say “No!” Via CP
The Observer Design “pattern defines an one-to-many dependency between a subject object and any number of observer objects so that when the subject object changes state, all its observer objects are notified and updated automatically.” Likewise, a Design Observer.
Recently off the press. Incredible graphic on how scientific paradigms relate and the solar 2007 Calendar — Once More Around the Sun (89k PDF).
Art on the web. 20,700 artists and counting. Thank you, Mr. Saatchi. Via Clusterflock
The crease pattern has become synonymous with modern orgami. Historically, origamists would follow a folding sequence. “Crease patterns, by contrast, provide a one-step connection from the unfolded square to the folded form, compressing hundreds of creases, and sometimes hours of folding, into a single diagram!” Maine lobster (PDF), anyone? Via BSN
Get an iPod cover for free. Upload. Print. Fold. Via iLounge
What is a Quaffer? “The Quaffer is a patented shot glass with a built-in chaser. It measures 2.25oz on the bottom and 1.25oz on top. You put any chaser in the bottom and any liquor on top. The liquids will stay separated until consumed.”
Learn faster, deeper, and better: Sleep on it. Listen to music. Tell stories. Collaborate. Learn by experience. Persist.
“During the 18th century, British caricaturists changed the shape of speechballoons from gothic speech-bands or flags into fluffy balloons, our modern speechballoons."
Amazing. The BlackMagic book “experience uses leading technology to tell the story of the America’s Cup… when people look through a handheld display at the pages of a normal book, animated virtual models leap out of the pages.
Aurora brand fruit labels via Flickr.
I support repurposing but this letterpress table of wooden type makes me cry.
Posh Plans for Urban Living — the Playboy Townhouse. Via City of Sound
“You can’t stop looking at things through your designer eyes. Everything you do is clouded by this thing that lives inside you.” What is it like living with design disease? “What does it make you do that other people don’t do? How does it affect you?”
Print your own origami paper.
Elegant Embellishments has developed “a decorative, three-dimensional architectural tile that can be installed quickly to reduce air pollution in urban environments.” Gorgeous and fun. Via D*S
To celebrate the renaissance in the world of crafts, Make has launched Craft magazine.
Hi-res scans of 1980 Coleco Games catalog. Football, anyone? Via AngieMcKaig
“When you open this special book all the characters and the background instantly pop up. Almost if as the world in the book suddenly turns into the real thing. Pop-up books do always surprise you and can lead you to a nostalgic and wonderful dream."
PG&E is spreading the word about how to make a city green. Let’s Green this City begins with San Francisco.
Clip/Stamp/Fold showcases the Radical Architecture of Little Magazines, 196x-197x. For example, the Whole Earth Catalog, Circus, and Earth Day.
Incredible bookcut sculptures: the snow queen, and Alice
The most understandable pie chart in the world.
The cathredral of Irish coffee in the U.S., “San Francisco’s Buena Vista Cafe, has abandoned its custom-blend whiskey in favor of an off-the-shelf alternative.” At 18,720 litres annually, this is no small move. However, the mystery’s gone.
Gorgeous 19th century Bavarian maps. Via CP
A few thousand science fiction magazines.
I love Porsche and their infographics. Say, how fast does that thing go?
“We Believe that clouds are unjustly maligned
and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them. We think that they are Nature’s poetry.” Join the the Cloud Appreciation Society.
“If your shoes are comfortable you’re not aware they’re on. If the water is pure you can’t taste it. Similarly when a chair is a perfect fit for your body, it becomes ‘invisible’ and you’re not aware of it at all.” — William Stumpf on buying a chair.
The eerily wonderful Deyrolle store is the taxidermists museum store come to life. Next stop Paris. Bon Jour mademoiselle!
I love them all. The fantastical unorthodox taxidermy of Dr. Seuss. Via Boing Boing
Birch & Bristlecone Press (Katherine Case and Carole Guizzetti) has created a “limited edition of letterpress printed calendars on really lovely papers, filled with poems, linoleum & wood cuts, drawings and photographs. This year’s theme is ‘trees and time.’” They love trees and paper! If you’d like one of these beauties e-mail Katherine {at} sfcb.org. Here’s a glance (PDF).
YEP is like iPhoto for PDFs. Macs only. Via dsng
The London Underground signs manual. (PDF)
“A strange gulf exists today between the worlds of design and advertising. That makes it easy to forget that one of the greatest designers that ever lived was an advertising art director: Doyle Dane Bernbach’s Helmut Krone.”
The Cannonball Press method of printing involves the following: “Preheat idea in Oven of Rock. Make sure color is off! Allow images to gestate and contort at will. When mysterious, funny or twisted, remove and slap on table. Add all ingredients, and beat and cut until smooth and hot. Do not add Fine Art at this point. Add master-printer, work him into a steady boil, edition. Throw Fine Art in trash.”
Muddling is an often ignored cocktail technique that makes Mojitos and Caipirinhas come alive with essence; Lime, mint, and lemon all spring to life. But how do you muddle? Bruise and press.
The infographic to end them all: The Art of Complex Problem Solving.
I’m left-handed so it’s only natural that I hold the composing stick in my left hand. (I like to think that there’s some DaVinci connection—composing backwards and from left-to-right.) What I don’t do is mouse goofy. Why does this seem unnatural?
Refreshing. JFP reminds us that letters are nothing without design. You have five minutes and one page. Sketch.
“... I will hop. I will wiggle my tail. I will deliver colorful eggs to the Masses and support a universal campaign of fluffy goodness and jellybeans for all. Hooray!!! Bunny Oath Typography. From Black Rock City, Burning Man 2006.
He’s “always deliberately long on facts, short on conclusions. He avoids paradox and all other forms of rhetorical cleverness, and he prefers anecdote to explanation.” What’s the mysterious appeal of Garrison Keillor? Via Snog Blog
Without moving to Montana, you can disappear. Let’s all say “superlens” and “negative refractive index.” “Now you see me, now you don’t.
Wonder Twin powers—in the form of a book! Here’s a simple book assembly photo-journal tutorial based on a variation of “sewing multiple signatures on tapes.” Translation: here are easy instructions on making a small picture book.
“Good typographers can think. If you can’t think you produce a lot of nonsense. Because in thinking you can delete the non-essential.” Let’s go to typography school!
“Standing silent and abandoned, a series of isolated and mysterious concrete structures line the south east coast of England. Known locally as ‘listening ears’, these structures, more properly called acoustic mirrors are vestiges from great inter-war acoustic experiments that took place in both England and France… [now there is] an attempt to re-invent this redundant technology for the 21st Century.” The Sound Mirrors Project reborn.
The Olive & Page 2006 Holiday cards are out. Adding to a season full or surprise and charm, these cards feature golden fleur-de-lis, a dancing couple, exuberant flourishes, and hills of green lace. Molly, simply wonderful!
Lighten up your day and dance.
Five simple steps to designing grid systems. Subdivide that ratio!
How can one resist the Lego ice cube tray?
A fine stash of design books.
The map of pathetic motorways or what might have been.
... all the virtues of the perfect wine-glass have a parallel in typography. There is the long, thin stem that obviates fingerprints on the bowl. Why? Because no cloud must come between your eyes and the fiery heart of the liquid. Are not the margins on book pages similarly meant to obviate the necessity of fingering the type-page? From The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should Be Invisible by Beatrice Warde.
The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun.
“During the late 1930s and early 1940s the prevalent sound recording apparatus was the wax disk cutter. As a consequence of the lack of materials in the war-time economy, some inventive sound hunters made their own experiments with new materials within their reach.” For example, jazz records out of discorded x-rays.
The talented art, illustration, and lettering of Ray Fenwick His weekly comic Hall of Best Knowledge has ended.
Haunted paper toys. Mwoohooooahahaha!
My name is German Bold Italic
I am a typeface
Which you haver never heard before
Which you have never seen before
I can complement you well
Especially in red
Extremely in green
Maybe in blue, blue, blue.
You will like my sense of style.
(from the 1998 collaboration between Kylie Minogue and Towa Tei)
The dashed line is many things: geometry, a path, expectation, ephemeral material. The dashed line in use.
“Graphics, and the style of lettering, the colors you use, everything ties in if you work it properly if you just have all white neon, and no shape, or excitement, no flashing, it’s probably the library.”—Betty Willis, 83, designer of the iconic “Welcome to FABULOUS Las Vegas” sign.
A nice tagline.
Ms. Lux “produces mesmerizing images of children who seem trapped between the 19th and 21st centuries, who don’t exist except in the magical realm of art.” Shadowless and willed into existence.
Alan’s Chu’s amazing Photographic Moon Book is intended for “serious lunar observations” and checking out recently purchased moon real estate. Note: The dark side of the moon was not available.
Das neue Fontbook ist da!. Der dicke Wälzer. (The tome of typography is out. Fontbook. 4th Edition.)
Charlie Boghosian is “one of the nation’s most esteemed and creative practitioners of extreme fair [fried] food.” Fried Coca-Cola? Via TMN
We love food. We love origami. Crane croutons for your salad? (In full formation.)
“Paper making is a science in the same way cooking is. You learn the rules, which are hardly ever solid, then you improvise and improve and make it your own.” How to Make Paper—a Flickr photo essay.
Helveti.ca pays homage to that “ubiquitous Swiss typeface.” [As a site] we have “nothing particularly exciting or innovative. But why not cover your walls with us?
Please wrap this for me. The Nice Package Pool, à la Flickr.
From South Africa, The Tale of How. Artistic. Wondrous. Beautiful. Via CPLuv
Aerial view of Burning Man, 2006.
Her sea is a voice that calls,
And her star a voice above,
And her wind a voice on her walls—
My cool, grey city of love.
—George Sterling
.
“On February 28th, 2002 95 photojournalists from 26 countries spread across the African continent for a 24-hour photo shoot. Their mission was to capture the day-to-day life of Africans.” Via Plep
Is beer a better match for cheese? I believe “A big stout, with lots of chocolate and black malts so that it hints of coffee, should be handle the the complexity of a well aged, still sharp Cheddar.”
Because it’s important to know how to pronounce Belgian beers. At least your favorites—Saison DuPont and Duvel.
New and improved. Directions on how to make a handbound book. Why? Because “pages last longer, lie flatter, and look better inside a handsome, durable hardcover.”
For fun: a rocket in space.
“Vibrant design insists that form perform. An emotion aesthetic, it exists on the notion that functional can be beautiful and beautiful can be functional.” Here are “six designers who infuse vibrancy into everything they create.”
Unclear on Latin cocktails? Try Caipirinha, a Brazilian drink, which contains cachaça, a spirit from sugar cane. Then again, a Mojito, Caipirissma, or Kentucky Mojito serve up well too. If you’re in SF, try Absinthe’s Caipirinha. Delicious!
We Feel Fine: explores human emotion on a global scale,” in six movements. Via Bit 101
Design Beck’s next album cover. Here’s The Information. Via Protein
Amazing photos of an atomic blast. Exposure: 1/100,000,000th of-a-second. Lens length: 10 feet. Distance from subject: 7 miles. Via Yew Knee
Der Kernbereich von Papierflieger (ein Projekt des Lufthafen Institute) das Portal zu den Bauanleitungen der besten und attraktivsten Flugzeuge. Jedes Modell ist mehrfach getestet; sie fliegen wirklich alle ganz wunderbar.” Unsere Riesenfledermaus, ein Gleiter mit unverwechselbarer Silhouette.
“Yesterday as I was lamenting the shift in vision at the Met, I overlooked the one thing that can stop them all. No matter the diamond wattage of the glitter audience, soon enough the chandeliers dim and the golden curtain rises, and as the orchestra prepares the silver platter, the veiled soprano opens her mouth. Watch as everything else around her wilts at her slightest breath.”
Are you beautiful enough to survive? Cannabis—Who does it really hurt? Can your paper be greener? Who knew?
“We’ve collaborated with five leading designers to create 10 ways: interactive experiences that explore what makes visual language so powerful, and where it can take us.” Via Jens Franke
What? Bang! Why isn’t this in more use? Vik’s wonderful interrobang.
“While opera is habitually performed in a foreign language, or, if in English, by those who have not the art of making their words intelligible, there will always be a demand for books that tell the story more clearly than is to be found in the doggerel translations of the libretti, unless audiences return with one accord to the attitude of the amateurs of former days, who paid not the slightest attention to the plot of the piece, provided only that their favourite singers were taking part.” The Opera by R.A. Streatfeild. 1908. (Opera fans this way.)
I repeat. Sometimes forget those we love. How to Write a Thank You. Via RB
The horn in the wood looks like an “outsized flower reaching up through the trees” and amplifies the sound of drops of falling water “only played by nature. It relies on… the existence of the planet… cycles of the season, the weather and the landscape.” Nature speaks and it’s of beauty.
Levi’s Red Wire DLX + iPod. Dance! Baby, dance! Per Jens Franke
Give your fish a better view of the world with a FishLoft. Considerably better than bags of betas. Keep away from cats. Via Wide Angle
“A mesure qu’on approchait, l’île semblait sortir grandissante du sein de la mer; et, à travers l’atmosphère limpide des derniers rayons du jour, on distinguait, comme les boulets dans un arsenal, cet amoncellement de rochers empilés les uns sur les autres, et dans les interstices desquels on voyait rougir des bruyères et verdir les arbres…” L’île de Monte-Cristo, le mythe et la réalité.
Holy maps Batman! The Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Libary is online. It includes over 200,000 historic maps and 5,000 atlases. Featured exhibit: Journeys of the Imagination. Via Cartography
Come in and relax. Via Design Taxi
“Yesterday I came across a truly gorgeous book of photographs by Candida Höfer titled, Libraries, a title which pretty much says it all, because that is just exactly what it is, one rich, sumptuous, photo of a library interior after another. It’s like porn for book nerds.” This is Red-Hot and Filthy Library Smut.
The ready-to-print Exotic Origami Fortune Teller. Via Cyn-C
Fresh out for fall. Ampersand, the quarterly journal of the PCBA, has published its Fall 2006 edition.
“Not long ago a friend and I ordered a couple of Peroni beers in an Italian restaurant. The bottles that turned up moments later bore no relation to the usual Peroni Nastro Azzurro (blue ribbon) bottles that we expected. True it said ‘Peroni’ on the label, but the typography was all wrong… ‘How do we know it’s the real thing?’ he complained.”
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.
“If you take thumb wrestling serious like I do then you’ll be needing some championships belts (available here PDF) to adorn and wear proudly after a game hard won. I’ve also included a secret tip that will hopefully not throw the game…should we ever meet + duel.”
Turn your Flickr pics into mini business cards. 100 different cards—$20. Sweet!
How many hours a week do you spend on being creative? Honor your creative impulse and practice it everyday.
The art of Suzanne Husky.
Oribots (fold > robot = oribot) are “not able to reconfigure themselves, or reproduce, or have any effect on the world other than being beautiful. Their nature is in their crease patterns… the pattern of folds, is the core of their being.” Via Turbulence
“The challenge was to create a design for the book that would express that simplicity and finesse, while creating a book that was actually practical and would stand up to the equestrian environment.” Christopher Bray on his award-winning book design for “The Barbier Dressage Training Companion,” by Dominique Barbier.
The New York City Subway Smell Map is created by Gawker reader reports as experienced throughout the New York subway system.
Beer + table = Beertable. Via Grow a Brain
On Saturday, Sept. 16, the San Francisco Center for the Book (SFCB) hosts its third annual block party, Roadworks: Steamroller Prints. Linocut prints are inked and pressed by a two ton steamroller. Now, that’s serious pressure. Via Olive & Page
The NYC garden rooftop and porch. Sweet. Via Rebecca Blood
If in London, check out the icon design trail 2006. It lists the 100 best events taking place in the city during Design Week—September 18-24.
The Utter Zoo Alphabet by Edward Gorey. Grazie To Drown a Rose
The photographic periodic table. “The images originate from a dedicated library of over a 1000 element samples.” Via Infosthetics
A simple tutorial on how to make a journal. Very complete instructions. Via A One, and a Two
Brother Mozart and the Freemason’s opera—The Magic Flute. Complete with serpents.
New and classic Los Angeles architecture. The Chemosphere, Pasadena City Hall, Venice Beach—the Baywatch Tower, the Hollywood sign, Wright’s Sturges House, and the Beehive.
The best excuse EVER for speeding.
Wow! Six years and 2356 photos later. Everyday by Noah Kalina.
Visit Moving Galleries, the “travelling exhibition of art and poetry celebrating Melbourne life.” It’s “thought-provoking,” quirky and accessible. And learn how to Rooku.
Flying on an Airplane. Rule No. 28: Never drop your iPod down the loo. This is what may ensue. Via Mirabilis
“Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization.” An illustrated chronology of innovations by Michael Friendly and Daniel J. Denis. Via Kircher Society
“By taking a poll of the addicts, it was easy to see their ranks included gentle blood and unlicked cubs, gentlemen and gaberlunzies, kitchen mechanics and knights of the kid glove, overlords and underlings, big bugs and plain bugs, rajahs from Russian Hill.” Read about the San Francisco Opera’s first performance. Via The Standing Room
Always handy, printable paper rulers.
An alphabetic trip between the largest cities in the world.
Ampersand Duck walks us through a book rebinding effort. Part I and Part II.
Garrison Frost interviews Notes from the Road’s Erik Gauger.
Arranging books by color is perfect for private libraries. For novelty purpose only.
Memory is the diary that we all carry about with us.—Oscar Wilde
Say “No!” to 72 dpi.
Pop Scratch is ever aware of the unexposed image.
These Japanese artists have “invented a wonderful twist on the light-painting technique,” add multiple frames to produce a short animation.” See magical animated long-exposure photographs.
Incredible shot of San Francisco after the great 1906 Fire and Earthquake.
OnNYTurf is a great mashup of the NYC subway.
Aerial view of the canals of Venice.
“One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”—Oliver Wendell Holmes
Confessions of a Bookplate Junkie.
When designing a book, it all begins with a castoff. “This means figuring out a way to fit enough words on a page so that the book comes out to the number of pages that were budgeted for.”
Typography posters by graphic design students at VCC. Via Authentic Boredom
The politically incorrect alphabet is not all that. “Sometimes it’s subtle: ‘Lion’ looks OK at first glance, but remember animals in circuses are a PC no-no.” Via CP
The Canada Post reveals a commemorative stamp celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the GDC. It features a “beaver made out of type forms” from the typeface Cartier. Via GDB
Write and self-publish. Jeffrey Yamaguchi from 52 Projects reveals.
For what it’s worth. Christopher Kimball meets the Twinkie Man. Via Pin.Monkey.Press
“A few weeks ago, a local tagger put graffiti all over a billboard that hangs over a stretch of Pacific Coast Highway that I drive to work every day…. [I call it] billboard improvement.”
When you take your first letterpress class at the Center (SF Center for the Book), this is what it’s like.
“To do something well you have to like it. That idea is not exactly novel. We’ve got it down to four words: ‘Do what you love.’ But it’s not enough just to tell people that. Doing what you love is complicated.” How to Do What You Love.
Notes from the Road suggests we save the crabs. I concur.
This experiment attempts to convert the first 10,000 digits of pi into a musical sequence. (Select notes. Turn up the volume. Leave for lunch.)
“The creation of a comic strip is an arduous and seldom-rewarding task. Sweat, blood, tears, ink and occasionally urine must combine in a subtle alchemy on the illustrative page, by necessity ripping creative gashes in the artist’s soul that only sting more greatly with the acrid tang of exposure to the public consciousness.” The Making of Wondermark, an illustrated weekly jocularity. Parts I, II, and III. Via Yew Knee
Fearsome, and fun things to make with a printer. Paper toys!
In action—the world’s largest Lego brickwave.
“Summer drinks should be like summer evenings: long, light and cool… [here] are some less common ones to enliven our senses during these wonderful long hot days.”
Create naturalistic languages or non-naturalistic languages with the language construction kit. With these “linguistically sound methods for creating naturalistic languages” they can also be “reversed to create non-naturalistic languages.” Please, no A-to-A conversations.
The key to making perfect lemonade are equal proportions of sugar syrup, water and lemon juice.
The Yew Knee Summer Mix series is out in full swing. Download. Enjoy.
From around the world (France, Spain, and Italy), the beautiful graffiti of Eltono & Nuria. Via The Stingy Scholar
99 Rooms is a “unique project that interweaves wall painting, photography, animation and sound.” It stems “from the mystical, often apolocalyptically charming pictures created by Berlin artist Kim Köster within the countless vacated premises of East Berlin‘s industrial sector.”
Get the Party Pro College Edition for your iPod. Included are drink recipes, a “bar and club guide for every major city” and drinking games.
It’s almost too much. Hey. Let’s make a religious pamphlet using Steve Jobs’ career to convert people. (PDF available).
The guide to graphics and web design based on the principles of Edward Tufte. Via Mavromatic
Encyclopedia Maxima was the monumental 15-century Chinese work that contained “everything worth knowing.”
Bring art to the people: that is what Walter Crane, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Albert Hahn, Frans Masereel and Gerd Arntz wanted to do. To reach an audience that would never visit a museum and contribute to social change.
Parallel Realities in London. +/- 300,000 people.
A flickr photoset on “how to paint anything the color of the Golden Gate Bridge.”
From Computer Arts, 50 ways to becoming a better designer: Use a sketchbook. Keep it simple. Collaborate. Justify your actions. Manage expectations.
The guide to making Polaroid Transfers.
“It’s entirely possible that one can travel faster during rush hour from south Redondo Beach to Malibu—crossing the entire Los Angeles basin—by sailboat than by car … Sailing to work.”
Instructions on how to make a fiber optic star ceiling. Wicked.
How to buy diamonds. Love. Listen. 20 things everyone needs to know.
“Today’s printed pieces do not have the aura of communication they once represented. It’s not hard to see the differences and the gradual lowering of typographical standards that stem from the demise of the typography industry. Many of today’s printed pieces suffer from some typographical deterioration. [There was an] era when typographers were indispensable to the design and production process.” Not so long ago typographers were kings.
Blue Barnhouse is sporting new signage. Sweet!
Here’s precisely what you need to know in order to make a Moleskine notebook, or any book for that matter. Afterwards, hack it into a planner. Easier yet, add custom pages when assembling signatures.
The architecture of the Fight Club represented in Lego.
The Rainy Planet Press Blog is from a tiny press Somerville, Mass.
Ampersand, the quarterly journal of the PCBA, has published its Summer 2006 edition.
All about Tiki mugs. Ooga-Mooga. Yeah. Ooga-Mooga. Via Plep
“For me the luxuries are necessities and the necessities are luxuries.”—Oscar Wilde
Backbreaker, a typeface, “was made at the beach of Zandvoort aan Zee in The Netherlands.”
The Getting Things Done, Resource Edition.
“Bio Mapping is a research project which explores new ways that we as individuals can make use of the information we can gather about our own bodies… this project envisages new tools that allows people to selectively share and interpret their own bio data.”
“Yerka’s art brims with echoes of the famous surreal artists of the past, Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Brueghel to Salvador Dali and René Magritte.” Via Cyn-C
Visual side notes on GTD. Via Typephases.
“I went to the South of France recently, to visit my Aunt Helene. She’s getting on now. When she was still a relatively young woman she gave up her typographic practice and moved to a retirement village, the Home for the Disappointed on the little island of San Serife, in the Mediterranean. The people in Bembo, the only town on the island, are mainly employed in the printing and publishing industries, so she feels at home there. Aunt Helene has her own cottage, with a garden out the back: she calls it the Garden of Type.”
Manufacturer’s labels from old steamer trunks. Many type references. Via CP
Cicadas are the sounds of summer. Via John Maeda
After 50 years, Cody’s in Berkeley closes it door. (I loved their typography section.) Via Waxy
A page for graphic designers by David Carson.
Thirty views of Southern California.
The excellent El Manual de diseño digital is now in English. Muchas gracias Typephases
Advice for incoming RISD GD graduate students: “Be prepared to do 1 all-nighter a week. Learn how to bind a *#$% book. Go analog…how often are you going to run across a letterpress studio with a polymer-plate machine?”
Good to know. Bindery requirements and folding impositions.
For your next speech, check out the JavaScript teleprompter. Easy. Nifty. Free.
Covers from the How and Why Wonder book series.
Believe it or not. Cherubs know how to set type and print.. Taken from The Pentateuch of Printing. Via From Old Books
“The most powerful type and design tools in the world are the pencil and the pen…” An interview with Robert Bringhurst (author of The Elements of Typographic Style).
You are the music while the music lasts. —T.S. Eliot
“For off peak, I found myself searching for magic and longing for innocence in the Wisconsin Dells: a place I had always dreamed of visiting—as every child growing up in the Midwest does.” Via MCP
There’s no need to look for the juicer. Sanguinella, un progetto di Matteo Pini.
Found lettering in the San Francisco Bay Area. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
“My aim is to blend shape, construction and material into visual perfect unity, resulting in products that radiates a self evident quality.” —Charlotte van der Waals
Design perfection. “To find the desired local time turn the clock so that the city representing that time zone is on top.” Thank you CV.
Gourmet coffee and fairer trade. “I find a coffee I love, build a direct relationship with the grower and then pay at least 25 percent above Fair Trade.” Gourmet coffee and more money for growers. Really wonderful. Via Aldo Coffee
Study seventy-five years worth of menus and maybe you can become a menu magician. Via Xplane
It’s all about bento.
If you have any vintage punch cards strewn about, why not make computer card window shades for your fabulous abode?
The ever-so-helpful guide to envelope and letter folding. Learn the Florentine fold and more.
“When ooohing and ahhhing at the brilliant colors and surprising patterns of a fireworks display, you might take a moment to admire the awesome display of chemistry and physics.” and make a sparkler too.
A sensible hack for anyone with an iPod and Moleskine.
Forget paper, let’s print on wood. (Think Scrabble.)
Feasting on two great food groups—inspiration and feedback—No Media Kings serves up the definitive how-to on silkscreening posters and shirts.
How to open a coconut. Via Cynical-C
Dining Restriction Management (aka DRM) is on the rise as Bay Area chefs attempt to ring in the rampant variations of their prized recipes. Expect this in the near future: Vauge menus. No cookbooks. Lots of secret sauces. And blindfolds to guard restaurant secrets. Not to be left out and fearing starvation, hungry hoards of people have created a “recipe-swapping black market.”
For the great drinks, fresh herbs rock. This weekend, plant a cocktail garden. Here’s what you need: spearmint, basil, thyme, rosemary, tarragon, sage, and cilantro. Green thumbs not required.
Tried and tested. A 19 bottle taste test of Prosecco. Via Slashfood
“Embrace the summer: come to terms with your local ice cream truck chime, and admit that you crave—nay, require—its catchy 20 second hook on glorious infinite repeat for maximum seasonal enjoyment.” Via Waxy
Need a jolt? Visit the caffeine database for maximum caffeine intake.
Museé Virtuel de l’Absinthe. Via Shopiere
“In 1969 George Perec wrote the lipogrammatic novel La Disparition. The letter e was never used in this book. Later it was translated into english by Gilbert Adair. Still without using the letter e.” By Mogens Jacobson, two fonts that only contain the letter e. Via Guerrilla Innovation.
The oh-so useful origami box doubles as a Pressman’s Hat. Learn via PDF or video.
“Technical imperfection is undoubtedly part of the character of ‘Fell’ in print. The pieces of type differ in height to an extent that horrifies a type-founder and tries the patience of a machine manager; their faces are not horizontal, many are not struck at the correct angle with the vertical. By employing modern techniques it would be possible to put these things right, but so far nobody dares propose it; too much of the evident difference between Fell and other types would be lost.” Herewith, the Fell Types.
Sit down. Relax. Hurry up and do nothing.
Enjoyable. Read about the letterpress adventures of Jason Santa Maria. Via CP
People with normal vision fail the reverse-color blindness test.
“The letter, drawn in ink, is not permanent; It is organic, kinetic. It bleeds and fades. It seems the natural course for an historical body. The digital hand too is not manifest permanence but it does forever house the potential for permanence. Let’s roust the Florentine body.
Lessons learned in Gocco. Otherwise, known as the Print Gocco tutorial.
Thingmagoops exist because “there are not nearly enough beeping, zapping, bixxerfouping, anthropomorphic synthesizer monsters in the world.” Action.
For summer: an origami water bomb.
Origami models sorted by difficulty. And cool modular ones.
Virtually everything one needs to know about pinhole photography.
Classic Vogue covers. With typographical variations. 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Via Coudal
Real time positions of ships in the San Francisco Bay. Via Shopiere
From the University of Buffalo: pre-Prohibition ads of psychotropic substances. Via Folderol
Designs submitted to the Swiss National Bank for a banknote design competition.
Pure beauty. This chaise bench is begging you to lounge.
Murray Moss’s design mantra: “Every day it has to be like it’s opening night…I buy things that interest me. I put things with other things to communicate the narrative. Every day we change something or we decide to leave it the way it is. I can’t let people get tired.”
How to make homemade thin mint cookies.
Phil Vettel reveals how to eat like a pro. For starters. Eat on Wednesdays. Chat up your waiter. Want a great table? Date hunks/babes.
After adding Goose Island’s Matilda to my list of Belgian beers, I discovered this list of spicy Belgians to try. Duvel is my long-time favorite.
To peel a potato in one shot requires ice water. Here’s the video.
Size guide to the elements of a formal invitation.
Les règles de typographie française.
Benjamin Franklin’s “Art of Virtue” makes a great business plan.
Japanese patterns for graphics, inspired by manga and washi paper.
The elusive Turkish map fold, step-by-step.
Learn Japanese with your iPod.
This is not a magazine is like the internet on paper and tells us that everything will be OK. 330 artworks—take a look see.
“Some of the questions I often ask myself while creating are: How does typography “behaves” in different situations? What do letters “do” when they are happy? How do they “look” when they are shy? How will a letter “act” when it is slapped, Kissed..?” ‘Biotypography’ is the name I called the idea of a typography based on biology. Via Slanted
The history of Prosecco.
Mustard now comes in dozens of varieties. Why has ketchup stayed the same?
Researches have concluded that coffee make you more open to persuasion as it “revs up the brain.”
Brief history of caviar in the U.S. Via Edible SF
In 2006, the UN banned caviar exports. Iran’s exemption from this ban continues.
The Orange Julius of yore and how to make one, with some discussion on the magic white powder.
If all you have are ramekins in the cupboard, then try the following for scrumptious eats: Appetizer: Hot crab ramekin. Entré: Lobster soufflé. Dessert: Dark chocolate soufflé. Definitely delectable.
Waking up properly in Spain requires a Cafe Cortado and a Rosquilla.
Heidi Swanson’s fab site—101 Cookbooks gives us the lowdown on how to create your own cookbook. It’s not as easy as one would think. Bullet-proofing recipes is tedious.
Tidbits. The government has approved titanium dioxide-coated mica-based pearlescent pigments for consumption. Via Obsession with Food
The “Shoestring Addition” used to be a suburb of L.A.; star maps were popular, and L.A. was small. Discover the history of L.A. through L.O.C. exhibit—Los Angeles Mapped. Via Designorati
The history and fundamentals of cheating at cards.
Worth reading again. Be your own [and best] client. By JC (the other one).
I hate ITC Garamond. I love Sabon.
Mr. Minton is out to redefine the coastline with his shoreline vectors. Thank you! Via Designorati
How to photograph sunrises and sunsets. Via SoupNazi
The Art of the Can: Red Bull Style.
A short history of graphic design.
One thousand numbers equals one thousand paintings. “Each number is unique.” Paintings sold to date: 551 553.
Not so common ligatures, especially this one. Via Letritas, a new Chilean blog on typography.
Designing Type, by Karen Cheng, is an exceptional and very technical book about type design. Hands-down, this is one of THE books on type that should be close at hand. It compares what’s to be expected—serif, sans serif, lower and upper case, numbers, and punctuation, and special characters from about twenty different typefaces. And not the same ones each time. She also ponders and I too: “What is Mozart had been a punchcutter—rather than a composer?”
From the Met, a Timeline of Art History. Thanks Rodcorp
The Museum of Unworkable Devices celebrates “fascinating devices that don’t work.” The laws of nature. Pffft! No failure is too big to overcome.
From LEGO, here’s how to make a parabolic listening device. “And remember: knowledge is everything – keep your secret recordings safe. Alpha Team Agents scramble!”
A reference site on ink corrosion. Plus a how-to on making ink. Nifty. Thanks CP
Is there a mobile theatre near you?
If you can’t decide where to eat in NYC. Use the Taste of NY Subway System method. Board any line and disembark. Restaurants listed are within 200 meters of the station.
Angels on Horseback, is the poetic name for oysters en brochette, or skewered oysters wrapped in bacon. How could you possibly go wrong with oysters and bacon?
Ice bucket in my lefthand. Ice tongs in my right. It’s time to chew ice. Via Andre Torrez
Molecular mixologists unite. Two Parts Vodka, a Twist of Science Thanks Rebecca
The guide to making a perfect cup of coffee. Or for the uninitiated—cowboy coffee.
With ice cream season in full bloom, I couldn’t resist making ginger ice cream with Balsamic caramel sauce. Next, asperges glacé avec fraises coulis balsamique.
When you have to sing for your supper, feel free to belt out a tune. Via To Drown a Rose
Who can resist when fresh berries are in season? Berry Napoleon with Grand Marnier sabayon. Yum.
“He who doesn’t risk never gets to drink champagne.”—Russian proverb.
Proceed with caution. Run up a wall and flip.
Cem Bora and Claudia Herke have designed fashion footballs for the 2006 World Cup. Each design reflects the cultures and clichés of each country. 1. 2. 3. Via Core77
Aesthetic systems are “designed, capable of generating objects, rather than individual objects themselves.” (What?) A contemporary perspective by artist Lee Walton. Via SpeakUp via CP
Informational graphic on the array of screen resolutions with which we are confronted. Via Speak Up
Would you like to visit an imaginary city? Take photographs of something that isn’t? With Mis-Guide you can. “Take guidebooks from one place and use them in another.” Via Rodcorp
How to build your own “Dance Dance Revolution arcade-style metal pad. Version 1. Version 2. Once complete, it can be used as a study and fitness tool too. Let’s dance baby!
Mulysa’s plant of the day blog. For today, one of my faves Fritillaria lanceolata. Via Bara+Design
Look no further than the Museum of Bad Album Covers to find the worst album covers ever!
Classical music is alive and well.
More than a kiss. Do NOT repeat. To tell if an item was letterpressed look for a very slight indentation of the image into the paper. Yikes!
The Premiere Issues project documents first issues. And it provides “an index and reference guide to…magazines we love, collect, subscribe to and read. Via Design Observer
The future of book arts? Clifton Meador, discusses the marginalization of “artists’ books” and the future of artists’ books as a practice in The Small Pond (PDF: 1.8mb). Further reading: Journal of Artists’ Books.
Where all the rooms are above average.
An excellent tutorial on making clamshell boxes for your burgeoning/declining book collection.
Found typography in the San Francisco Bay Area. 1123 and counting. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
“When George Bernard Shaw died in 1950, his will provided for the development of a new alphabet for the English language, an alphabet of at least forty letters that could be used to write English without all the oddities of our traditional spelling.” Herein, the part of the /JAbDwykI (Jabberwocky) spelled in Shaw:
twuz brilig, n H slFHI tOvz
did gFD n gimbal in H wEb;
Yl mimzI wx H bPagOvz,
n H mOm rATs QtgrEb.
bIwX H /JAbDwyk, mF sun!
H JYz HAt bFt, H klYz HAt kAc!
bIwX H /JubJub bxd, n Sun
H frMmWs /bAndDsnAc!
Wow! Emigre has a new look. Hmm. View typefaces by style.
In 2002, “Gez Fry decided, that he wants to make a living out of Japanese style illustration.” Studying the masters, he entered the market within 2 years. Here are some of his comments about how he draws, develops characters and why the Japanese Manga market is so tough.
How to win something from the Claw Machine.
Squid Labs is a dream factory. They make “stuff for a market of one.” If you could make anything you wanted, what would it be?
Stop talking and start writing. Here are a few simple things you can do to jumpstart your writing.
Pochoir is a “sweet stencil antiqua typeface with round and thick serifs. It was inspired by street art that first appeared in 1980s Paris. Note: This stencil has ligatures. Via Slanted
Ampersand Duck gives us a quick lesson on page layout and type imposition.
From one girl printer Down Under: What’s more fun than moving presses? Having to move them again in six weeks.
The Sledgehammer Workout is one of the best workouts in the world. “Take a sledgehammer and wrap an old sweater around it. This is your “shovelglove.” Every week day morning, set a timer for 14 minutes. Use the shovelglove to perform shoveling, butter churning, and wood chopping motions until the timer goes off. Stop. Rest on weekends and holidays.”
SevenQuestions is based on the idea that almost everyone has an interesting story to tell—if someone would ask.” Why does JK blog?
Learn to play Crokinole the truly Canadian game—it’s curling for fingers.
China has a rich history of drinking. Delve into the Grandiose Survey of Chinese Alcoholic Drinks and Beverages and discover Chinese drinking etiquette, ways to urge your guests to drink more during feasts, and other drinking chants like this Zhuang one:
“A tin-pot full of alcoholic liquor shining.
Present it to you with my honesty.
Beg you to take it in with your pleasure.
Urge you to drink more as I worship gods.
A white china bowl full of alcoholic liquor shining.
Present it to you, please no refusing.
Although the drink not so tasteful and fragrant.
I urge you to drink with my true affection.
I’ll consider you as a god if you have half the drink.”
Drinking vessels from Bolivia, the Hermitage, and the Getty.
How to set type in a circle and the Joy of Handsetting Type.
The Type Museum is closing and all I got was this lousy reading list (PDF: 167k). Via Kottke
“Simple things invigorate and inspire me: a nice stack of folded linens; the color of the ocean when it touches the sand; a good piece of crusty bread with sharp cheese. each day, I live to breathe in every experience and appreciate all of the small pleasures in life.” For more beauty, become a member of The Card Society. Via CP
The Photo Book Guide “aims to show the history of photography reflected through the photo book. [It] celebrates…history by presenting a web survey of landmark photobooks.” Via xPlane
Creative procrastination is good. Via xBlog
Timeline of Trends and Events. Does not include any historical notation of this word. Via Urban Honking
The guide to eating guilt-free fish is great for the health-conscious. However, to make a sustainable choice, the Seafood Watch by the Monterey Bay Aquarium is tops.
Meg, if you’d like to know about bluefish...
iScratch (beta) like a DJ using iPod’s touch wheel.
What’s your favorite Seinfeld episode? Mine’s the Soup Nazi. Lay hold—every Seinfeld script.
The Bugatti configurator is nifty as all get up. I’m a little short, though. Via What Do I Know
“Even if you hate the French, you’ll love this suave font.” Here’s Fleur de Wee, a dingbat font, by Christian Ghirardi.
Rickety, rackety. The Rollercoaster Database has “statistics on over 1800 roller coasters throughout the world.”
Un fiore cresce ad Alphabet City (watchout PDF). Via To Drown a Rose
We love field tested books and reading lists. Summer begins now.
Museum tours are getting better because of the ease of podcasting. The PEZ Museum was the first museum podcast.
Variations on a theme. The “i” in iPod stands for inspiration.
It isn’t just luck. Probabilities in the game of Monopoly.
The mechanics of paper airplanes.
Typography for website headlines . Via Waxy
Pjotro is the man with the musical suit.
Cookie Monster Searches Deep Within Himself and Asks: Is Me Really Monster? Via Veer
Do you have dreams of flying?
For your loved one—stock up on Viagra. Compared with Sprite and vodka, flowers treated with Viagra last longer. They’re perkier and erect for up to twice as long Via Cynical-C
Megnut has switched her site entirely to food. I’m looking forward to many worthwhile reads. (Meg, I’m still looking for that lost champagne article from the NYT.)
The Linatree Dirkon camera. is about the sweetest looking pinhole camera that I’ve ever seen. Crank up the printers. Here’s the guide for your very own.
Letterpress folks don’t read this: here’s a great technique to making short-run business-cards.
There are things one can make out of makeready.
Making custom bookcloth is simple. Print onto any fabric and use kraft or archival paper for the backing.
“I would say typography is very different. It is less of a circus act, or none at all.” Gerard Unger is not the typical type.
To do right by design means... Thanks Eris!
Believe it. Type Radio has over 200 interviews about type.
102 movies you must see before... Via RB
“Un très bon film réalisé par Christoph Frutiger & Christine Kopp qui retrace” la vie d’Adrian Frutiger.
What’s a swift? Swifts are journeymen compositors that excelled at setting type by hand. In the nineteenth-century, they travelled the country like golfers and became working class heroes. Hence, “swift marginalia.” Via The Oak City Press.
“Simplicity is an exact medium between too little and too much.”—Sir Joshua Reynolds (As quoted in the Typographic Journal, 1923). Via the Olive Route
Something for nothing? Visit the Free Culture AudioBook Project.
Homemade pickled relish from the Zuni Café Cookbook.
A DIY book. And ready for retail.
180 miles equals less than two hours of driving pleasure in this.
Where’s my spork? Feeding Desire: Design and the Tools of the Table.
