Letterform Archive - tables of pure delight

Murray GM November 26, 2017

I'm often visiting the Letterform Archive just after they've put on a visit for this or that design team or artist or historian. So I get to see the 'table' that's been put together for them. Sometimes these reflect specific themes or ideas the visitor has requested other times it's more of a 'greatest hits' or simply reflects what the person running the session loves the most.

Last time I was there, the table was a particularly eclectic and fascinating collection of items.

First things to catch my eye were the editions of Design and Paper, and especially this from Ladislav Sutnar about catalogue design.

Then I spotted the visual sumptuousness of the city books from Red Fox Press. These beautiful objects are a real feast for the senses. Fantastic use of materials, combined with glorious screen printed colour make them true objects of desire. The three shown are Tokyo, Berlin and Paris and each uses a different visual vernacular from the cities as the creative approach. The Berlin book is from 2014/15 and is printed on Korean cattle feed bags by the design pair Franticham (FRANCIS VAN MAELE & ANTIC-HAM).

As I continued to make my way around the table I started to see more and more combinatorial design artefacts, including Queneau's Cent mille milliards de poèmes and 'the book that's could be made'— Jonathan Safran Foer's Tree of Codes as well as many other experimental formats. There were a few personal favourites, like the semaphore cover of Typografische Monatsblätter and this beautiful typographic deconstruction on trace.

But these incredible re-imaginings of classic fairy tales by Warja Lavater from Adrien Maeght were a wonderful surprise. Each one reworks a fairy tale through illustration, half visualisation, half illustrative storytelling. These first 2 pics below are from Little Red Riding Hood and even include a legend - wonderful idea and there's a box set to boot!

Wonderful way to spend the end of the day. And of course there were plenty of historical letterforms out too.

Seasonal paper art from Diptyque

Murray GM December 17, 2016

Mostly I tend to avoid promotional christmas giveaways, but this one from Diptyque is beautiful. It's a paper based theatre set, consisting of one pop up 3d theatre scene and a second stand up theatre where you can change the scenes - with 9 story cards telling the tale of "Une Nuit Chez Diptyque".

It's by illustrator Pierre-Marie Agin (pierremarie.fr) and it's a truly lavish piece of paper art. The foiling and embossing are wonderful and the completeness of the piece, right down to the bag and matchbox make it rather special.

Wild Forever by Gary Taxali

Murray GM December 30, 2015

I've been toying with getting a Gary Taxali print for a long time, no idea what held me back. Anyway I finally grabbed Wild Forever for Katrina for Christmas as it fits her perfectly.

The illustration was originally commissioned by The New York Times' for a tribute to the great Maurice Sendak, upon his death in 2012. It's a fantastic print, large (19.3″ x 24″), richly coloured and will look stunning on the wall (alas we will need to find a new home with enough walls first).

Up until now the only other Taxali piece we had was a very small postcard and catalogue from his 300 show (I posted the card and cover back in 2010). I think what I love the most about his work is the layering and texture. All the rubber stamp, overprinting and notation really hits the spot for me, especially when combined with the commercial colours and cartooning.

Here's a little more from the 300 catalogue:

Check out his work here: http://www.garytaxali.com/

Beautiful illustrations by Moonassi for Maison Kitsuné

Murray GM December 28, 2015

Last year I bought a wonderful t-shirt by Maison Kitsuné. I fell in love with it the moment I saw it. It's from Kitsuné's K.I.M collection and has a marvellous fox/woman illustration on the front by the Korean artist Moonassi (Daehyun Kim). However, Santa brought me a fabulous gift this year, three limited edition prints from the Kitsuné collection by Moonassi. Can't wait to get these framed!

Moonassi for Kitsuné 1

Moonassi for Kitsuné 2

Moonassi for Kitsuné 3

More about the Kitsuné collection here (on Bustle) and here (Maison Kitsuné)

Moonassi's website

The ever so Fine Art of Abuse - NSFW

Murray GM December 7, 2015

Firstly, this will offend a lot of people out there, especially those that are sensitive to items with more colourful language. If you regularly use the phrase 'potty mouth' I suggest you leave this page immediately.

I've backed a few Kickstarter books, and this has to be my favourite so far. Mostly because I can't imagine a publisher ever have the balls to put this out. The most surprising thing about this fabulous book full of Mr Bingo's spectacularly foul mouthed (yet somehow poignant) postcards is the production quality. It's gorgeous!! From the cloth bound with a foil embossed cover of an octopus giving you the V sign, through to the card bookmark, dedication and 'Hall of Twats' section for the backers. Also had best postage label, pretty sure it set off a few flags coming through international post to the US. On top of that it's a hefty tome, a good inch and half thick - best postcard book ever. Added bonus for the Kickstarter campaign was the 'dedication' and this print:

Some of the 'crap postcards' and Mr Bingo vitriol are sublime and some of the insults are truly horrifying (see Fat Jimmy Saville below). Why does this exist? Why did people pay for these insults? I'm not sure, but I'm so pleased they did. But as for Mr Bingo's rationale here's how he introduces the project:

I love post and I'm worried that people don't get enough 'fun' post these days.
Especially postcards.
So I had an idea. It's very simple.
You send me fifty quid (plus postage) and I'll send you a vintage postcard with a
drawing and an offensive message on it. (that's why it's called 'Hate mail').
So you get an original signed drawing, the postman get's a laugh and the world
get's a little bit happier.

I was in a quandary about posting images from the book as the individuals who 'requested' or at least received a piece of Mr Bingo's hate mail have their names and addresses shown on all the postcards. Of course any postcard publicly displays the name and address of the recipient and I think they knew what they were getting in to.

In the images below I've chosen to blur/edit/crop out as much of the personal information as possible, so at least I'm not publishing their names and addresses on the web.

Hate Mail: The Definitive Collection by Mr Bingo is brilliant. It's foul mouth, irreverent and puerile, and a fantastic addition to my library. It will sit proudly on my bookshelf next to A Decade in the Shit House by Modern Toss.

Grab a copy from Mr Bingo: http://www.mr-bingo.org.uk/