Thee Almighty & Insane Chicago Gang Business Cards from the 1970s & 1980s is a wonderful journey into the dark realm of 70s & 80s Chicago gang vernacular. Mostly these were created on DIY machines in print shops, and hand amended or even fully hand…
So it’s been a long time since I posted, and have a backlog for sure, but I had to get these up. I recently picked up two books from Atelier Éditions and they are such beautifully crafted books. They both look amazing but not only…
I picked up a few editions of U&lc from Matt Lamont and he also had this 1957 Penrose Annual - Volume 51. It may be a little dog eared but I could not resist it. The cover was enough but then Matt shared some of…
I’ve had this a while and finally gotten around to posting it. Mostly because there’s so much of it! AZTDR or A-Z of The Designers Republic is a vast body of work from the Sheffield duo. Chocked full of commercial, personal, political, cultural and random…
I Declare a Permanent State of Happiness is a stunning piece by Kenneth Goldsmith produced by Urtext, under the imprint Eris (originally listed under Marginalia). As with others in the Marginalia series, it’s a type of meta writing. Goldsmith takes 60(ish) pages of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s…
On a visit to Portland I popped into a great little fashion/design boutique called Johan (as I can never resist anything Scandi sounding). I got chatting with the owner and found out she’d spent time in Malmö and Lund - small world. Then it got…
I haven’t posted much recently (been busy on this: 23 Years in the Making. But here’s a quick overview of what’s I’ve acquired this year. Some of which I’ve had time to post about, others I will hopefully get to post on in the new…
To my shame, I only discovered Sister Corita Kent in the last few years. I came across her through her work with John Cage and the brilliant 10 Rules they created for the Immaculate Heart College Art Department. Last year SF MoMa featured some of…
Before you pounce on me for the title, I know he wasn't the first ever person to practice the various crafts that make up graphic design. But William Addison Dwiggins was exceptionally talented in all things graphic design - illustration, typography, book design, calligraphy, layout, advertising,…
What seems like a very long time ago I sponsored the Lance Wyman Visual Diaries project on Kickstarter. Another amazing and ambitious project from Unit Editions. Yesterday the swag arrived, and boy was it worth the wait. The pack included; a boxed version of Lance…
Arrived back from a long weekend and this little beauty was waiting for me: Action Time Vision, #002 in Unit Edition's Archive Series. I'd almost forgot that I'd ordered it! I'm loving the books being put out by Unit Editions (Tony Brook, Patricia Finegan and Adrian Shaughnessy), and can't…
Octothorpe Interrobang A few weeks back I saw a tweet featuring a pic of the octothorpe or hash symbol, from Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols and Other Typographic Marks by Keith Houston. It looked exquisite and I couldn't resist grabbing a copy of the…
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…
A great treat arrived today. It's an in depth look at the work of FHK Henrion, one of the most influential graphic designers in British design history. It's from Unit Editions and it's absolutely gorgeous. Not only is does it have a beautiful cloth bound,…
I've had this fantastic book for a while, but I haven't been able to do it justice when it comes to photographing it. So I'm putting up anyway as it's too good to leave off this blog. Cartographies of Time: A History of the Timeline by…
Recently I visited McSweeney's in their office on Valencia in San Francisco. They share a space in the building that used to be home to the rather magical little book/art store Little Otsu. They have since moved to Portland, but it reminded me of this…
Picked up this lovely little gem, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School by Matthew Frederick. Each spread is a single idea, technique or concept. Great illustrations and wise words throughout. I really love the board cover and binding. Another nice touch is the numbering and the…
This wonderful little design artefact was created by the late, great Ian Noble. It's self published and I believe was created for his Masters work at Brighton. Part puzzle and part intellectual exercise - it's a lovely design object. One of the things I love about it…
Over Christmas I've been rummaging through several boxes of books and paper ephemera stored in the cellar. One of my finds is this edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, beautifully illustrated by Tove Jansson (the Moomins). It's from the Delacorte Press in 1978, however the illustrations…
View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize I found this in a second hand bookshop many years ago. Although it's rather battered and all the guilt…
Superb book and exhibition covering contemporary Arab art, architecture and culture at Louisiana Museum, Denmark. The exhibition was truly inspiring with some amazing and very diverse pieces (more here: http://en.louisiana.dk/exhibition/arab-contemporary ). As always the graphic design around the exhibition was excellent and the accompanying book is…
Continuing my two of kind theme, I've just received my copies of Visual Complexity and The Book of Trees both by Manuel Lima. If you're a fan of Edward Tufte or just into information graphics and data visualisation, you'll love both of these. There's a…
My wife and I have always been fans of J Otto Seibold. We have many of the books he illustrated with Vivian Walsh and a great poster for Penguin Dreams. So we couldn't resist this Olive the Other Reindeer Popup advent calendar.
So the visit to Louisiana Art Museum in Denmark was as inspiring as always. Not only a great exhibition catalog (Arktis) but also a fantastic range of accompanying books. I could't resist Printed Maps of Scandinavia and the Arctic 1482-1601 by William B. Ginsberg . This is…
Just got hold of Forgotten Bookmarks by Michael Popek and it's full of wonderful little insights into people's book lives. These wonderful juxtapositions between the book and bookmark are fascinating, whether it's the subject or context each creates it's own narrative. The book is based on his blog…
Christien Meindertsma: PIG 05049 by Christien Meindertsma I've been after a copy of this book for a while. The idea of tracking all the 'uses' of an animal in the modern industrialised food chain was just too fascinating and macabre to miss out on. The book…
Spacesuit, Fashioning Apollo by Nicholas de Monchaux I saw a review of this fascinating book over at Maria Popova's Brain Pickings and I couldn't resist getting a copy. It's a wonderful account of how the ingenuity Playtex trumped the established military contractors in the race…
Notations 21 by Theresa Sauer, from Mark Batty Publisher. I was really excited to get this in the mail, I'd seen a few blog posts and it looked great. I'm lucky enough to have a couple of issues of Source Magazine which first sparked an interest…
Picked up a copy of The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects by John Tingey (http://www.papress.com/html/book.details.page.tpl?isbn=9781568988726). Yet another beautifully designed book from Princeton Architectural Press. Hats off to the designer Deb Wood for the great typography and managing to capture that essential 'englishness' in…
From the minute I saw Tree of Codes by Jonathan Safran Foer over at http://www.fastcodesign.com I wanted a copy. This notion of the book as both object and narrative is such a hook for me. Call me shallow, call me a sucker I don't care I…
I've been a long time fan of Glen Duncan ever since I was lucky enough to read the prerelease of Hope whilst working at Penguin. It's something about the way he gets under the skin and reveals that dark male psyche that we all try…
Exercices de Style by Raymond Queneau. This has to be one of my most treasured books. What makes this so special is again collaboration. This time between the author (Raymond Queneau), the designer (Robert Massin) and the illustrator (Jacques Carelman). This edition published by Gallimard…
Atlas Press are a small(ish) publishing house that specialize in avant garde literature. If it's Oulipian, 'pataphysics, Dada or Expressionist these guys are likely to publish it. I first found out about them when I discovered George Perec and the OuLiPo, and through their books…
Here's another 'flip it round to read the other half' style book. This one is the brilliant I Seem to be a Verb by the legendary R. Buckminster Fuller. One of those magical social/utopianist paper backs from the end of the '60s. It's designed by Quentin…
A few years back I saw some of Sam Winston's work at a Courtauld Institute show. He's London based and I really love his work, it ticks all the right boxes for me - language, literature, words, typography, process, patterns, story telling and humour. Last…