An interview with the talented Allison Colpoys, book designer at Penguin Books Australia, at The Design Files.
Particular Beasts — A brief interview with art director John Gall about teaching book design:
Each book is its own particular beast that has to be designed from the ground up. Every designer has their own way of looking at the problem and coming up with a solution. It can’t help but be personal on some level.
A Twist, Flourish or Quirk — Louise Fili and Steven Heller, authors of Scripts: Elegant Lettering from Design’s Golden Age, on script typefaces at Design Observer:
During the letterpress era [script typefaces] were in such great demand that many people “invented” them, and many others copied them. In some commercial printing shops, composing cases filled with scripts were stacked floor to ceiling to the exclusion of other type. Printers routinely amassed multiple styles of the heavy metal type fonts, each possessing a distinct twist, flourish or quirk, used to inject the hint of personality or dash of character to quotidian printed pieces… Scripts signaled propriety, suggested authority yet also exuded status and a bourgeois aesthetic. The wealthy classes couldn’t get enough fashionable scripts in their diet.
The Pilot Fish and The Whale — David Carr, media columnist at the New York Times, talks about the documentary Page One: Inside The New York Times with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin for Interview Magazine:
I think one of the things that Page One does an amazing job of demonstrating is the importance of editors. You can see our editor, Bruce Headlam, shaping, arguing, pushing back. Of course, that’s what you don’t have a lot of in the blogosphere. There is nobody pushing people to support what they’re saying, nobody arguing against the assumptions that are brought to the table…
Slow Journalism — An interview with cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco (Footnotes in Gaza) for the A.V. Club:
[I]t’s one of the slowest art forms or media there is. You know, there’s fast food and there’s the slow food movement; I guess this is slow journalism. It just forces you into it. It’s difficult for me because I love being in the field, so to speak. I love that day-to-day thrill of being in places, and the great privilege of meeting people and going into their homes and seeing what their lives are like. I love that. But when you compare how much time is spent reporting to how much time is spent at a desk just writing and drawing, the reporting is a fraction. That’s just the way it is.
And finally…
Sing Out — Dorian Lynskey, author of 33 Revolutions per Minute, recommends five books about protest songs. The cover of 33 Revolutions per Minute was designed by Jacob Covey.