Jardin de la Connaissance — Berlin-based landscape architect Thilo Folkerts and artist Rodney Latourelle used 40,000 reclaimed books to create a ‘Garden of Knowledge’ for the 11th International Garden Festival in Grand-Métis, Quebec (via Kitsune Noir).
A History of Print Culture — Assistant Professor of Media Culture, C.W. Anderson, provides his annotated syllabus for a print history course at CUNY in The Atlantic (thx Jamie):
The primary goal of this class is to teach students about the culture of “print media” in an era when that culture is being joined (and in some cases, overtaken) by a culture that we might variously call digital culture, online culture, or the culture of the web. What does “print” mean in our digital age? And what does “culture,” mean, for that matter? By culture I mean something that is not reducible to “economics,” “technology,” “politics,” or “organizations” — although culture emerges out of the nexus of these different factors, and others. In other words, I want to disabuse my students of the notion that new technologies or new economic arrangements can create digital or print culture in the same way that a cue ball hits a billiard ball on a pool table.
Also in The Atlantic… 10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books by Timothy Carmody.
Knowledgeable Criticism — An interesting interview with Fred Brooks, computer scientist and author of The Mythical Man-Month, for Wired magazine:
Great design does not come from great processes; it comes from great designers… The critical thing about the design process is to identify your scarcest resource. Despite what you may think, that very often is not money.
And finally…
When You Don’t Know You Are Breaking the Rules… Eli Horowitz, managing editor of McSweeney’s, interviewed for Scotland on Sunday (via the indefatigable Largehearted Boy):
At the heart of McSweeney’s success is the huge amount of care and attention which goes into producing each book, ensuring that the jacket design and layout complement the words inside the covers. Though Horowitz believes there is a McSweeney’s aesthetic he is struggling to put into words what it is. “There’s a notion of old-fashioned story-telling and a compelling plot combined with an innovative literary impulse – when we’ve had those ingredients that’s when we’ve done our best works.”