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Something for the Weekend

Traditional/Digital — An interview with book designer Sara Wood at nonslick (via Henry):

I’ve always used a variety of media, but my stand-by tools are my pencil (lately I’ve been using grease pencils as well), trace paper, my scanner, and a small library of textures that I bring into Photoshop. My work is most definitely a traditional/digital Frankenbaby. I like juxtapositions of smooth against rough, of lines that are refined against those that are just a little bit more spontaneous, and bringing my physical drawings into Photoshop gives me a great deal of flexibility for exploring that.

Literary Immersion — Writer and über-litblogger Maud Newton featured at From The Desks Of

For several years, Twain has been my standby when I’m really stuck.  I read him and remember that if I’m bored by what I’m writing, the reader will be, too. Basically, he reminds me to entertain myself first, and to assume that if I feel like what I’m writing is bullshit, the reader will see right through it.

The Colour of Cthulhu — Rick Poynor at Design Observer on the difficulty of visually realizing the work of H. P. Lovecraft:

Lovecraft has always posed a problem for anyone trying to turn the writer’s nightmares into visual imagery. The stories’ peculiar pleasure lies in the fully developed mythology that interconnects them, and in the morbidly refined vocabulary Lovecraft uses to evoke cosmic horrors too awful to describe, monstrous things from out of space and time too unfathomable to name, treading a fine line between an exquisitely apt descriptive style and embarrassingly purple prose. Lovecraft’s warped psychology and aberrant obsessions are best savored within the limitlessly accommodating theater of your own imagination. The risk with any attempt to make his spectral inventions literal and solid is that they will just look silly.

And finally…

Some amazing vintage book cover designs from the 1940’s and 50’s by Spanish designer and illustrator Manolo Prieto (via Words and Eggs):