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Published November 18, 2009

Midweek Miscellany, November 18th, 2009

Lusting After Lustig — Designers Charles Brock and Tim Green share their collection at FaceOut Books.

While Amazon announced the Kindle will be available in Canada this week, The New York Times looks at reading on phones:

Many people who want to read electronic books are discovering that they can do so on the smartphones that are already in their pockets — bringing a whole new meaning to “phone book.” And they like that they can save the $250 to $350 that they would otherwise spend on yet another gadget.

No. Shit.

But, on the subject of e-books… Steve Haber, the president of Sony’s digital reading division, talks to TechFlash (via TeleRead).

A History of 16 Science Fiction Classics, Told In Book Covers at i09 (including the brilliant cover for A Clockwork Orange pictured above and yet more covers for 1984).

A Winter’s Tale — Ali Smith (The Accidental) on The True Deceiver by Finnish author Tove Jannson, creator of the Moomins:

If the Moomins are Jansson’s most celebrated legacy – a community of inventive, big-nosed, good-natured beings who survive, again and again, the storms and existentialism of a dark Scandinavian winter through simply being mild, kind, inclusive and philosophical – what will happen when a real community is put in its place? What will the outcome be when Jansson tackles, naturalistically, the life of a tiny hamlet in a dark, wintry landscape – and in a book so close to real local life that the original Swedish publication carried a disclaimer saying it was in no way based on any real place, nor its characters on anybody living?

You had me at “existentialism of a dark Scandinavian winter.”

The Genius — The awesome Tom Gauld interviewed at It’s Nice That. Limited edition letterpress prints of Tom’s Characters for an Epic Tale are available now.

And finally…

UnderConsideration’s Brand New looks at the new logo for The New York Public Library (via Daily Discoveries on Design)

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Published August 26, 2009

Midweek Miscellany, August 26th, 2009

Black Jackets — The mighty Peter Mendelsund is giving away all of Osamu Tezuka’s Black Jack manga series in return for some assistance designing the next cover.

Take That! And That! And That! — Sony, having recently announced a pocket-sized reader and their switch to the ePub format, have now unveiled a new wireless electronic book reader with a 7-inch touch screen.

And on a related note, E-Reads tries to unpack some of the complex issues around Sony, ePub, and DRM.

Typedia — much linked to elsewhere (causing a severe strain on their servers earlier this week), Typedia is “a community website to classify typefaces and educate people about them.” I have no idea what I might use it for, but it looks pretty neat. You can also follow them on Twitter.

On the subject of typography, check out The Alphabetography Project, a photography blog cataloging found letters of the alphabet.

And hell, why not take a look June Corley’s charming typographic sculptures while you’re at it (via The Daily Heller and pictured below)…

Board — Also much linked to elsewhere, the New York Observer‘s Leon Neyfakh looks at three new hardcover books designed without dust jackets. It’s not exactly “the new thing” — more a case of the mainstream catching up with indies perhaps (and a light news day) — but there are still some interesting comments about book design:

Most of the publishers experimenting with jacketless hardcovers, including Viking, FSG, and Graywolf, are consciously taking their cues from the folks at McSweeney’s, who have been putting out beautiful books designed in this style for years. For Eli Horowitz, the managing editor at McSweeney’s, the method is a means of restoring some of the permanence and singularity to the book as object.

From the Design Desk — Designer Suzanne LaGasa talks about the cover design process at Chronicle Books.  (Full disclosure: Chronicle are distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books, my employer).

Big Comics — reviewsnthings asks notable comic artists, writers, publishers, editors and the like “what’s your opinion of the term ‘Graphic Novel’?” stirring up some interesting reactions. Here’s Leigh Walton, comics editor, and Top Shelf’s marketing coordinator, for example:

I find it intensely frustrating, in the sense that I can’t fully support it and I can’t fully dismiss it. Great minds have worked for ages to invent a better term, and they’ve failed. Its shortcomings are obvious — it’s based on a term, ‘novel,’ which has specific requirements of length and content, and it can never replace ‘comics’ as a general term for the medium… Yet ‘comic book’ was reserved ages ago for a format that isn’t really very booklike at all.

Mixtape — Robin McConnell is compiling cartoonists’ playlists for Inkstuds (the radio show about comic books), including Love and Rockets legend Jaime Hernandez.

And lastly, something for the fanboys to argue over: The Top 70 Most Iconic Marvel Comic Panels. (via LinkMachineGo)

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Published August 19, 2009

Midweek Miscellany, August 19th, 2009

‘The 100 Best Comic Book Covers’ Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 at Kelly Thompson’s 1979 Semi-Finalist blog. I am not a comics nerd (believe that if you will), but there’s some great stuff (new and old) in this epic list…

Open to Question — The New York Times reports on Sony’s decision adopt the “open standard” ePub format for all their digital books. This means that “books bought from Sony’s online store will be readable not just on its own device but on the growing constellation of other readers that support ePub”. Progress of sorts I would say, but before you break out the bunting, David Rothman questions how “open” this format actually is at TeleRead.

Book Design on Twitter — Ben at the Book Cover Archive has posted a list of book designers who Tweet.

Ben’s list was also a nice reminder to mention  Jennifer Tribe‘s amazing directory of book industry people on Twitter.

Book Worship —  Shawn Hazen’s blog cataloging “graphically interesting, but otherwise uncollectible, books that entered and exited bookstores quietly in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.” Lovely (via Book Cover Archive blog).

Penguin Symbols — I know I just mentioned designer David Pearson’s Flickr the other day, but how fantastic is this? “An investigation by Production Manager Hans Schmoller into the origins and usage of Penguin devices”

And speaking of Penguin…

Covers And That — Jim Stoddart, Art Director of Penguin Press, discusses their book cover process and looks at some of the new covers for book released this month:

Each cover may face a wide range of hurdles and conflicting opinions, this is the very nature of book covers. Good designers tend to be very focussed and resiliant, and the value of a good sense of humour cannot be underestimated. As with most design jobs there is a balance of concept, craftsmanship and time dexterity required. Any number of changes to the brief may occur even once the design is finished. But in Penguin Press it is widely appreciated that the more a cover is ‘tweaked’ by a committee the less chance there is of retaining that original spark that we all know helps a book stand out in a world where thousands of books are vying for attention.

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