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Month: October 2009

Missed Things: Tuesday

Thesis Project — Mikey Burton’s illustrative reinterpretations of classic book covers for junior-high-school students. Mikey’s more recent work, including gig posters for Wilco, is also awesome.

The Writer’s Reader — Michael Silverblatt, the endlessly enthusiastic host of KCRW radioshow Bookworm, profiled in O, The Oprah Magazine (via TEV).

We Are The Friction seen at The BCA, Design Work LifeSwissMiss and others. Sing Statistics, the “collaborative concern” of designer Jez Burrows and illustrator Lizzy Stewart, and publisher of We Are The Friction, also has a great Flickr photostream (and there are images of the book launch at Edinburgh’s Analogue Books on the shop’s Flickr photostream).

It Isn’t Rocket Science — Makenna Goodman, formerly an assistant to an unpleasant sounding literary agent in New York, talks about her move to rural Vermont and happier times with publisher Chelsea Green in the Huffington Post.

Intelligent Eclecticism — Steven Heller on the groundbreaking illustrated covers used for Time‘s “soft-cover book club” throughout the 1960’s:

Eclecticism was a viable and intelligent decision. While consistent design for a series of related books makes good strategic sense, these books were bound together by the editors’ judgment. Designing them as separate entities — avoiding the impression of formulaic repetition — made the most sense for the book club but also for the artists and designers who created them. Each cover (indeed each book) had a unique integrity that raised the standard of the genre while showcasing the creators’ artistic strengths.

And finally…

On the subject of vintage book design and great illustrations, be sure to take a look at Martin Klasch blogger P-E Fronning’s set of Swedish book covers on Flickr.

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Missed Things: Monday

I was talking about Romek Marber right before I left the building, so it seems appropriate to get things started with him too…

In an extract from a new book called Penguin by Illustrators, the Creative Review reprints the full text of the presentation made by Marber to the Penguin Collectors Society in 2007:

Much has been made of the grid; it has even been labelled ‘the Marber grid’. I believe that the pictures for the initial twenty covers, played an important part in forging the identity of the Crime series. The grid was important as the rational element of control. The consistency of the pictures contributed, as much as the grid, to the unity of the covers, and the dark shadowy photography gave the covers a feel of crime.

And on a related note, idsgn profiles Gill Sans, the ‘Helvetica of England’ which was used by Edward Young on the early Penguin paperbacks (Marber switched to Akzidenz Grotesk if memory serves…).

Coaxing — Ron Charles, Deputy Editor of the Washington Post’s Book World, interviewed in Bookslut:

The number of books keeps rising, as far as I can tell. The number of readers is stable or stagnant or even declining. When you look at the amount of space we spend covering television… I’m not criticizing my own paper, I’m criticizing my own industry. Who needs help watching TV? Reviews of television shows, I shake my head; I can figure out if I want to watch The Office or Curb Your Enthusiasm all by myself. But help me find a good novel, in this enormous stack of books at the book store. That’s a real service.

You can also follow (the surprisingly candid) Ron Charles on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Publishing Trends looks at Book Reviews, Revamped.

Correspondence — Eric Hanson, author of A Book of Ages, commemorates the 60th anniversary of the letter that inspired the lovely 84, Charing Cross Road (via The Second Pass).

If any of you haven’t read 84 Charing Cross Road, please go do so now…

The Billy bookcase turns 30 — Lucy Mangan celebrates in The Guardian.

And lastly…

I’ve linked here before on several occasions, but I just wanted to mention the all around awesomeness that is A Journey Round My Skull. Recent posts include BLICKFANG — The Eye-Catching Covers of Weimar Berlin and Thirty More Book Covers From Poland.

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Reasons to be Cheerful

 

They’re here and I’m back — officially one year older, and a father of two. Mum and the twins, born a week before my birthday, are doing well.

The new Raincoast website is close to being on schedule (thanks to Monique at Boxcar, Al, Tony, Jamie and Siobhan at Raincoast HQ) and daily coffee consumption — while still exceptionally high — is back to a more sustainable level. I still have that grid for Amazon to do though…

But back to the Optimist business: I missed a lot of great stuff while I was away, so expect posts every day this week (starting Monday) as I try to catch up. The interviews with book designers will hopefully return in November.

Thanks to Mark for the pep talk a couple of weeks ago, and thanks to the people who emailed and left comments while I was away.

It’s nice to be back.

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