The stunningly beautiful book design work of FBA, a graphic design consultancy based in Coimbra, Portugal, seen at Cosa Visuales.
The Cosa Visuales post also introduced me to Spined, the design blog of Spanish graphic designer Álex Durana. Worth a look.
Wall of Sound — Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker and author of The Rest is Noise and Listen to This, talks about his workspace at From The Desks Of…
My study is stereotypically overstuffed with books and CDs. On the desk I keep well-thumbed reference works—the Chicago Manual of Style, Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, and Paul Griffiths’s Penguin Companion to Classical Music—together with two books that my spirits when sagging: the Wallace Stevens collection Palm at the End of the Mind and William James’s The Varieties of Religious Experience. I leaf through Stevens in search of a fresh word or rhythm I can apply somewhere on the page: for me, he’s the supreme magician of the modern English language. I look to James for philosophical guidance—he shows the way out of ideological traps and abysses.
Also of interest: Designer Jarrod Taylor, shares an annotated photo of his desk in the art department of HarperCollins, New York.
But speaking of The New Yorker… James Surowiecki on what we can learn from procrastination:
The idea of the divided self, though discomfiting to some, can be liberating in practical terms, because it encourages you to stop thinking about procrastination as something you can beat by just trying harder. Instead, we should rely on what Joseph Heath and Joel Anderson, in their essay in “The Thief of Time,” call “the extended will”—external tools and techniques to help the parts of our selves that want to work. A classic illustration of the extended will at work is Ulysses’ decision to have his men bind him to the mast of his ship. Ulysses knows that when he hears the Sirens he will be too weak to resist steering the ship onto the rocks in pursuit of them, so he has his men bind him, thereby forcing him to adhere to his long-term aims. Similarly, Thomas Schelling once said that he would be willing to pay extra in advance for a hotel room without a television in it.
And finally…
Jackasses and pirate-loving Monkeys — Author and illustrator Lane Smith talks (apparently to himself) about the charming It’s a Book (via The Second Pass):
Comments closedI like arranging and rearranging books on my bookshelves. In other words, I am a nerd.
Not to say that I’m not excited by the new technologies and reading devices introduced (it seems) nearly every month, I am. But I’m sure on some level I’ll always be a traditional book guy. Then again I’m the kind of guy who still watches silent movies and listens to vinyl.
Unlike Grandpa (me), today’s kids are whip smart and tech savvy. I know eventually everything will be digital and kids won’t even know from a regular old book book and that’s fine. Truthfully? The reason I made the book? Certainly not to “throw down the gauntlet” as one critic has stated. Naw, I just thought digital vs. traditional made for a funny premise.