Hyperactivitypography from A to Z — An activity book for typographers (in a lovely retro style) by Norwegian design agency Studio 3. You can flip through the book here.

Life As Lived — Author Sarah Bakewell (How To Live) kicks off a 7-part series on Montaigne in The Guardian:

What is it to be a human being, he wondered? Why do other people behave as they do? Why do I behave as I do? He watched his neighbours, his colleagues, even his cat and dog, and looked deeply into himself as well. He tried to record what it felt like to be angry, or exhilarated, or vain, or bad-tempered, or embarrassed, or lustful. Or to drift in and out of consciousness, in a half-dream. Or to feel bored with your responsibilities. Or to love someone. Or to have a brilliant idea… but forget it before you can get back to write it down…

And also in The Guardian…

Alternatives — Tom Lamont asks designers why book covers look different from territory to territory:

Why don’t publishers, then, replicate covers that have been a success abroad? “It does happen but it’s quite rare,” says [Julian] Humphries [art director, Fourth Estate]. Megan Wilson, an art director at Knopf Doubleday in New York, says that American designers are sometimes asked to look at British jackets, “as an example of something that works or doesn’t, but we are rarely asked to use them directly”. [Nathan] Burton tries to avoid looking at alternative covers if he’s working on a book that’s already been published. “It can take you off on odd tangents. It’s always best to work from fresh.”

Great. But, please, can we declare a journalistic moratorium on  “judge a book by its cover” headlines?

“We are your platform” — Richard Nash, formerly of Soft Skull, talks about his new start-up Cursor at The Literary Platform. There’s something about this that reminds me of Factory Records in good ways and bad…

A Question of Audience — With Julie Bosman taking over the publishing beat at the NY Times from Motoko Rich, Sarah Weinman breaks down what kinds of book and publishing stories appear in North American newspapers:

I’ve become increasingly aware the longer I’ve written about publishing for a business news site that some stories that are big news within the industry carry little relevance outside of publishing circles. That means certain news items I pay attention to and analyze to death via Twitter… won’t merit larger stories. It also means that certain topics that are discussed endlessly in the publishing bubble (especially the digerati-populated one), while relevant to the outside world, have to be written about in a way that might come off as eye-rolling rehash.

I think Sarah’s being charitable here. Many of the topics discussed endlessly in the publishing bubble and the Twittercosm have absolutely no relevance to, or perceivable impact on, the outside world…

Undercover Icon — A New York Times profile of Irving Harper, the man behind many of George Nelson Associates‘ iconic designs (via The Scout):

“I don’t have a complex mind,” Harper said, and if this assertion seems disarming coming from a designer of his sophistication, the thought is sincere… “With a computer there are too many choices, and I always liked working within limits,” he said. “You know, if you look at Mozart, who had this strict classical framework — an allegro, an andante, a scherzo and a finale — you see that within that formula, he got results he might never have gotten if he had all the options in the world.”

There is more on Harper in a Metropolis Magazine profile from 2001, and a monograph of his paper sculptures by Michael Maharam is apparently on the way (if anyone has details please let me know).