Ace Jet 170

TDL

Maybe I'm wrong but I suspect that, when it comes to The Designer's Republic, you may be either a lover or a hater. Perhaps you either embrace their self-indulgent creativity or repel against the pomposity of it all. What's the big idea? You could ask.

Al gave me this album the other week. Not a particlular fan of the artist, he lifted the sleeve just because of its cover. And snapped it up after realising its creators.

I'll be frank: I don't fall into the first TDR camp; I'm not a lover. But…now time has passed and their impact has proliferated; and as I've grown as a designer and come to understand the importance of the agitators on the business of graphic design as a whole; I can see this kind of work in a different light.

If you were to scrutinise this album sleeve you'd discover all sorts of self-indulgencies that have very little to do with the musician's work inside: Pantone references, units of measure, holes that interact with what lies beneath. You might say, distrations. Flagrant disrespect for the true purpose of the album sleeve which surely should reflect the musician's artistry, not the graphic designer's.

And yet I can't help feel the celebration of the sleeve as an artefact, especially now we're so many years on (this album was released in 1999) and the format has become a thing of the past*, makes for an exciting experience. I think, had I picked this sleeve up forteen years ago, it might have annoyed me; seeing it now it just makes me smile. It's of a time. It's more like art now, which is perhaps how it was always intended to be.

 

* I say this because although vinyl is, obviously, still made and sleeve art still laboured, the format's place in the world has changed.

Re-post: Rabbet

[From July 2012]

My dad made this rabbet plane. It's for cutting rebates in wood. Rabbet/Rebate? I can't find any explanation but you have to wonder about that name? A dialectic thing? Or just because it's got that sticky-up bit and reminds you of a rabbit. Well, actually, it doesn't really does it? If it wasn't for the name, you wouldn't think, "looks like a rabbit that does" would you? I've had a dig around but no one on the internet seems to want to talk about it.

I suppose it doesn't matter really. What matters is that this beautiful piece of routed hardwood, with it's decades old construction marks and wear was used to carve grooves and recesses into machined wood. Say for, oh I don't know, perhaps for a glazing bar where it makes provision for the insertion of the pane of glass or to accommodate the edge of a cabinet's back panel or for a casement window jamb or for shiplap planking.

[Much later]

Oh, the word "rabbet" is from the Old French "rabbat" meaning "a recess into a wall".

West South Central

Just before I went all quiet Elizabeth, in Texas, very kindly sent me a package packed full of road maps from her part of the world. And then I went quiet. It was months ago. If you're still with me Elizabeth: I must apologise for this ridiculous delay — life has just been getting in the way. The photographs have been sitting in this blog post, waiting for some words, since way before the summer. Great cartographics. Many thanks for sending them and I hope your move went well.

Re-post: Het Trio van het Rode Kruis

I'm going to try something for a while and see if it gets annoying. There's a load of stuff back there in the Ace Jet Archive. I love going through it every now and then. Like these superb Dutch stamps. Well worth re-visiting. Well, I think so anyway.

Winning Post

I don't know if anyone remembers but a while back Michael Russem from the Kat Ran Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sent me the rather marvellous Eric Gill, Notes on Postage Stamps that revealed (well, OK, maybe just hinted at) Gill's fundamentally bad attitude to the commissions presented to him.

Michael's done it again. This time sending Postage Stamps by AIGA Medalists. It's a fascinating review of some of the most interesting winners from the last hundred years or so. It includes such luminaries as Lucian Bernhard, Dwiggins, Lester Beall, a collaborative set involving Herb Lubalin, Josef Albers, Armin Hofman, a stunner from Thomas Geismar, my personal favourite from Herbert Bayer…the list goes on…Chermayeff, Glaser, Bass.

29

We ate a lot of mackeral over the summer. Way back at the end of July Noah and I climbed aboard Quinton Nelson's Motor Boat, The Brothers, and ventured out from Donaghadee Harbour to pit our combined wits against a shoal of the slippery silver blighters. And just like lasts year's more corporate expedition our superior intelect won out bagging twenty nine. Quinton's fish tracking sonar might have played a small part too I guess.

The adventure was recorded on Instagram in more pictorial (and gory) detail. A surprising aspect of the trip though was the spooky mist that discended upon our return to shore, at the time I wrote, "…It made the water inky black and shrouded the few boats moored by the jetty in grey cloud so their colours seemed more vivid than normal". The photos below capture it to a certain extent…and there's a few more on Flickr.

What Not To Do On A Date…etc.

Hidden for fifty years, over one hundred examples of pamphlet cover art from Ireland's Catholic Truth Society are brought together between the covers of Vintage Values, a new book from Veritas Publications in Dublin.

Printed between 1920 and 1960 the pamphlets covered the essential, thorny issues of the day like, "Should my daughter be a nun.", "Modesty and Modernity", how "Nobody Loves a Tease" (nobody!) and the moral dilemma of how to respond should one find oneself in the company of The Wishing Gnome. And let's face it, who hasn't? Bloody wishing gnomes.

If that wasn't enough the CTS considered it their spiritual duty to protect their kind even further, publishing instructions outlining the correct way to respond to a Jehovah Witness, when he or she comes a'knocking at your door, how to survive when an agnostic moves to your village and what happens when Sister Felicitas wins a bicycle.

Find out more about Vintage Values, and buy the book, postcard or poster here.

Peake District

The latest book of Nigel Peake's labourious drawings is a story book. In The Dark is a sombre story although it's not until you get to the very end of the book (unless you've cheated and taken a sneaky peek) that a rather subtle explanation is suggested; the drawings (and I presume the narrative) were completed over two consecutive winters; one spent in Austria and the other in Switzerland.

The story takes a boy on a slightly spooky journey through and beyond the woods; a journey that leads, ultimately, to an enlightening experience (I won't spoil it for you). But there's a bleakness to the story and the monochrome drawings that, perhaps, is not surprising given the regions in which the story was rendered…or maybe that's just Peake for you. Either way, having only enjoyed Peake's art before, it's great to see written narrative joining his linework. 

King

I See The Promised Land is the graphic-novelisation of the life of Martin Luther King JR and is published by South Indian independent press Tara Books. With prose from African American writer and griot Arthur Flowers and beautifully illustrated by Patua scroll artist Manu Chitrakar, the comic-like format does nothing to undermine this harrowing account of the Civil Rights Movement's rise.

In fact, the colliding traditions – the relatively modern graphic novel format and the ancient African form of oral storytelling – bring the story to life in a way that feels new and relevant.

Found Type Friday #102

Forgotten summer type. From that day in Italy when we took the train from Lucca to Florence and we all sat down in our seats and Karen turned to me and said, "I'm feeling a bit peckish", expecting me to pull out a snack when in fact I hadn't earlier shouted, from one to room to another, that, "yes, I have packed the crackers", but had in fact said, "yes, I have packed the plasters", and we all looked at each other and our four stomachs rumbled in unison as the train rattled along the tracks – the city and its snacks an hour or so ahead of us. 

Rumble, rattle, rumble, rattle.

Library Rules

The new library in Birmingham opened in September. It looks pretty good. Loads of photos here. And there's a thing from BBC Radio 4 here featuring the architect. The old one (pictured here) was famously described by Prince Charles as looking more like a place to burn books than read them. I can remember loving that place. It felt special. It felt important. There's talk of tearing it down now but not everyone sees the necessity; there are other people that love that brutal building. A lot of them can be found hanging around here or on Twitter at @keeptheziggurat.

If you're a fan of architectural brutalism show your support.

Business As Usual

And you don't get more "normal" than a Penguin cover from Alan Aldridge.

Normal Services…

…will be resumed shortly.

Firenze Santa Maria Novella

Florence station is curious. It's really shabby but you can tell that once it was spectacular. Designed in 1932 by the Gruppo Toscano, an architects collective, and named after the church opposite, the construction is rightly considered to be a major piece of Italian modernism. There are loads of fantastic, if grubby, original details.

Abram Games and Penguin Books

In 1956, Penguin's Head of Design Hans Schmoller asked Abram Games to come on board as a Consultant Art Director. The publisher was about to embark on its first foray into the world of the full colour pictorial cover. A bold and ill-fated move; the experiment was short-lived as the public were confused by such unnatural work.

Strange to think that mere full colour covers could have caused such controversy, but they did so Allen Lane pulled the plug. But not before Games had designed a new cover grid and rolled out thirty two editions; some designed by himself and others out-sourced to a select number of illustrators.

This whole episode in Penguin's rich history has now been captured by Games' own daughter Naomi; Abram Games and Penguin Books has been published by the Penguin Collectors Society and includes reproductions of the entire series of covers. It's available to non-members for a mere £9 from the Society's online shop – along side a whole load of other great publications from the PCS. 

Found Type Friday #101

Signs from Northern Tuscany.

 

 

Stage 1: Ferry to Scotland

Three weeks ago we set off. It seems that we just can't go the easy, direct way. So this time it was ferry to Scotland; a long drive to Birmingham; a short hop to EMA; a flight to Pisa; hire car to Barga, north of Lucca.

Back

We've been away. That's why it's been so quiet round these here parts. Italy, via mainland UK and there are LOADS of photos. LOADS of them. So you might just want to pretend I'm still away and come back in another week or so.

Punctuation

The peaceful land of Punctuation
is filled with tension overnight

When the stops and commas of the nation 
call the semi-colons ‘parasites’

In 1905, German poet Christian Morgenstern wrote a poem, In the Land of Punctuation. It told of an escalating fracas between certain marks and the bloody battle that ensued. It's a grim (and witty) tale.

Now translated into English by Sirish Rao and brilliantly illustrated by Rathna Ramanathan, Morgenstein's poem has a whole new lease of life thanks to Tara Books.

Found Type Friday #100

It's the one hundredth FTF! And I'm honoured to present the findings of the Penguin Collectors' Society's James Mackay. Lettering from, "different prosperous eras in Goole". James also updated me on the further investigation into that mysterious "A". If you want to find out more about that you'd better join the PCS. Definitely worth the modest subscription, the next edition comes with an illustrated memoir of Abram Games and Penguin Books by his daughter Naomi.

I'll post about it when I get mine but it will be available to non-members too.