Ace Jet 170

Physics | Weaponry | Chemistry

And with 'Physics' that's the first series complete. The New Illustrated Library of Science and Invention was published by Leisure Arts during the first half of the 1960s. Designed and produced by the astonishingly skilled but scandalously under appreciated (in print) Erik Nitsche, it was released in two series of 12 volumes.

They are beautiful books. Striking full bleed image dust jackets contrast with elegently foil-blocked cloth bindings. The typographic layout inside is rigid but quiet, allowing the diligently handled content to sing out: Cleverly positioned cut-outs, revealing diagrams and dramatically framed photography all contribute to the visual feast.

Nitsche's other work for General Dynamics is equally astonishing. In fact, a quick Google will deliver an amazing array of Nitsche fruit. I'm waiting for the monograph – someone MUST be working on it.

 

Snippets from my collection are all mixed up here.

You can read Steven Heller's article on Nitsche here.

Or Rick Poyner's here.

And another article here.

Or just look him up on Pinterest.

 

The Penrose Annual 1973 Volume 66

 

There's a few more photos here.

Dipticstagram

Photoshop it ain't…But I love seeing what you can do with limited resources. In this case my phone, Diptic's pretty rudimentary editing functions and Instagram for some subtle colouration.

Design and Content

Way back in 1999 I was reading Design Writing Research – Abbott Miller and Ellen Lupton's collection of essays on graphic design (and also the name of their design practise at the time). This was the first time I'm read anything from either author – to a large extent, it was the first time I'd enjoyed writing of this kind. It was Lupton's name that had drawn me in – I wasn't so familier with Miller – and semi-youthful enthusiasm for the subject (I wasn't that young) drove me on to consume both author's nuanced thoughts and ideas. It was full of insightful articles that helped me view the discipline of design in a more informed way.

That same year Abbott Miller joined Pentagram and slipped off my radar. Well, that's what I thought. His new book, Abbott Miller: Design and Content reveals a slightly different perspective. It turns out, I've been well aware of Miller's work throughout the last fifteen years, I'd just been missing the credit.

Written and designed by Miller, Design and Content shows diverse and intelligent design; mature work that demonstrates both masterful visual creativity and skilful wordsmithery – an essential and balanced approach that can be sadly under appreciated by those with a bias towards one or the other.

Miller and his team have worked across many specialisms which Design and Content bears witness to. Projects include branding, print, editorial and exhibition design and features collaborations with artists like Yoko Ono, Philip Glass and Nan June Paiik. Miller's work is introduced by Rick Poyner and includes essays by Miller and Lupton – and converstations with fellow Pentagramers Michael Bierut, Eddie Opera and Paula Scher.

It's a handsome volume too.

Wheat Germ

Everyone's got it, haven't they? It's a piece of graphic design history and a super-fast/low-cost read. And a useful reminder of what it's all about; I for one benefit greatly from this kind of reminder, distracted as I can be by technology and the latest this and that. Rand's "Thoughts on Design", first published in 1947, is like the Hovis bread of the design world, "As good for us today as it's always been". It reminds us, succinctly and intelligently, of the importance of study, observation, relevance and purpose; the nutrients of good design.

Grafica della Strada

For over twenty years Louise Fili has been snapping away at Italy's signage. 440 of those photos have now been wrapped up in a rather handsome hard cover and published. Grafica della Strada celebrates the display typography of her favourite European destination.

No Jacket Required

Secondhand Bookshop loiterers will relate to this:

I was at a nearby National Trust property, mooching around the secondhand bookshop, when I spied a scruffy oddity. A strangely tall volume wrapped in an interesting elk-based photo dust jacket that was topped off with a nasty piece of outline type.

If it wasn't for the unusual format I'd have passed it by but it was poking up, head and shoulders above the other odds and ends. So I did the thing you do – we all do it, don't we? – I slipped its jacket off.

Boy am I glad I did.

Mortices and Markings

I've got this side project on at the moment; a writing project. It's taking me flippin' ages to be honest but it's bringing me into contact with some really interesting people. People I have to interview, about their jobs. So far, I've met a few people in the film industry, a basket maker, a theatre lighting technician, a set designer and last Friday, a joiner working on restoration projects for the National Trust. We met in his workshop. His workshop made of wood, that smells of wood and is full of tools…and wood.

Now you may remember, I have carpentry in my blood. Sawdust runs through my veins. The sight of a vintage Spear & Jackson saw or a handsome flat blade wood plane is enough to make me reach for my beechwood mortice and marking gauge. It's THAT exciting.

Designers, writers, coders; we're all making stuff. We all manipulate materials – either physical or metaphysical – chiselling away at things, dovetailing seperates into connecteds. Sawing things into sections before shaving away layers. Drilling into the undrilled. Finely sanding before waxing and polishing.

Whether it's words, pictures or commands, it's not that different to wood. Not really. It's just less natural, less grown. Manufactured material instead of harvested material. A few more steps away from the natural order of things.

I think the reason why woodwork has prevailing appeal, to me at least, is because of its proximity to nature and our more instinctive side. It's hunter gatherer stuff and once we've grown weary of the glossy mass produced world, the hand made and downright wonky, if I have anything to do with it, tuggs at our hearts.

Tooled Up

You can’t hope to improve, significantly, as a designer by merely practicing design. You’ll get better at Photoshop as you find your way around its hidden depths, your typography might creep forward with exposure to its challenges, you might have a natural grasp of colour, but progress will be slow unless you look further afield for your influences. Latching onto a sage-like mentor of some kind or bathing in the foamy mix of design history are hard to better.

Same goes for writing. Writing in isolation is unlikely to lead you along the twisty-turny, bramble-blocked path that the writer has to follow in order to hone his or her wordsmithery. Better to latch onto a sage-like mentor or bathe in the foamy mix of literary history.

Maybe, even, read a book about writing.

A friend of mine, clearly trying to tell me something, sent me Roy Peter Clarke’s book Writing Tools at Christmas. Never has a book sustained my interest so effectively. Juggling a few volumes on unconnected subjects, my pace through Writing Tools has been gentle. But that’s just heightened my enjoyment. I’ve been taking each chapter, each strategy, slowly. And with each comes a beautifully useful nugget of writing wisdom.

I’m a better writer for reading Writing Tools.

Postcards from the Hedge

There I was, minding my own business, searching the outer reaches of the digital realm for post-1922/pre-now images of Dublin's O'Connell Bridge and where should I find myself? Only on John Hinde's really quite marvellous postcard archive, that's where.

Interpretive design is a great field of work for a graphic designer. By it's nature you're more than likely to be delving into the printed past for artefacts, references or relics. There's almost always some moment in the past (or for that matter, the present) that leads you to some interesting image, design or whatchamacallit.

I'm all over Dublin at the moment: either fighting the damned oppressive British or annoying the intolerant Irish; ousting uncooperative tennents or trembling at the might of those inconsiderate and really quite rude Vikings.

And, as I've mentioned before, it's hard not to get distracted by the other stuff you pass or trip over along the way.

Pot Heads

Back in November 2012 I posted about Faythe Levine and Sam Macon’s book, Sign Painters. It’s a fabulous book, you should probably buy it. But the book was really a mere forerunner, a prelude, to their film of the same name.

The film, like the book, is a celebration of the challenged world of hand-painted signs in the US. As it says on the movie’s website, “What was once a common job has now become a highly specialized trade, a unique craft struggling with technological advances”.

With contributions from some of the trade’s most skilled practitioners and characters, Sign Painters is beautifully filmed and gives brilliant insight into a hidden culture of craft, adversity and precariously balanced paint pots.

The book is superb – the film is even better. You can watch it now online here. 

The Penrose Annual 1965, Volume 58

I shouldn't reveal my sources really. But then this was an exceptional case and I don't expect it to be repeated any time soon. 99p. OK, plus £5 postage but still, 99p. Ebay. Expect to pay more. I could not believe my luck. 99p and with it not only did I get Volume 58 but I also completed the 1960s section of my collection. Probably the best era for Penrose…maybe the best era for the graphic arts in general (at least from an historical point of view).

Process

In The Design Method Eric Karjaluoto meticulously and generously details the journey he and his team at smashLAB follow through the creative quagmire. From a project’s early research stages; through strategies and cunning plans; past top-level conceptualisation and onwards, far beyond the edges of iterating, prototyping and more iterating; Karjaluoto’s design methods, rightly, leave little to fortuitous happenstance or creative genius.

It's tough out there. When you’re being paid to deliver great creative, on demand, everyday, you need a system. You need a design method; to manage the process, your client, your employer, your stress levels and your sanity. Methodology guides you through the blocks, around the obstacles and under the aquaducts of distraction.

I’ve introduced methods and systems into studios. Some have even worked. Some have been welcomed, some rejected. Others have been fought and a few have been embraced. I believe in processes because I’m not a creative genius; I’ve experienced the pressure and stress of demand. Due diligence has helped me to deliver sound creative – on time and to budget. What’s that thing Einstein said? About spending most of his time thinking about the problem and only a tiny bit of time thinking about the solution. The Design Method is all about that sort of thing. It's about following sensible procedures to take care of the business of design.

The Design Method describes more processes than you may ever be likely to eat. In doing that it might just help you find the ones that will work for you. It touches on things you’ll know, that’s what it did for me – Karjaluoto describes much that I already do, more that I wish I did do and a lot that I know I should do. On top of that it did one really great and helpful thing: it reaffirmed my faith in systems.

The Design Method provides the designer with the opportunity to find order in the creative mess. Not to stifle or restrict but to enable and liberate. If you’re starting out it could prove especially helpful – although it's likely to require discipline and diligence if you are to benefit most from what it offers. If you’ve been at it for a while, it might help you fine tune how you practise your craft.

There and brack again

Spring. And with it returns more opportunities to scratch around the shoreline for discarded bivalve mollusc casings; washed up from their brackish habitats for macroscopic scrutiny.

National Library of Ireland

We're just about to start work on a project for the NLI. In preparation for this I dived head first, into their digitised archive – their online catalogue – of print material. They have loads of stuff archived and much more still to do. It was hard not to get distracted. So I did…get distracted I mean.

Tilden

One of the first really interesting things I learned about the discipline of interpretive design was that it has principles – and I love a principle: fundamental, underlying, guiding ideas. The six principles of heritage interpretation were first expressed by Freeman Tilden who is basically the father of interpretive design. He is The Man.

A couple of weeks ago I delivered a lecture to first year IMD students, introducing them to the idea of art direction. When I was preparing it; trying to find ways to describe the art of art direction; one of Tilden's principles sprang to mind. All six go like this:

1. Any interpretation that does not somehow relate what is being displayed or described to something within the personality or experience of the visitor will be sterile.
2. Information, as such, is not Interpretation. Interpretation is revelation based upon information. But they are entirely different things. However all interpretation includes information.
3. Interpretation is an art, which combines many arts, whether the materials presented are scientific, historical or architectural. Any art is in some degree teachable.
4. The chief aim of Interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.
5. Interpretation should aim to present a whole rather than a part, and must address itself to the whole man rather than any phase.
6. Interpretation addressed to children (say up to the age of twelve) should not be a dilution of the presentation to adults, but should follow a fundamentally different approach. To be at its best it will require a separate program.

Number one is brilliant. In number two, the idea that interpretation is "revelation based on information" is equally powerful. But for the task at hand, number four jumped out. Paraphrasing somewhat, I concluded that "the chief aim of art direction is [in a way] to provoke".

Patatap

@fehler just tweeted this (via @xz). Full screen version here.

Historic Overlay

Just for the record – and in reference to yesterday's post – I found what I was looking for on the marvellous Ordnance Survey Ireland website.

Accidental Ohio

I mentioned a while back that I'm working in a studio that specialises in interpretive design. There aren't really that many specialists in the UK; in Northern Ireland, Tandem is the only one. I'm there for just a while and the specialism is new to me – but I have to say, it's very interesting work.

The discipline of interpretive design is, in itself, interesting and I'll say more about that another time. What's immediately interesting is the material it brings you into contact with – whether by chance or by design (pardon the pun).

Earlier today I was trying to find a map of Dublin, circa 1916. What I found was an online archive of historical maps of Ohio (there's a Dublin in Ohio) from the early part of the twentieth century.

If you click on these snippets of mappage you'll be able to scrutinise the beautiful details.

 

Earley Works

We were researching illustrators recently, for a project we might be working on. Can't say much about the actual project but it could be amazing. While I was digging around, I remembered Eyvind Earle.

Artist, author and illustrator, you might know Earle's work for Disney from around the 50s; he worked on background illustrations and styling for things like Sleeping Beauty.

Earle died in 2000 but he left behind a stunning legacy of artwork. You can see lots of it here and  watch a revealing autobiographical video. I think it's his serigraphs (screen prints) that are the most remarkable. Astonishing work.