Ace Jet 170

Pop a cap in your blog

Is everyone keeping up with Jessica Hische's very lovely Daily Drop Caps?

Bad Idea

Call me an old stick-in-the-mud but for me (perhaps with this exception) a Swiss Army Knife that is anything other than red is just a knife no matter who's designed it.

Constructivisms

It must be my technical illustration training but there's something compelling about geometrical constructions so I snapped up this book on Map Projections. I don't claim to understand them but they are kind of beautiful.

Chicken Watch #24: Micro

Day 439: ...and the soldiers were like matchsticks.

The Fallen

It's around this time of year that my wife charges me with the task of clearing all the dead stuff out of the greenhouse. There's plenty of it. Stuff that, over the course of the growing season, has been snipped or knocked off, or has just dropped as it ends it's natural life. Withered, shriveled and decaying, it's all so much more interesting than when it was alive and thriving.

 

 

Irre-wristible?

  

Well actually, I'm not sure about these but they are strangely attractive.

pssst...

Mark (pprwrkstudio) Caneso, the man that brought us the mighty Quatro, has set up dedicated type design site p.s.type.

Simone deux Pingouin

I found a couple of curious Penguins at the weekend. In a box with other less interestingly covered de Beauvoirs, I thought they're both top-notch but, from a brand point of view, beg questions. First off, they were both published in 1967 and yet they're so different (a time of uncertainty at the publishers?). 

Although both have Marber-grid factors, both are departures: "Memoirs..." has lost horizontal lines, the "long" title alternative positioning and, obviously, uses caps. "She Came..." on the other hand is a much more dramatic shift in direction: a brand new position for the enlarged and newly coloured type, and a bird that's grown considerably. Interesting pricing too. 

I guess "Memoirs..." could be a straight or near-straight re-print of the first-time-for-Penguin 1963 edition, while "She Came..." (de Beauvoir's first novel) was published by Penguin for the first time just a year earlier in '66. I suppose that all kind of makes sense. But still, an opportunity to release both with similar covers must have been considered.

Differences apart, they're still both excellent covers but "She Came..." is, to my eyes, a stonker! That beautiful cover illustration is by the enigmatic Giannetto Coppola. Can't find anything about the man and from what other covers I can find, this is, by his own standards, an exceptional piece of work. Very stylish, very "sixty's".

Incidentally, the other cover is by Penguin stalwart Alan Spain.

Kartenliebe

 

The map that folded out of the book on aerial photography was extremely lovely and it re-kindled a dormant interest. It's been a while since Ace Jet's seen much map-action but I remembered this 1966 German atlas of Europe I'd picked up a little while back. Although it's unexceptional on the outside, inside it's beauty is very much in the detail: scrutinizing small sections reveals fascinating multi-level cartography and printing; in fact it's when your nose is practically touching the french-folded pages that you get a great sense of the print process involved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Typotaches

Has everyone seen Ryan Dixon's Typographic 'taches on the CR Feed?
There's Mercury, Selleck and Hogan so far.

No.Post

  

These are rather good. The first series of No.Zine from illustrator/designer/art director and editor Patrick Fry. Each issue is themed around it's number and features work by young writers, artists, photographers and illustrators. Some of it's weird, some of it's provocative, some of it's funny. There's a dog with three legs, a burnt shoe, a pinch, a punch and some embroidery.

 
 
 
 

Nothing Special #01

I can feel a new series coming on. You see really, there's nothing special about this book; it's just a Reader's Digest Condensed Book. There's probably hundreds, maybe even thousands of them out there. This is so un-special that it wasn't even priced and was tucked behind a row of books in my local charity book shop. It was being used to pack out the book shelf. That's how non-special it is.

Nothing special.

(Lovely cover though).

 

 

Chicken Watch #23: Fine

 

 

Day 431: They're fine.

Aerial Automatic

 

What better way to spy on the neighbours than with a little aerial reconnaissance. This 1958, War Office publication explains where to mount your cameras correctly and teaches you how to interpret the lie of the land below...

...Damn it! They're keeping chickens too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Plot Watch: Marrow

Behold! The mighty marrow. Bow down before it's magnificence. Worship it's weighty, bulbous form...then slice it open, stuff it with spices pork mince and roast slowly at a regular heat for an hour and a half. Yum.

3

  

  

  

  

Powerful texts and interesting designs from DAHRA's 3 Minutes. Mine arrived a few days ago, get your's here. My favourite if Jeff (Research Studios) Knowles', but they're all good.

Plot Watch: The Plot Thickens

  

...so we thinned it out.

Poster4Tomorrow

"...an open competition inviting the global creative community to create posters to draw attention to, and take action against, the repression of freedom of expression. It's organized by Associazione Culturale GoodDesign together with HM Studio and 4tomorrow. Freedom of expression is a right that the Western world takes for granted. But in many countries, such as Iran, innocent people are persecuted and imprisoned daily due to their pleas for democracy and freedom of the press or for exposing human rights abuses...

"...we're proud to be endorsed by Reporters sans Frontieres, the non-profit organisation that fights for freedom of press across the world, and supported by a jury to select the posters that includes: Marjane Satrapi, the author and filmmaker of Persepolis; prominent Iranian graphic designers Reza Abedini and Saed Meshki; internationally renowned graphic designers Alain Le Quernec, Pierre Bernard and Woody Pirtle; and Tommaso Minnetti and Pasquale Volpe, founders of the world’s largest social communication project Good50x70."

Find out more here.

Wet

It wasn't the first time I found myself reading a book, by chance, in circumstances that enhance it's dramatic effect. Last time it was reading J G Ballard's The Drought on a beach during one of Greece's hottest summers for some years. This time I read The Kraken Wakes - Wyndham's gloomy story of mankind's struggle against extra-terrestrials now living in our ocean's deepest deeps, who melt the ice caps to raise water levels at a devastating rate (sneaky subterranean bastards!) - during our trip to Fermanagh, surrounded by bank-bursting lakes and over-flowing rivers.

Book Love

Designers Books is a collaborative project from a group of like-minded Flickr-ers who just love their design books. Contributors include: Mark (Blanka) Blamire, Jonathon (Insect54) Turner and Joe (er...just Joe) Kral, amongst others.

Futures Past

 

 

James Pardey has expanded his Penguin Sci-Fi website with material that's now bang up-to-date. Including the latest Penguin Modern Classics just or soon to be released. James has also been writing a series of superb articles for the Penguin Collectors' Society, chronicling Penguin's relationship with SF. Two have already been published in the last two editions of The Penguin Collector. The final part will be out in December.

Found Type Friday #79

Angela Riechers snapped this redundant sign in Brooklyn, "...another old restaurant and it's neon sign bites the dust", she laments. Meanwhile, Dutch writer/photographer Jan van Dam spotted these (and more) in Lucca.

  

That's Nice Too

  

The second print edition of It's Nice That is out soon. Get your order in before 30th September and you'll get an exclusive Rob Ryan print. Lots of great content but what I'm dead excited about is an article by George Hardie, one of the most influential illustrators of my teens.

Read all about it, check out the Ryan print and order your copy here.

Cracks and Crevices

 

 

This is all a bit out of order and all over the place but between our camping trip to Castle Ward and our week in the Wet County we got a few days on the west coast following an invitation to piggy-back our friend's holiday in Donegal. And when you're in Donegal, you spend all your time on the beach, whatever the weather. It's the law. For those unfamiliar with the region, the beaches are on the whole superb, generally amazing and on average excellent, with ultra-fine sand and clear, clear water. And geological interestingness abounds. (If you weren't freezing your knackers off, you could imagine you're on some craggy Greek island).

I spent much of my time, when out of the water, peering into cracks and crevices.

Found Type Friday #78

 

Yes, I know it's not Friday. But it was Friday (last Friday) that we visited Headhunters.

To be honest I had low hopes for this place but by the end of an über-wet week in NI's, well, wettest county, Fermanagh, in-door entertainment was the order of the day. But hats off to Headhunters; the surprising Barber Shop/Railway Museum combo was a top-notch destination - even if you don't need a snip and a trim, which we didn't. The Salon-come-Museum is hidden away behind a block of shops and offices and is jam-packed with Trackie memorabilia, including masses of print and some spooky dummies to freak out the kids. 

It's all really well displayed, very professionally done - really impressive and a must if you're ever in Enniskillen. Only don't go on a Monday.

 

 

 

 

   

   

Find out more here. Or ask design-criminal and general toss-pot Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen; he's been there too (along with his pointless pseudo-foppishness) for last year's series of the BBC's Northern Exposure.

  

More photos here.