Ace Jet 170

Set Faber to Stun

A great atlas is a treasury of mapperisms. The uninterested might expect the majority of the cartography within to be fairly monotonous but the modest cover of a truly great atlas hides a plethora of variation.

With maps that illustrate: physicality, isotherms, precipitation, vegetation/land use, air pressure/winds, geology, politics, peoples, populations, religions, economics, industries and soil types, this Faber Atlas from 1964 (first published in 1956) is just such an impressive and diverse volume.

 

Helping Hand-drawns

My generous and mysterious benefactors at Princeton Architectural Press have sent me another great book. From Here to There is a fascinating anthology of hand drawn maps collated by the Hand Drawn Map Association. Philadelphian artist Kris Harzinski founded the HDMA in 2008 after stumbling across a bundle of carto-scribbles whilst packing up his house. The rediscovery triggered memories of forgotten navigational adventures. Harzinski's interest and focus has grown, culminating in this book but the project continues with the HDMA's website welcoming contributions by mail, email or upload.

 

 

Ride

Packed and ready to scarper before The Inspectors could catch up with them, we were attracted to their gaudy lights and slipshod trappings.

  

AOK

Mark Ferguson's been remote-snooping. He sent questionnaires to various studios (including johnsonbanks, NB:Studio, Mother, The Case, 300million, Build and many more) quizzing them on their relationship to their immediate environments. Mark then compiled responses into an A0 layout which he had printed onto mighty-sized trace. 

He explains, "This mailer presents the results of an in-depth investigation into the relationships between working environments and creativity within the design industry. The mailers were sent out nationally to the respondents who had completed questionnaires for the study. The design is printed on an A0 sheet of trace to represent the space and light which the investigation showed designers value in a workspace. The large sheet was folded down to A4 for mailing."

Mark now runs his Very Own Studio.

Brucie Bonus

 

I suspect knowing full well of my weakness for an interesting bit of mappery, designer Dan Cassaro dropped me a line about, then dropped me a copy of, his self-published, Springsteen inspired Springstreets; a fictitious street map with all locations and street names taken from Bruce's lyrics. I'm not a Springsteen fan myself but have to admit, it is a marvelous piece of work. If you're quick, you might still be able to get a copy here.

Madvetica

Helvetica on Mad Men. Via Nick Sherman via Gary Hustwit.

Fearsome

Andy (Lots of Things But Currently Mostly This) McMillan kindly lent me his recently acquired copy of the, quite frankly, amazing and stunning Kraken Rum brand book. The book tells the frightful story of the mythical beasty and details it's evolution, an anatomical breakdown of it's "ravenous innards" and, crucially, how to survive it's brutal attack (feed it other passengers, act poisonous, confuse with erratic mannerisms and/or play dead).

The Press Pack that included the book was featured on FPO earlier in the year. But no amount of photographic evidence can prepare you for the thorough beauty of the actual, real thing. It could well be perfect. It's impeccable. I want one.

Thanks Andy! It'll be returned through the secret and magical Lemonmail Network shortly.

P.S. If anyone knows how I might get my mits on one, please do let me know.

Victoria

New work from Hat-trick and Nick Asbury.

Markets of Britain

Thanks Tim!

Brockmann in Motion

Brockmann in Motion from Vít Zemčík on Vimeo. Via The Casual Optimist.

Plot Watch: Plan

Via Earthly Pursuits (via Alice)

Found Type Friday #86

Courtesy of Tom Gifford.

Prickly Pair

 

Designer Topher Sinkinson and illustrator Rob Halverson have a thing for cactus and have developed a range of home stuffs at Portland design studio makelike. It's all a bit weird and a bit nice too. Take a look, you can download their pdf catalogue here.

 

FSF by CBS

Beautiful new work from super-talented (and fan of Horse Stick) Carolie Bickford-Smith.

Nice books (but can't make coffee)

Alice McKee has come to work with us. This is good on a number of levels. For example, it gives me the opportunity to pilfer her book collection, which she's stashed in the studio now that she's homeless. Well OK, not exactly homeless, she's back with her family, but she's between houses so, homeless.

Anyway, this is the stand-out book so far: Letterrijk tells the story of Rijksoverheid Serif and Sans Serif; the font family that Peter Verheul designed for the Dutch Government and introduced in 2008. Studio Dumbar approached Verheul to develop the font and, later, designed this book, which is a beautiful piece of work. Unfortunately, although not surprisingly, it's all in Dutch. Fortunately, Sander Baumann wrote about it on designworkplan. Alice bought the book in Amsterdam at Nijhof & Lee and it looks like it's still available if you're interested.

Yes, it's a fine book. And her, soon to appear here, final project really is superb. But, and I hate going on about it, she just can't get my coffee right.

  

Me

Does everyone know about FS Me? I didn't until the promo booklet was bundled in with Fontsmith's specimen book. FS Me was designed with Mencap and was specially developed to be more legible for anyone with learning difficulties. Creative Review covered it in detail a couple of years ago (in case, like me, you missed it. For every font licence sold Mencap get a cut (pardon the fontpun).