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Those lovely fellows at Herb Lester had done it yet again. This time they looked east for their inspiration. Not very far east, to be honest, but that's not important. The Herbster's latest outing is a guide to the usual and unusual delights of the Eastern End of London. Art Direction is by Studio Booth and the fab and groovy maplstrations are by Telegramme. You can buy any of Herb Lester's maps here.
Hell, throw caution to the wind and just buy them all!
These are from a year or so back. By Ogilvy's Paris office, they were on Fonts In Use today, accompanying a post by FIU's editor and cat lover Stephen Coles. The post is a typographic analysis of IBM's identity for Watson. If you don't already know, and to cut a long story short for you, Watson is the company's new super-computer that will one day take over the world and probably rule over us. That's really all you need to know. Well, that and they're using Herb's Lubalin Graph all over it. If, one day in the near future, Watson comes knocking, you'd better do what it says. Or even, if you get a threatening message, typeset in Lubalin Graph, be afraid, be very afraid.
Nice ads though.
Update: Andrew's just identified the illustrator as Noma Bar. There was an interview with Bar on Grain Edit last year.
The Bespoke Editions project has been moving ahead, slowly but steadily. In amongst it all, the Judd Street Papers came up and I remembered I had some stashed away. I don't know much about them; the Judd Street Gallery website says this:
Judd Street Gallery Pattern Papers began in 1987, inspired by the Curwen Pattern Papers of the 1920s, a range of simple repeat patterns by contemporary artists such as Paul Nash and Eric Ravilious, intended primarily for bookbinding, but also attractive as wrapping paper.
I bought these at Falkiner's in Bloomsbury, many years ago. Falkiner's is now Shepherds but you can still get these and many more decorative papers there. Along with all sorts of other interesting bookbinary sundries.
Alex got in touch, after that last post about maps, to tell me about the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland that he's been involved with. The website Alex point me to has an amazing body of scanned historical maps from the 19th century. I really like the coastal areas but the island's interior is lavishly represented by beautiful draughts of lush line and colour work. Well worth further exploration.
Look what dropped through the door over the weekend: A beautiful piece of work from Rachael and Stephen at One Point Oh. Screen printed in two colours onto mighty 1250 micron board, the Stop, Look, Listen totem pole comes (rather cleverly if you ask me) complete with a strut-card attached to the back so it can stand all on it's own.
It's a stunning piece of illustration. You can get yours here.
The Weirdness setting is permanently on "High" over on but does it float. Always worth keeping one eye on it while the other goes about its usual, normal, unweird business. These amazing paintings are by Nadia Duvall, who sails her artistic boat pretty close to the shores of the Outlandish Islands.
A quick Googling of "Ordinance Survey Maps" backs up my general feeling about OS cartographies: expanses of open land tend to be white so their sheets feel clean and fairly clinical. Unlike the Bartholomew. They've always used a much richer colour palette. Their sheets are lush. So these then are an anomaly: OS maps of NI, from 1963, that feel more like Bartholomew renderings. Who can explain this strange and unexpected phenomena?
If you follow the CR Blog (which you probably do so I don't know why I'm telling you this because you'll have seen it) you'll probably have picked up on the kerfuffle surrounding the promotional campaign that The Chase (with Total Content and Asbury & Asbury) have developed for ace photographer Paul Thompson (who has some astonishing work). As things played out it turned out to be a storm in a teacup with it's rather feeble critics being swiftly and appropriately dispatched with a clip 'round their misguided ears. The campaign is, after all, great. And I think what the criticism shows is how a brave idea whittles out those that get what you do and those that don't. A job well done if you ask me.
Hats off to everyone involved but especially to Paul for running with the concept.
Less mappery, perhaps a little more elegance: it's BOAC's masterful Route Map No.3.
The last rubbish photo was from one end of last year's holiday. This one is from the other end. Taken as we taxied into position at Pisa.
This is ace: Last week I posted that rubbish photo and unbeknownst to me Sergio turned it into this Modrianesque interpretation. Brilliant!
We're working on some ads at the moment, at Thought Collective, for an "IT" company (is that still the right term to use nowadays?). They're very clever people so we're trying to be equally smart. Sam Irwin's doing a superb job on them. Really smart ideas. I hope they go down well; they're very different but as smart as these.
It's the crusty mollusks, that's what I like best. This time last week it was our first trip to the beach this year. The boys rockpooled while I snapped the surfaces.