Ace Jet 170

Titanic

The boys were at their Gran's for tea so me and Karen jumped on our bikes and peddled on down to the Titanic Quarter this afternoon; just to have a snoop about a bit. If you don't know, the new Titanic Building opened today. I think we're going to take a look inside over the Easter holidays but from the outside at least, it all looks ace.

They got a fantastic day for the opening and there's an expansive (and I have to say, cycle-friendly) outside area so we spent a good while checking it out. The exterior IS stunning.

Fenland

Jeremy Tankard has delivered some truly unique fonts but I can't help feel he's really surpassed himself with Fenland. Beautiful, characterful letters I've never seem before.

Fletcher Spain Spain Robertson

A couple more for here and here. Two Penguin Crimes with covers by Alan Spain (two of many for Ed McBain's books) as well as a Fletcher and a Robertson for Pelican.

Glum Noir

One Final Thing

Oh this is so late that I'm embarrassed to be posting it now. things 19-20 has been travelling around with me for practically two months I think. It's the last ever printed edition. But don't panic, things isn't folding, it's just going digital with talk of all manner of possibilities for the future. You can still get an actual ink on paper copy, I believe, here.

An Inventory of Inventories

This looks good. Haven't read it yet but it's a compelling subject. In 1966 Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore collaborated with Marshall McLuhan on their "inventory of effect ", the famously misspelled Medium is the Massage. Republished a few years ago by Penguin.

I think it's fair to say Medium was immediately influential, blazing a trail for a new kind of visually rich paperback book. What followed was much more than mimicry, the approach struck an immediate cord with many hungry for new ways of experiencing cultural stuff.

The Electric Information Age Book tracks the rise of this ground breaking development in publishing, that saw radical thinkers sharing ideas through the relatively inexpensive medium of the paperback…hmmm…Metathinkers, sharing thoughts and insights through new inexpensive channels?…That sounds kind of familiar…

Learning To See

On the surface, the new Learning To See series of mini-books from PA Press might appear a little low-key. Gift Book-like. But they're more and better than that. They're a quick read and really engaging; especially if you haven't drawn for a while but would like to. It's "How To Draw" for grown ups with loads of exercises and ways to approach making marks that I'd not given any thought to since life drawing classes at college, plus loads of techniques I've never tried before.

You can read more about the series on the Chronicle Books blog.

The delayed DC7C from Belfast

 

Last week I got an urgent email from Geneva. They needed a high resolution scan of my Swissair brochure for an exhibition of Swiss infographics. Happy to help I dug out the piece and brought it into work to scan. I was a bit busy so it took a few days to get on to it. An urgent call came in: they were getting impatient, could I get it done over the next couple of days. You know, the scans. The scans I was doing for nothing. For the exhibition I'd never get to. Could I get on with it? Of course! I nipped downstairs to our print shop friends who have a bigger scanner. But still, it could only be done in three sections per side. That was OK, I'd splice them together in PS. No problemo. Nearly done. One more section to join…

Another email came it: they'd found a copy of the leaflet. They didn't need mine anymore.

Now call me a grumpy old git but don't you think, after putting me under a bit of pressure, that was a bit rude? The fact that they'd found a copy, well, if that had been me, and I'd nagged someone I didn't know, who I wasn't paying…I'd have just kept quiet. Let it play out. If I hadn't delivered, it would have been OK. The onus would have been on me.

But I won't go on about it.

Anyway, if anyone would like high res scans of this, retouched and spliced togther, colours adjusted and images despeckled, let me know and I'll share a Dropbox folder with you.

 

Groundwork

I mentioned a week or so back that a few of us were in Belfast's Linen Hall Library for the launch of a book we'd designed. Well, Sam Irwin did it really. I can only take credit for supplying the vintage typewriter he used to tap out the entire text. It was a labour of love and it's a testimony to all his hard work, attention to detail and commitment to the cause that at the launch no one, I mean absolutely no one, mentioned either Sam or Thought Collective. No one.

We were sitting there, a few rows from the back. Smiling through the first set of thankyous, not worrying too much that we weren't mentioned because there was plenty of time left. They singled out all the other parties involved, quite rightly. Made a particular effort to thank the photographer involved. But when the final round came…nothing.

But the thing is, I'm not joking that it's a testimony to to Sam's diligent work that no one noticed the design. That's what we set out to do: undesign it. Only problem is, for that to be successful, it should mean it goes unnoticed. It wasn't noticed. Result.

To get the full story, pop over to the TC blog.

 

Lightweight #03

It's time I organised my light meter entires so I've added a new category to bundle them all together. Right. What can I tell you about the Prinzlite?…

Er…

The Prinzlite. What can I tell you?

Er…

Well, nothing. Sorry. But it looks cool doesn't it?

Favourite Film as Board Game

Around Christmas a mysterious package arrived at work. I often get brown paper wrapped stuff but it's usually small. Books. This was different. It was big. It was The IPRESS File, the board game. Circa 1966.

Now The IPCRESS File, if you didn't already know, is my all-time, tip-top, favourite book and film so even though I'm a fairly old and grumpy bloke, I felt like squealing like a little girl. It was from Johnny, from Euston, Do You Copy? He'd found it in a charity shop and very kindly thought to send it my way. I've got a few vintage games stashed away but this one is pretty special. So if you're reading this Johnny, thanks again!

Three Courses of Heiderich

Was just ever so slightly blown away by the work of Matthias Heiderich yesterday. First on butdoesitfloat, which lead me to his website, then Dan from Casual Optimist pointed me towards Heiderich's Flickr sets. So much astonishing work.