Ace Jet 170

Michael and Len

 

 

Len Deighton is 90 today. 

International man of mystery, no other author has had such a constant presence in my life, and not just for his works of fiction. The film adaptation of The IPCRESS File is high (sometimes at the top) of my top ten favourite films, with the book remaining in my top ten favourite books since the first time I read it a long, long time ago (I've re-read it numerous times).

His love of fine food has been a contributing factor to this presence – the books this spawned have not been uninfluential too. I have a number of his cookbooks, including his iconic Action Cookbook, which I blogged about here way back in 2006.

His famous cook strips (below) expose both his interest in good food and his skill as an illustrator. The latter is another factor that makes the man so interesting.

After spending his National Service in the RAF, Len studied at Saint Martin's School of Art (now Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design) alongside the brilliant Raymond Hawkey, who would go on to design covers for Deighton. After graduating later from the Royal College of Art (for which he won a scholarship in 1952) Deighton worked (surprisingly) as an airline steward for BOAC and then (less surprisingly) as an Art Director in New York, before his writing career took off.

Clearly, a man of facetted talents and passions; Deighton's life story is littered with revealing anecdotes…

It is rumoured, for example, that his interest in spy stories began in 1940 when the 11-yr-old Len witnessed the arrest of his next-door neighbour Anna Wolkoff, a British subject of Russian descent who turned out to be a German spy.

The image above was taken during the filming of The IPCRESS File. The story goes that when Michael Caine came to do the omelette making scene he couldn't get the hang of cracking an egg with one hand (I've mastered the art now) so it's Deighton's hand doing it in the movie.

 

Redacted

 

It was Culture Night. My eldest teenager was heading into Belfast with some 'friends' to wallow in the free culture dripping from every corner and crevice of the city centre.

I'd never been to Culture Night in Belfast, even though I'd heard it's a great night to be out in; I'm too miserable for such free and easy public expressions of culture. No, The Night of Culture is a night for me to stay home and close the curtains. Batten down the hatches in case some culture breaks free and catches the bus out to the suburbs where we live – I keep a large stick by the front door just in case some culture comes a'knocking.

Of course, my son was really out talking to girls, his interest in an evening of extreme free-roaming culture thinly masking his real motivation.

At least my other son was safe at home.

Not for long. His mate Patrick rang and asked if he'd like to go to Culture Night. Wrenched from the comfort of our comfortable sofa (with matching very large food stool – it's soooo comfy) we head city-centre-wards; the two children too young to roam free on Crazy Night without an adult within rescue distance.

Once in town I was soon abandoned and wandered the cultural streets in search of a familiar face. Instead I discovered a familiar place –  Keats & Chapman open late to cash in on the culture punters, so in I went, with cash (K&C is the city's finest book cave and it flipped my evening better side up).

Top find: This Penguin Education edition of 'Academic Freedom', circa 1974, with a top notch cover by Omnific/Peter Thompson.

 

読書

 

My summer read. 

Japan is stalking me. From the corner of my eye I see it, spying on me; following me. From the shelves of a shop; from a painting; whispering, it calls to me through my phone's podcast app…(the flipping weirdo); I bump into it, disguised as a postage stamp that just 'happened' to be passing my way; it sends my son models (better call the police).

It tricks me into letting it in by wearing a rather attractive jacket. 

I was talking about Japan with a friend of mine recently, around a camp fire, as it happens – so I was reminded of Jun'Ichirō Tanizaki's In Praise of Shadows which Rob and Jon recommended via the North v South podcast.

I was telling Mike about Seth's Gundam habit and Mike was telling me about his mate that worked out there for a few years. Specifically, Mike remarked about quite how different his mate found the culture – for example, when travelling on the tube, unless you know the language it's incredible hard to recognise your destination by the station signs.

Reading these short stories gives you an inkling of the differences too; in the lifestyle and also in the format and style of stories.

The collection is compiled to demonstrate a broad Japanese brush so stories range wildly from matters of culture and honour to family, sex and nature with some translated from nineteenth century texts and others from modern work. So far, all are beautiful and 'other landly' – even the gruesome description of a Samurai's ritualistic suicide in 'Patriotism' almost moved me to tears, wrapped as it was in his motivation for such an extreme act and his wife's devotion and support…best you read it yourself, I can't possibly do it justice here.

 

The cover design is by Matthew Young and uses an illustration – Local Training the Country from Don't Give up Japan, 2012 by Hiroyuki Izutsu.

Pintorinterest

 

What was I doing last August? The one in 2017. Whatever it was it must have been all-consuming because I completely missed the publication of Moleskine's Giovanni Pintori monograph. Actually, that Moleskine published anything was news to me!

Pintori and Olivetti are, as you may know, bound together as tightly as the pages of this monograph. In the days when the typewriter was king, Olivetti was the Commander in Chief and Pintori was its…erm…Field Marshal. Armed with an ammunition box full of colours and shapes (and typewriters) the Lance Corporal Designer General would charge into battle, decimating lesser typewriter regiments with a frenzied volley of sub-machine artwork.

It would be fair to say that Pintori is the man that set the standard for the company's marketing activity, raising it head and shoulders above its competitors and visualising Adriano Olivetti's product vision. Pintori left the company in 1967, a few years after the death of the man, although continued to work for Olivetti on a freelance basis while growing his own independent practice.

The monograph brings together many of Olivetti's iconic ads along with original artwork and sketches then other commissions the designer carried out after leaving Olivetti.

If you're not so familiar with Pintori's work then a quick PinterSearch will yield much delicious fruit.

Is that Switzerland in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?

My interest in cartography intensifies inline with the concentration of cartography. Sheets are lovely but an atlas! With an atlas comes a frenzy of map-joy. And a pocket guide! A small, maption-packed book…with cloth-bound, foil-blocked cover…and a plethora of tipped-in fold-out maps. Man alive! 

On a recent drive to Galway (a four hour slog from Belfast) I listened to an episode of the BBC's Seriously podcasts. It was a spliced together collection of recordings of Roald Dhal, talking about his past. It's great. Amongst all the things he touches on is what an adventure travel used to be. It still is, of course, but not like it was back in the day.

Obviously, you might still purchase a pocket guide for your holiday – and that guide might still be a thing of beauty, albeit super-efficiently mass-produced – but may I suggest that the reduction in adventurial magic that Mr Dahl refers to is directly proportional to the reduction in production investment in pocket guide production. Needless to say, I'm sure the cover price also reflects this difference.

Depero Futurista

I just got an email from Russell from Designers & Books. In October they launch a Kickstarter to re-publish Depero's Bolted Book. So, nothing really important then. (Oh my god! They want to re-publish the Bolted Book!).

More here.

Man v Robot

To summarise Marty Neumeier’s 2013 book Metaskills: when the robots rise up to conquer, our only hope, our last line of defence, will be to hit them good and hard with a hefty dose of creativity. It’s our last chance, a full-on, hardcore assault of creative power, right where is hurts. Boom!…Or, at least, I think that was his point…don’t quote me though.

As we automate and roboticise more and more tasks that we really just can’t be bothered to do ourselves, in the end, all we’ll have left to claim we are still superior – that we still have mastery over the machines – is our ability to think outside of the lidded vessel – to think and act unorthodoxically…irregularly…nonconformistically…offbeatedly……as they say.

Not for the first time I’m joining the many voices that have expressed, more elegantly and in much greater detail, that original thought is our most valuable gross international product. And, literally, thank God (or Darwin, if you’re less spiritually inclined) because without that, without ‘new ideas’, let’s face it, we’re robot fodder.

Now I for one, have what neuro-types might call a “growth mindset”. None of us have to rely on what talent or skill we already have and infact we’d all do well, better actually, to expand our abilities through conscious, mindful, concerted and continual training.

Dorte Nielson and Sarah Thurber's book The secret of the highly creative thinker is an aid to just that. Sub-titled "How to make connections others don't", the book guides you through the theory then the practice – the conscious, mindful practice – of connection making. Building on what people like James Webb Young began fifty plus years ago Nielson and Thurber continue the de-mystification of the creative process with the science and provide numerous exercises to help anyone expand their abilities.

It's a handsome volume, easy on the eyes and pretty quick to work through up to the exercises which you can spread out for as long as you like. It's one of those "I wish this was around when I was starting out" kind of books.

In our modern era of near-androidian supremacy, as singularity inevitably approaches and those in the know – those beyond the "creative industries" – elevate creative thinking to a prized status, teaching like this is welcome and valuable.

If nothing else, it means we’ll be ready for the robots.

Over 900 Years Tall

In the May 6 edition of Daniel Benneworth-Gray’s Meanwhile (you do subscribe to Meanwhile don’t you?) he featured Jan Tschichold’s The Form of the Book. Amongst the details Daniel drew out of that was what Jan said about “Deviant formats” – formats that don’t work. JT mentions formats that are too big, too wide and too heavy. He doesn’t, fortunately, mention too tall.

[Screen goes all wobbly and we jump back in time].

In the dim and distant and dim past – so long ago, in fact, that no one quite knows when it was – someone or other decided it would be a great idea to put a church on a thirty acre island in the Thames known for its thorny bushes.

By the 10th century (those in the know now know) there’d been a Christian church on Thorny for quite some time although there’s no trace of it today. When Edward the Confessor ascended to the throne in 1042, Thorney’s status as a sacred place was well established and he saw to it that the construction of a new, more fancy church was begun. This grander building – probably the largest Norman church of its time – was consecrated on Holy Innocents Day 1065. And not a moment too soon! Just a few days later Edward made his last confession and departed for that even grander church in the sky.

The Abbey continued to rise in national importance as Kings were crowned and later buried within its walls. Although Edward is credited for establishing Westminster, it was Henry III who imagined what we can see today – partly because by Henry’s day, those pesky French were knocking up some really fancy cathedrals and we all know that kings are covetous creatures. So in 1245, Edward’s church was respectfully (Henry was one of Edward’s biggest fans) pulled down and construction of Westminster Abbey began in ernest. Not surprisingly, the building work took much longer than the time Henry III had on the planet and a whole bagful of kings and queens came and went, each making all sorts of additions and modifications to the plans, before the job was done.

[Screen goes all wobbly and we jump forward in time].

In 1965, the 900 year anniversary of that original consecration was celebrated in a year of events and commemorated in a very tall book that I suspect even Tschichold would have approved of. It's mighty tall but just a few pages in and it makes so much sense. Very tall photos of very tall things give way to very tall text columns and then more very tall photos of more very tall things. When tallness doesn't cut it, the designers (Roger and Robert Nicholson, London) turned to a 90° turn for a wonderfully long and shallow vista instead.

The book should have a fancy and rather audacious dust jacket but my low cost copy had already lost it's coat of many colour. No matter – the modest hard cover with that beautifully positioned and thrifty sans type will do nicely for me.

There's a few copies on eBay I notice and they don't all cost that much. Watch out though, there's a low cost paperback version but the overall design is lovely so even one of those would be good.

Getting under your feet

The latest (and over-sized) Pentagram Paper is a celebration of the ignored; ever-present but invisible to many, the ubiquitous maintenance cover is a hatch to a world below our feet that our feet will never explore. The paper is a collection of reproduced rubbings taken from street covers found around London. It was designed by Marina Willer and printed in dayglo inks. You can read more about it here.

"The little typographical adventure…"

That’s how William Morris pitched his, long-time pondered printing enterprise some time after 1888. Finally tipped over the edge by an inspiring lecture to the Arts and Crafts Exhibition in November that year, our hairy faced friend gathered around him a crack team; a finely-tuned, hand-crafted group – a punchcutter, a papermaker, an ink-maker, an engraver and a master printer were invited to join the fanatical craftsman at the Kelmscott Press.

52 works in 66 volumes were produced with the Kelmscott Chaucer being generally considered their masterpiece. Morris himself designed the types, title page, borders, frames and 26 initial words while his Pre-Raphaelite comrade Edward Burne-Jones produced 87 pencil illustrations, that were translated into line and engraved ready for print.

Whether it killed him or kept him alive I don’t know enough to say but Chaucer was issued in June 1896 after a two year slog and Morris died the following October.

In 1975 a facsimile copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer was produced by the Basilisk Press, following production methods that mirrored, as closely as was possible, that of the original A-Team (K-Team, actually). This time it took three years with the original volume being accompanied by a second that reproduced, for the first time, Edward Burne-Jones’ pencil sketches. 'Reproducing the Kelmscott Chaucer' is an article in The Penrose Annual from 1976. It tells of the troubles encountered by the new team: the impracticalities of using hand-made paper in the quantity required, the challenge of printing onto paper with a deckled edge, the difficulties of matting the ink and even the dangers of boredom during such a painstaking and laborious task.

During the early to mid-seventies phototypesetting was becoming standard. While they reproduced Chaucer using letterpress, the volume of drawings was produced using litho and the best phototypesetting available. That’s a huge but understandable leap from one method to the other, in craft and result. The Basilisk team went to super-human lengths to reproduce Chaucer with a spirit and effort worthy of Morris.

Now, of course, the gap between the techniques of the arty-crafty Morris and contemporary production methods is even greater. All the more admirable then that a few finely-tuned, hand-crafted individuals endeavour to keep the art of letterpress alive and relevant today.

Sensations of London

Three things converged recently…

We went to London to start with. Haven’t been for ages and it was so good to be back, wandering around the city. Hope to be there again in the summer.

Then I began to read the book I’d been given at Christmas, Helene Hanff’s 84, Charing Cross Road. It’s a lovely book…well, books really. The volume – the one I have – is made up of the original 84 – a collection of correspondences between Hanff in New York and her antiquarian book dealer at Marks & Co Ltd, at the title’s address – and her follow up, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, an account of her first visit to London, a city she spent years longing to see.

Both are fabulous to read. The first follows a touching and ultimately tragic friendship between the author and the staff of the bookshop. It’s funny and super-charming and a bit sad. In The Duchess, we accompany Hanff, at a mature stage of her life, on her adventure in and around the city. Her fascination for London soon becomes infectious as you experience a view of the city that only a visitor can have.

That’s two things…and neither are the point of this post. The third thing, and the point, is this: Buildings of London, published by Artifice, is another wanderer’s view of London. Roger FitzGerald is an architect at one of the country’s top firms ADP. Working in London, he clearly has a love for it that, though different to Hanff’s in nature, is at least on a similar scale; it’s clear from the pages of his book, that FitzGerald shares a fascination for the city.

The architect’s eye is obviously at work here but what struck me is how it takes the compositions of paint and collage – FitzGerald uses fragments of printed matter in amongst his brushwork – beyond physical structures and into the realm of ambience; they capture the sensation of each place. Paintings of places we visited just a few weeks ago, take me back there. In paintings of others places, I felt a sense of what it must actually be like. They made me want to be there.

Just like Helene Hanff’s book did.

 

You can get a copy of Buildings of London from you know where.

A Guide to Creative Thinking

Maybe it's different now but when I set out into the world of creative things I was singularly ill-equipped. Ignorant of techniques, I thought it was all about in-built, natural talent. No one talked about techniques for creative thinking. I'd like to think it's different now. Over time, I stumbled across strategies and I learned, by trial and error, how to approach a problem. Bit by bit, I collected techniques – "I wish I'd known that years ago" techniques. I have them all written down in a little black book that I carry everywhere I go.

Ideas are the single most valuable commodity in the design world so why rely on what you were born with. Why think that's all there is – especially when there's so much more. And if you don't think you're that creative, what then? Maybe, just maybe, you simply haven't worked out how to be really creative yet. 

What you need is some technique. You need to get meta. You need to think about thinking.

John Ingledew's new book, How to have great ideas, brings together many strategies to unblock your creative pipework; to release your shackled genius… 

Commit time to your creativity. Invest in it. The least you can do is read a book or two. Ingledew suggests much more: question, act, hoard, leap, fix, get outside and explore…my personal favourite: Go to the factory. Always, go to the factory. Then sleep, daydream, take a chance; swap, combine. Fail.

Crucially, on page 176, he says, "Understand your process", that's what it's all about really – find what works for you; equip yourself, "To have ideas quickly and repeatedly it's vital to understand which conditions make you personally most creatively productive". Ingledew quotes Tchaikovsky, "If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it halfway, we easily become indolent and apathetic".

 

How to have great ideas: A guide to creative thinking
was published this month by Laurence King.

Hachette Job

'Twas the tenth year of the second millennium whence I happened upon a somewhat modest volume inside which there was to be found, described in line and word, a city so French it is now known by some as…Paris. 

Remarkably, by an unholy coincidence, by fortuitous happenstance, exactly and precisely five years, two months, one week and three days later I chanced upon this quite different and similar bound collection of papers that describes, in word and line, the very same different land of somewhere else. Italia.

You can click on each image for a closer look.

Rule #1

I was in Belfast city centre just before Christmas, panic buying (as you do) and I stumbled across the Linen Hall Library charity bookshop. I spent far too long sifting through the mishmash of rejected, obsolete and generally disappointing volumes. I was beginning to resent the time I'd wasted, lamenting how I would never get it back and that, really, I'd been quite foolish in getting distracted from my true, less selfish seasonal mission. The last book I looked at was a defaced children's book about bees and beekeeping. Inside the front cover was this inscription.

I think that's my mantra for life, right there. Repeat after me…

Prequal

I've heard of Insel-Bücherei but until last week I haven't actually seen any. First published in Leipzig in 1912 their aim was mirrored by Penguin in 1935. That is, to bring affordable books to the common man. Their design obviously influenced the Penguin Poets and Scores although Insel-Bücherei's books were hardback, rather like the original Ladybird books, and the spine and cover labels were actually glued on labels.

There's been talk of them in The Penguin Collector but from before I was a PCS member so I may need to order back issues to find out more. A quick Google reveals the extent of Insel-Bücherai issues. I picked these up for £1 each. Not sure that'll be a common occurrence.

There's a digital collection here.

The Hounding of Baskerville

The new Pentagram Paper is out.

Back in 2012 American film director Errol Morris posted a quiz online in The New York Times. On the surface it appeared to be testing whether the participant was an optimist or a pessimist but really Morris was testing typefaces. He was toying with an idea: does the choice of typeface influence the credibility of a statement. Well of course it does. Anyone half interested in typography knows it does but Morris approached the task anew and concluded, rather precisely, that the most 'believable' typeface is the one from Birmingham, my home town.

I've always liked Baskerville. Not because it's from the city of my youth, but because of those lovely wide capitals, those round C's, O's and G's; the forthright stroke contrast; and those cheeky italics. Maybe, unknowingly, it's because of the authority that comes built into the design.

Fuelled by his findings, in the Pentagram Paper version, Morris dwells on Mr B. In Chapter 4 he takes a spin around the life and times of the man who, it turns out, was not too popular in his day. Baskerville had made his money in japanning and spent his spare time on his more calligraphic yearnings. Shacked up in his mansion with Mrs Eaves, JB indulges his love of the printed page while outside his reputation was being sullied. His republican views were not popular, nor was his atheism or his sleeping arrangements. As Morris reports, even after his death, "Baskerville stands accused of most everything: priggishness, arrogance, immorality, even illiteracy." – apparently the badly dressed man's correspondents were grammatical disasters.

Baskerville died in 1775 and his house was left to Sarah Eaves. After her death it passed into new hands and in 1791 it was destroyed by what seems to have been slightly ungracious party goers who got totally pissed in the wine cellar and set fire to the place. Several singed bodies were found in the remains.

The story continues, as does the cursed connected bad luck but I'll stop there because I need to take our hound for a walk.

It's a most interesting account with Ben Franklin, Voltaire and Beaumarchais all playing their parts perfectly. Although it occurred to me, right at the end, that the whole thing might be Morris taking his test to a whole new level. Perhaps the PentaPaper was just 76 pages of bullshit, beautifully typeset in Baskerville to see if anyone would respond to it all, say in a blog post for example, convinced of its validity.

Millennium Falcon

I don't really go in for Penguin's Peregrine series. The books are too high-brow for the likes of comprehensive school educated me and I've never really felt that the cover designs hang together or stand out that well, unlike their aviary-mates. But Graham Bishop's cover for Y4 (Shakespeare's History Plays), first published by Peregrine in 1962, caught my eye and makes me think further investigations might change my mind. '62 was the year Peregrine's were first published, The Penguin Collectors' Society's Penguin Companion describes them as, "uncompromisingly academic", AKA "a bit dull". To start off with they were all about literary and historical criticism then in the '70s, the focus turned to more sociological matters, AKA "still a bit dull".

OK, "dull" is probably quite unfair but what definitely isn't dull is that lovely mark by the masterful Hans Schleger. If you're quick you could pick up a used copy of Pat Schleger's book on Hans for a ridiculous 98p on Amazon.

Colosseo

This time last week it was the day after we'd caught the train from Trevi, in Umbria, to Rome. The 6:42 to be precise. It's no small thing, getting up so early when you're on holiday and generally haven't awoken from your vocational slumber until after eight but we did it and by that precise time we were settling into a poorly air-conditioned carriage. I'd packed books for everyone and breakfast that no one liked so we were sorted for the two hour, nine minute journey.

Upon our arrival we wisely decided to flout all advice and ignored the tourist buses, there to carry you around the ancient city in comfort whilst on the streets the extreme heat cruelly beat down on the over-heated pedestrians, in favour of being pedestrians.

The advantage of our strategy was that we got to see things you don't get to see from the bus; the back street stuff which in a city like Rome is not your run-of-the-mill back street stuff. We also got very sore feet.

For our first destination, after arriving at Roma Termini, we high-tailed it over to The Coliseum (or is it Colosseum?), Rome's most obvious and top old spot. I assume that most people that have been to Rome have been to The Coliseum. I've been in the city before but that time didn't get off my hire-scooter. The Coliseum is old. OLD. And big. There's lots of old stuff around nowadays, and there's older stuff than The Coliseum that you can go see, but maybe not that many things that are both as old and as big.

Before, during and after our visit I read up, which really helped. And I was struck, as we strolled through the ancient archways and that, by how this thing had survived nearly two thousand years. It's heyday was quite short-lived really. Conceived about half way through the first century AD and developed over a number of decade, by sometime around 523 AD, the great amphitheatre was no longer the stage for death and glory it was originally conceived for. Largely because Rome had become Christian and battling savage beasts was just not very…well…Christian.

After that the building was repurposed and pilfered – at times looking more like a building site or quarry. Materials were removed to be used for other constructions and artefacts were snatched.

But somehow The Coliseum prevailed so we can explore it's millennia-old corners and crevices today. 

We were quite fortunate in that we found ourselves at one point standing next to another tourist who had either done some serious homework or was an academic of such matters and we followed him, stalked him really, listening in to his insightful descriptions of the bloody and/or theatrical spectacles performed when The Coliseum was in its prime. Yes, there were all those gladiatorial shenanigans going on but the space was also used to present more narrative-based performances, with elaborate sets, such as mock hunts with exotic beasts shipped in as unfortunate and unwitting prey. Or so our unknowing teacher informed us, as we shadowed him.

I've thought about The Coliseum a lot since last week. We walked down corridors that were there nearly two thousand years ago – that's practically biblical. I've had similar feelings in the less developed corners of Greek islands, where time feels like it's stood still, but The Coliseum is different because it's an intricately and intelligently designed space in the heart of a sprawling metropolis.

I bought this book in the gift shop. It's really nice. Spaciously designed with just enough content for the novice to consume and enjoy. Just €10.

Field Work

I went back to get this last week. About two or three weeks ago I saw it in the Oxfam bookshop, Instagrammed it but left it on the shelf. It haunted me so the next time I was in the neighbourhood, I secured it with two and a half pounds. Published in the mid-sixties, the cover design is, sadly, uncredited. 'Sadly' because it's been so thoughtfully crafted, I'd love to know who did it: The way that type on the cover lines up and then how it's stacked on the spine; the ever so clever diagrammatical design; the careful choice of colours…so thoughtful.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rolf

It was ages before I got around to buying Lars Müller's Lufthansa + Graphic Design – edition 05 from their A5 series. And I completely missed edition 06: HfG Ulm. Well, I wasn't going to make the same mistake with edition 07.

This is from the Lars Müller website:

This book is the first monograph dedicated to the designer Rolf Müller who is known above all for his design of the visual identity of the Munich Olympic Games in 1972. Shortly after graduating from the famous Ulm School of Design, his former professor Otl Aicher entrusted him with this work, which set new standards in international design. In parallel, he established his design firm Büro Rolf Müller in Munich.

On the basis of selected projects, the book attempts to sketch the mentality and methods of his design: For nearly four decades, the firm developed corporate identities, books, magazines and signage systems on the highest level. The firm’s projects include the visual identity of the City of Leverkusen, forged over several decades, and the magazine HQ High Quality for the company Heidelberger Druckmaschinen, of which 39 issues were published.

As a storyteller and system designer, Rolf Müller has left his mark on international design history with his work. His stance has had a decisive impact in shaping the way in which today’s communications designers view their profession.

Hard Graphed

It's as if I planned it. Following up the Avant Garde emblazoned presentation pack with Unit Editions simply marvellous compact version of their Herb Lubalin book. For a while, maybe five or so years back (maybe more) graphic design was all about Herb's most famous fonts, AG and semi-self-titles ITC Lubalin Graph. OK, that's a considerable exaggeration but the two fonts were pretty prominent for a while.

Way back in the mid-seventies it was the same. Good times for the International Type Corporation, co-founded by Lubalin at the beginning of that decade. The distinct thing about ITC was its house style. Even when re-issuing typefaces based on historical models, like Garamond, they imbued the design with a distinctly large x-height. Purists would argue that ITC Garamond is NOT Garamond. Controversial stuff.

The Unit Editions book is great; richly capturing the life and beautiful work of an important figure in typography and graphic design.

Damages

This years Pentagram holiday book records the strange case of the wild dog that sued the manufacturing giant. The plaintiff, one W E Coyote, disgruntled by the poor performance of products purchased from the defendant, the Acme Company, sought damages for loss of income and  personal injury suffered following the use of the afore mentioned items.

With supporting diagrammage and wit, it's a very funny little book. The text, by Ian Frazier, was originally published in The New Yorker in 1990 and re-purposed here with products designed by Daniel Weir and illustrated by Simon Denzel.

You can read more about it here.

Winning Post

I don't know if anyone remembers but a while back Michael Russem from the Kat Ran Press in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sent me the rather marvellous Eric Gill, Notes on Postage Stamps that revealed (well, OK, maybe just hinted at) Gill's fundamentally bad attitude to the commissions presented to him.

Michael's done it again. This time sending Postage Stamps by AIGA Medalists. It's a fascinating review of some of the most interesting winners from the last hundred years or so. It includes such luminaries as Lucian Bernhard, Dwiggins, Lester Beall, a collaborative set involving Herb Lubalin, Josef Albers, Armin Hofman, a stunner from Thomas Geismar, my personal favourite from Herbert Bayer…the list goes on…Chermayeff, Glaser, Bass.

What Not To Do On A Date…etc.

Hidden for fifty years, over one hundred examples of pamphlet cover art from Ireland's Catholic Truth Society are brought together between the covers of Vintage Values, a new book from Veritas Publications in Dublin.

Printed between 1920 and 1960 the pamphlets covered the essential, thorny issues of the day like, "Should my daughter be a nun.", "Modesty and Modernity", how "Nobody Loves a Tease" (nobody!) and the moral dilemma of how to respond should one find oneself in the company of The Wishing Gnome. And let's face it, who hasn't? Bloody wishing gnomes.

If that wasn't enough the CTS considered it their spiritual duty to protect their kind even further, publishing instructions outlining the correct way to respond to a Jehovah Witness, when he or she comes a'knocking at your door, how to survive when an agnostic moves to your village and what happens when Sister Felicitas wins a bicycle.

Find out more about Vintage Values, and buy the book, postcard or poster here.

Peake District

The latest book of Nigel Peake's labourious drawings is a story book. In The Dark is a sombre story although it's not until you get to the very end of the book (unless you've cheated and taken a sneaky peek) that a rather subtle explanation is suggested; the drawings (and I presume the narrative) were completed over two consecutive winters; one spent in Austria and the other in Switzerland.

The story takes a boy on a slightly spooky journey through and beyond the woods; a journey that leads, ultimately, to an enlightening experience (I won't spoil it for you). But there's a bleakness to the story and the monochrome drawings that, perhaps, is not surprising given the regions in which the story was rendered…or maybe that's just Peake for you. Either way, having only enjoyed Peake's art before, it's great to see written narrative joining his linework. 

King

I See The Promised Land is the graphic-novelisation of the life of Martin Luther King JR and is published by South Indian independent press Tara Books. With prose from African American writer and griot Arthur Flowers and beautifully illustrated by Patua scroll artist Manu Chitrakar, the comic-like format does nothing to undermine this harrowing account of the Civil Rights Movement's rise.

In fact, the colliding traditions – the relatively modern graphic novel format and the ancient African form of oral storytelling – bring the story to life in a way that feels new and relevant.

Punctuation

The peaceful land of Punctuation
is filled with tension overnight

When the stops and commas of the nation 
call the semi-colons ‘parasites’

In 1905, German poet Christian Morgenstern wrote a poem, In the Land of Punctuation. It told of an escalating fracas between certain marks and the bloody battle that ensued. It's a grim (and witty) tale.

Now translated into English by Sirish Rao and brilliantly illustrated by Rathna Ramanathan, Morgenstein's poem has a whole new lease of life thanks to Tara Books.

Fingerprints

Tara Books is a publishing co-operative in Chennai, Southern India. A group of writers, designers and artists, they produce beautiful books for both adults and children. Often politically or socially driven, Tara is a fierely independent group dedicated rich content.

Fingerprint, for example, is both surprising and impressive:

When designer and artist Andrea Anastasio visited the United States some years ago, he was fingerprinted (like everyone else) by the airport immigration authorities. This moment — both banal and ominous — stayed with him until it worked its way into his art. The result is Fingerprint, a visual fable that celebrates resistance to state surveillance and control. The artist’s fingerprints, screen printed onto the pages of the book, create progressively complex patterns and sequences, transporting the fingerprint from the world of forensics and law into the freeing world of art and imagination. 

Screen printing the book makes each fingerprint feel like the artist has applied his inky fingers to each leaf; prints stand off the sheet just enough. And where they are overlayed you can literally feel the build up of colour. But as the synopsis suggests, the pages tell a story. At first, one of oppression as a single black fingerprint becomes gradually overwhelmed by others but as the book progresses a more optimistic sense develops. A brighter future.

It's a beautiful, appropriately tactile and thought provocing book.

You can browse Tara's catalogue here.

The Designer Says…

Do designers like an aphorism more than most? I'm not sure. We certainly do love a pithy truth about the nature of our work don't we? Whether it provides valuable insight into the inner workings of design practice and principles or reassurance of the validity of our most treasured points-of-view, a few carefully chosen words from a pier or hero can resonate. Letterpress it and hang it on a wall.

Handsomely bound and stylishly typeset (using a generous selection of Hoefler and Frere-Jones' Knockout) "The Designer Says" is packed to the rafters with the wit and wisdom of luminaries from design disciplines. Thoughtfully paired, each spread presents ideas either in tune with one another or at opposite poles.

If it were close to Christmas I'd say this is the ideal Yuletide gift for the designer you love. But it's obviously not so just buy yourself a copy – or surprise the creative you treasure most.

 

Vignelli Transit Maps

Published by the RIT Press Vignelli Transit Maps tells the rise and fall story of the celebrated New York subway map, from its preliminary sketches, through its publishing and on to its demise. Lavishly illustrated, the book is an appropriately dignified and detailed monument to a significant icon of graphic design history.

Canon

In 2009 Massimo Vignelli generously released a free pdf document: The Vignelli Canon. If you dig around, you'll probably find it online somewhere. The Canon was a summary of what he considered to be essential knowledge that all designers should know, underpinning the idea that, "Creativity needs the support of knowledge to be able to perform at its best".

Vignelli is the quintessential designer's designer, championing a signature modernist approach that can feel a little soulless when practised without a deep understanding of the task at hand. But, of course, Vignelli is the master. Whether you're a dedicated modernist or not, The Canon is essential reading. A year after his electronic version, the print edition became available.

Hoch fliegen

You're probably wondering how come it's taken me this long to get around to buying this amazing record of Lufthansa's design heritage? What can I say?

Laziness. Nothing more or less than bone idleness. Complete and utter, shameful, unadulterated, lackadaisical slacking.

If it wasn't for slothful, indolence I'd have snapped this up when it was first published. And delighted in its pages of tip top, world-class, über-stylish corporate identiness.

I am guilty as charged.  

Super-Pope

I was reading JohnsonBanks' Thought of the Week the other day. It was one of their Second Thoughtsies, Tina Roth Swiss to be precise. An interesting read, I'd have said the Bourbon biscuit was my all-time favourite. A couple of the questions had me self-analysing a little deeper. When did I first realise I wanted to be a designer? Tina was 7 or 8. Flippin' eck! I was in my twenties. The follow-up question was, "Did you experience anything early in your life that was a significant influence?".

That reminded me: I've been meaning to say something about The Goodies File for ages now. I think The Goodies File (circa 1974) was my earliest significant encounter with graphic design. I picked up a copy on ebay last year, for just a few quid. Seeing it again, I was not disappointed; it's a superbly crafted piece of work. Sometimes it's crafted to look crap, some of it displays cunning pastiche. Of course, much of it is just plain funny. A pre-Mac production, in those days the easiest way to mimic something hand rendered was to render it, by hand. Which means convincing authenticity. And because of that, the content is all the more engaging.

I now wonder if it was this that has made me so appreciative of convincing mimicry. It's a classic graphic design technique: you use the visual language of a profession or past time or something or other, to display empathy for a particular audience or to reflect a certain theme. I've done it plenty of times myself: a medical file for a GP's practice manager, a gold award envelope for a BAFTA member…betting slips, receipts, vitamin bottles. I love to see other people doing too. This is superb – so well crafted.

It feels less good, despite detailed crafting, when we see it online now doesn't it? Perhaps because it's more fake; the medium's different; it can't convince. We loved it for a while but now, en masse, we're turning our collective backs on feux. For a while at least. I guess that probably happened when we were only concerned with print too.

So when Michael gets around to asking me the questions (I know, it'll never happen), you know what I'll say.

Monster Shit Sale

Sometime during the mid-sixties the American trade paper Printers' Ink asked ad man Howard Luck Gossage for the ad he'd "never forget". He explained that it was a full page he'd seen around 1925, for a haberdashers. It had a massive woodtype headline that read "MONSTER SHIRT SALE", only they'd missed an "R" out.

It wasn't what they were expecting. It was, however, very Gossage.

A few weeks ago I was in Birmingham, having lunch with friend from the internet, copywriter Johnny Cullan. We talked about all sorts of stuff but came around to our shared hero Drayton Bird. A singularly uncool character in the marketing industry he was (is) a man totally focussed on getting results. I've learned a lot from Bird, although he doesn't know it. The line of chat lead Johnny on to introduce me to Howard Luck Gossage and, more specifically, Steve Harrison's book on the man that was published last year.

It's understating it to say that Gossage was an unconventional adman and to get his full measure you'd be much better off getting yourself a copy of Harrison's book than rely on any attempt I might make to talk him up.

I'll say this though: Gossage was also a man that wanted results; direct results. He came to feel that the mechanisms of his business would be much better employed for the greater good and during his life he showed how that should be done. He got some amazing results.

To summarise some of his most significant achievements, Gossage: saved the Grand Canyon from likely destruction; kick-started the Green Movement (i.e. Friends of the Earth); launched Marshall McLuhan onto an international stage; and inspired Tom Wolfe. John Steinbeck worked for him for heaven's sake! He used interactivity and "social media" practically forty years before the internet existed; and he pioneered the cybernetic technique of the information loop decades before the term "iteration" was adopted by the web community.

There I go, talking him up. But really, Gossage was that important.

Steve Harrison's perfectly titled book, Changing the world is the only fit work for a grown man, captures the radical energy of this lesser known pioneer in detail, with the personal memories of those that knew him best. OK, it's not as funny as my opening anecdote might suggest but nevertheless, it is an exciting story; about a man on a personal, world-changing adventure in advertising.

Bookly

I've been meaning to do this for ages. Karen, my beautiful and extremely talented (and frugal) wife, every now and then, asks, "How come you can't make any money out of that bloody blog of yours?". "Can't make any money?", I say, "Can't make any money? I'll have you know I made a tidy $50…over…er…the last…well…hmmm, let me see…six? Yes, six months". That's about what I get for having that wee ad over there.

It's effortless but barely covers my Typepad fees. And goes no way to support my lavish lifestyle, my yacht, my villa in the Seychelles, Noah's Stradivariarse, Seth's herd of llamas or, indeed, Karen's near daily luxury spa treatments.

Then, of course, Ace Jet was never meant to be a money making venture. It's always been an outlet for the mishmash of cerebral fodder in my grey matter. It's all done for the love of the stuff. And although I've been approached occasionally by companies wanting to exploit its pixels for their own ruthlessly commercial end, I've resisted the temptation to dirty its pages with such vulgarity. Mainly because they're run-of-the-mill digital print companies claiming to offer the very finest printing ever. On the finest, shiniest paper in the world. At the cheapest price.

No, they can fuck right off. And in their place, I've just signed up to an Amazon Associates account which I'm filling with various tip top quality designery books I've plugged over the years. And will continue to do so, on the off chance that some lovely viewer is suitably inspired to purchase one from my aStore. If that ever happens, I'll get a meagre few quid kickback. Money that will help me feed my children and maybe even the dog we haven't got yet.

So, if you feel like a browse through stuff I've actually, genuinely read from actual front to real life back cover, you can find the secret entrance to my bookish Aladdin's cave of designery beauties on the left, at the top.

I'll only list books I'd recommend - although I have to say, I'd recommend alot. There are classics and there are some surprises. Lots of historical stuff like Corporate Diversity (superb!) and some practical things, like Jon Steel's Perfect Pitch (essential reading if you ask me).

So take a stroll, if you will, through its shelves. And if you do buy something, just think: not only will you be enriching your own life with knowledge that will probably help you win a D&AD Yellow Pencil but you will also be enriching my life – with money.

Ta.

The only way is ethics

Path buddy and all round gentleman Mr Steve Kirkendall bought Unit Edition's volume on graphic design ground-breaker Ken Garland recently. I'm delighted to say he agreed to write a guest blog entry on the book. I asked Steve to tell us a bit about himself first:

I work for Virgin Money as a print/web designer which is quite creative, when I'm not doing amends. I've worked in London, Chicago and I'm now back in Norwich where I'm from. I've worked as a cartoonist/illustrator, a magazine designer, freelance all rounder and a creative director for a small publishing house. When I'm not working I am trying to shoe-horn Javascript into my stubborn brain. Or running. I blog at www.kirkendall.co.uk, which I'm presently redesigning, so please forgive its pants-down demeanour.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

 

The film is about to start. The lights dim, the screen darkens. Out of the void you hear a voice, mature, quick, warm. It says:

"I've always thought it was terribly important to be able to say to someone: 'You don't need this – you can do without this symbol or you can do without this sign.' I think graphic design will only come of age when it can take on these sorts of questions, and sometimes answer them by saying, what you need here isn't graphic design it's whatever else. Or maybe nothing."

The words 'Ken Garland: Structure and Substance' appear on screen in Folio Medium Extended, range left and reversed out. They fade and the film begins.

Sadly, we'll have to wait for that particularly piece of heaven; this film doesn't exist. However, we do have the book. Ken Garland: Structure and Substance by Unit Editions is, unbelievably, the first ever monograph of one of our leading graphic designers. It may come as no surprise to learn that although only issued late last year, it's already on its second printing.

Part of the post-war generation of designers that included Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes and Derek Birdsall, Garland is not as celebrated as his contemporaries. Maybe it's because he rarely entered his work for design awards and steered clear of any professional design body (although he helped to found D&AD, he left when he felt advertising started to dominate). Early in his career, his dissatisfaction during a meeting of the SIA (now the Chartered Society of Designers) led to the creation of his famous manifesto 'First Things First', where he called upon designers to use their skills to create 'lasting forms of communication' for 'worthwhile purposes'. With the applause that followed came the image of Garland as the design world's 'Mr Ethics' – something he always refuted. Though nobody doubts Garland's integrity.

Whether designing for Galt Toys, Paramount Pictures or the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, he never imposed his personal style or opinions onto his clients, preserving his own views for his books and many articles for the design press. A deep mistrust of homogenisation steered him away from corporate design (he famously turned down IBM) and stopped him from fully embracing the rigour of the Swiss, feeling that they prized form over content. Instead he felt the best way was to meld Swiss cool with American warmth – a philosophy described in his 1960 essay 'Structure and Substance' from which this book takes its title.

And what a book this is – whether, like me, you're a fan of Garland or are interested in the part he played in the birth of modern British graphic design, it will not disappoint. Everything is here – his design, logos, photography, lists of lectures, articles and books. Recommended, go buy! 

 

P.S. Unit Editions are hosting Ken Garland: A graphic celebration at the St Bride Library in London on Tuesday 12 February. Unfortunately, it's sold out. However, Ken Garland will be signing copies of his book afterwards, you might want to pop along and see you if can get a cheeky autograph.

Process

Richard Holt is a complete gent. He sent me these two lovelies. As a result, by mid-February, my penmanship will be improved ten-fold. I'll be scribing wistful and poetic correspondence like nobody's business.

Printing Processes is superbly illustrated and, as you'd expect from Ladybird circa 1970, explains with absolute clarity how it was done way back then…when letterpress and the likes of the Linotype/Monotype machines were still fresh in the memory.

Anatomy

Towards the end of last year a friend of mine, who was working on a web-based typography tool, asked me for tips on how to pair typefaces. I know how I approach the task but I started to wondering if there were well defined techniques to share. Digging through typography books (old and new) I couldn't find much on the subject. One or two writers basically say, "Just don't do it!", advising you to stick to one font family. After all, that's why it's been designed as a family (well, one of the reasons). Interesting, good advice, but the urge to contrast typefaces is still there. Are there any more encouraging answers?

And, perhaps, now more than ever an encouraging answer would be helpful. Not least because of the whole new generation of graphic designers (whether they call themselves that or not) whose work manifests itself in some digitally-based form but whose journey has not taken the "conventional" route. They haven't got to where they are via a lengthy stay at the university of typographical hard knocks. But the desire to learn is great.

What would/do I do? The first and most obvious approach, I think, is to look to type designers who have produced a range of typefaces and see if sympathetic pairs can be identified from within their body of work.

It's not uncommon for type designers to use similar letter structures across different typefaces. Some are plainly obvious, Spiekermann's Meta goes with his Meta Serif; Sumner Stone's self-titled Sans sits nicely with it's Serif sister and Informal brother.

More recently we've seen the term "Super Families" become more visible, describing sets of typefaces, some with incredibly extensive variations. Super Families hand us sympathetic font pairs on a plate and that's very helpful; not least for the fledgling typographic designer.

But what if you want to freestyle? Go off-typedesigner or off-superfamily in search of a pairing with greater contrast or all of your own making. How do you start?

I can think of two ways (there's probably more):

The easiest way is to cheat. You go looking for examples that work and you copy the same pairing. It's not stealing; it's not a terrible way to approach it really. Except that you're not going to learn much. It's a bit like the old, clichéd "Give a man a fish…" cliché.

A better way to approach the challenge is to get closer to the type; intimate in fact. Get under the skin of type design, analyse the characteristics of typefaces to discern what one (say, serif) face has in common with a different (say, sans) face. Learn about its historical and, even, its geographical contexts.

Enter, stage left, Stephen Coles' new book The Geometry of Type (or if you're Stateside, The Anatomy of Type). A timely publication, given the still fairly new but ferocious interest in typography from the designers and builders of the digital realm; Stephen's book, I think, couldn't have come at a better time. It presents just what those new to designing with type need to know.

The Geometry of Type leads you through the classification of typefaces, their historical background and reveals their distinguishing characteristics. Armed with a detailed grasp of this knowledge, the designer can see that, for example, a particular typeface that falls into the Humanist Serif category may well work well with another face that could be described as a Humanist Sans. Or how a Geometric Sans might work well with a Rational Serif (more traditionally known as a Modern). Of course, with any one single volume only a limited collection of typefaces can be included. Perhaps the most important lesson that the book teaches is to look closer at whatever typeface we're using. It teaches what to look for; where the critical details can be gleamed.

I think this is a book that could, and probably should, become a staple for a generation of typographic designers. From talking to a few people who are coming to typographic design with a digital background, our time feels not unlike that period when design studios were just installing Macs for the first time. When graphic designers were getting their hands on type which they'd previously relied on others to control (typesetters).

It's a little different but it's similar because there are designers using type with very little proper understanding of its intricacies. I was like that way back then and what I had to do was learn lots of stuff. I can wholeheartedly relate to the plight of these designers; that's just what I was like. And what I needed back then was a nudge here and there to set me on the right track. Stephen's book is one of those very helpful nudges.

Related: Ellen Lupton's article on Thinking With Type.

Super Families: At fontshop.com and fonts.com

1984

I think it's kind of interesting that this was published at around the same time as that new Bowie album cover design appeared. They're clearly not really connected but they do have obvious things in common.

I'll be totally up front: I think they're both fantastic. Great, brave, strong ideas. Both feel radical in a time when it seems everything has been done. Not that blacking out text or regurgitating old artwork haven't been done before, of course they have. But when considered in context (and context is so important isn't it?) I do think both are challenging ideas. They are, it's undeniable. If they weren't, they wouldn't have triggered such discourse. Love them or hate them, in their contexts they're challenging - and in their contexts, challenging is good.

David Pearson's book cover is the antithesis of conventional book cover design and, perhaps, could only have been achieved with a book like this. Unless the cover is laughably unsuitable 1984 will sell. As it is, I have a suspicion that this cover will create new, invigorated interest and ultimately greater sales than if a more conventional approach had been taken. Why? Partly because of what I just said: 1984 will sell anyway but mostly because of the times we live in. Dare I believe that "good design" is recognised and embraced more than ever? Pearson's design has certainly caused a stir.

I remember my gut response to seeing the cover for the first time on Dan's blog. I immediately thought, "That would never have happened if it wasn't for the Great Ideas covers". Those series', in my humble opinion, shifted the perception of not only what you could get away with but how intelligent, considered, restrained design could actually sell books. Particularly at Penguin, I imagine those series' proved something. Perhaps a "something" that could only apply to re-issued older volumes but a new something nevertheless.

I can easily believe that this new cover may be an outcome of what was learned: innovate and people will buy. And Penguin deserve to be aplauded accordingly.

But what about Barnbrook's Bowie cover? The album's not even out yet but the debate is ferocious. Again: loved and hated, the big and simple question is: Is the design any good?

I think there's plently being said about it so I'm not going to spark another fight here. I don't think whether you love or hate the aethetics is really the point. What's important about it is that an artist like Bowie, at his age and position, opts for a design that shakes things up; that pisses people off. In one discussion I've been involved in we speculated over whether the re-hashing of an old album cover had been done before; Massive Attack was mentioned. But it's not just any old cover being re-hashed is it? It's an iconic album cover, provocatively bastardised. Vialated. Imagine doing that to Sgt Pepper or Revolver or Pet Sounds (OK, perhaps Heroes isn't quite up there with those but you get the idea).

Again, I feel that wouldn't have happened a few years ago. For some reason, and I'm not totally sure why, it feels like both the Bowie cover and the Orwell cover are products of our time. Is it a post-post-post-modern thing? I don't really know what that means. Is it because we live in a mashed-up digital world where "design" is embracing so many new things (3D printing, digital/print colaborations, craft/digital assimilations, lots of other stuff)?

I know I haven't got any real answers and this post is little more than my ramblings but I felt moved to put thoughts down because I think both covers are, if nothing else, provocative and it seems that it's been a while since we enjoyed such goading.

Lancs.

This post has to be accompanied by an apology to designer, author and lettering fanatic Simon Hawkesworth. Simon was kind enough to send me a copy of his book A Lancaster Alphabet: Letterforms from the Stones of the City in December but what with all that Christmas stuff and nonsense it's taken weeks to get around to uploading anything.

An elegant volume it celebrates the architectural and commenorative lettering of Simon's adopted city. Each letter of the alphabet is represented with its own spread showing where it was found and the social/design back-story to its location.

A Lancaster Alphabet is published by (and is available from) Simon's own Fast Foot Press.

Darling

If you didn't know, each year at around this time (well, in time for Christmas) Pentagram produce a small holiday book; something playful. Last year it was Today I'm Feeling Turquoise. This year it's a book of push out, metallic silver gift tags with special messages on the back. Special, heart-rending, touching (slightly twisted) messages of love and desire…and paperclips and ice scrapers. 

Written by Naresh Ramchandani with the help of Tom Edmonds and Nick Molster, it's very simple and very funny. Click each image to read the texts.

Chaps

Always feel rather privilaged to receive Pentagram Papers. They're often odd in their subject matter, always surprising, usually delightful; the latest is all of those things.

Cowboys and poetry aren't particularly familiar bed-fellows round these here parts but in the right circles, there is a long heritage of high plains wordsmithery. Designed by Austin-based partner DJ Stout, with Stu Taylor, Paper 42: Cowboy Poetry features stunning photography Jay B Sauceda and the lyrical ramblings of whole posse of veteran ranch herders.

You can read more about the book and the launch party here.