Spike Press
Finally after a few months, a new interview has arrived on LetterCult with John Solimine, the brains and hands behind Spike Press. His work is creative and inspiring and although I don’t like posting too many images, you can always view loads more at his website. And don’t forget to read the interview on LetterCult. I love the long and narrow format posters, shown below. So beautiful especially with the kraft colored stock!
Visual Rolodex Update
It looks like all of our visual rolodex’s will be getting an update to the face of Leonardo Da Vinci. A journalist by the name of Piero Angela had spotted the shape of a nose underneath layers of writing in da Vinci’s notebook on a page called “Codex on the Flight of Birds”. He then got the help from art historians, forensic experts and the graphic department of RAI (Italian television) by making the text invisible by turning the text white and then the same tone as the paper using a pixel by pixel method. What emerged? Unfortunately no photos have been released yet but they claim to have a self-portrait of a younger Leonardo…
Dirty
One of my favorite shows to watch is Dirty Jobs featuring Mike Rowe. Recently the show celebrated 200 dirty jobs and throughout the show graffiti was used as a visual aid between takes. I don’t have great shots on it, but I took one with my iPhone while watching and one from youTube of the graffiti on trash cans. I thought it was nicely done and can’t wait for more Dirty Jobs! Want to know more about the show? Visit Discovery Channel for show information and to read about how the show came to be visit the article on Fast Company titled The Dirtiest Mind in the Business.
Don’t Forget
Don’t forget about Information Graphics! I am so enthralled by information graphics and their appeal. Something about them makes me want to get functional! View the SND 30 Awards for Information Graphics over at the InfographicsNews blog. Thank you for posting these!
Marks
Marks, the new book by Pentagram is now available to pre-order and looks to be worth every penny! $40.95, own a piece of Pentagram history! The book features 400 symbols and logotypes created within the Pentagram business and is a limited edition of just 1000 copies!!! The book is printed on French-folded bible paper, bound in a red, cloth-covered softback cover and includes five ribbons for bookmarking.
Market Tags
I have no idea why I have this need to collect strange, sometimes odd things. I love these Vintage Market Tags over at Present & Correct. If I did my currency conversion correct, these are $5.79 (USD) or £4.00. Looks like that’s the price per tag, bummer. Too rich for my blood!
Tiny Art Director
The Brief: Can you just paint one poo-poo in a frame? The poo-poo is an airplane. The Critique: Good. I want a treat. Job Status: Approved As many of you probably have already seen, there is a wonderful blog titled Tiny Art Director where a father draws for his daughter and she critiques his work. So good, and so true. Children are the true perfectionists. The poo airplane above is probably my favorite. What you may not know is that he is now offering a book of his art and his daughter’s musings. Click on the image below to purchase.
Penmanship in the Past
Is penmanship in the past? See an interesting video abourt cursive handwriting loses importance in schools. So sad. “Getting by” is mentioned when it comes to schoolling and really ticks me off. No child or person should be just “getting by” whether it has anything to do with penmanship or not. Terrible. View the video here. I’m always blown away by the penmanship I’ve seen on vintage cards and letters. It seems that everyone back then knew how to write beautifully and legibly. Not like some of the slop that I’ve seen today that isn’t cursive but is considered legible. Despicable, if I were writing my playmate of the month stats my turn offs would…
Sketchbook Project
View over 78 pages of submissions for The Sketchbook Project initiated by Art House. They sent out hundreds of sketchboooks to requesting artists who filled small moleskine notebooks with their artwork. I love their tag line “it’s like a concert tour, but with sketchbooks”
DIN Website
Font Font has dedicated a complete site to FF DIN, an industrial looking sans-serif developed by Albert-Jan Pool exclusively for Font Font. The site contains the story of how FF DIN came to be, technical specs, a gallery of the lovely typeface in use and much more. Oh, and don’t forget to purchase it while your visiting the site if you don’t already have it.
