I am truly intrigued by the prints and recent book by Keegan Wenkman. Keegan lives and works out of Portland, Cascadia and was recently featured on FPO. Keegan’s book Codex Viginti Sex focuses on the number 26. “The first book Codex Viginti Sex is based on the repetition and context of the number 26 in my life.” I know how you feel, the number 22 or 222 is always throwing itself into my life.

Being a freelance designer can be a task. Especially when it comes to direct contact with your clients, well Jessica Hische has a fabulous outlet for all that pent-up anger. She’s created a notepad of Day-Ruining Invoices which will be available to purchase soon. So when you’re having a bad day and need to get it off your mind, write that pesky client an invoice, seal it in an envelope, and don’t ever send it. Unless you don’t want them as a client, then send it and they probably won’t call or bug you any more. Problem solved!

If you are a follower of my Twitter page, you probably already know that I found a copy of the Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship printed in 1867 in a local antique shop. I am 39 pages into the book and some of the writing is certainly hard to read – I’m so used to modern-style writing. But the most wonderful part of the book was not what was written on the pages, but samples of someone’s practice left in the book. I found a few scraps with script and wanted to share them here. Not the best photos thanks to the lighting in my office, but I’m working on a remedy for that!

And there was one quote that struck me as interesting:

“One ink drop on a solitary thought
Hath moved the mind of millions.”

You can view the entire book here on the internet via PDF or JPG form, but I much prefer the book in it’s physical form and the unexpected samples of history that came with it.

I just magically stumbled upon Grit City Inc., an independent publisher releasing books that they would buy. Based in Philadelphia here’s a great quote from their site – “Our books are a tangible, beautiful expression of people and their stories. GritCityInc. is all about community love – must be our Philly roots coming through.”

I’m really interested in the soon-to-be-released Tatted. Cited as revealing the emotion associated with the permanent art of the tattoo. The book has 160 pages filled with essays, interviews and photographs by Marianne Bernstein.

I like this Tattoo Script T available to purchase on their site too!

This book just caught my eye over at Laurence King Publishing, Ltd. and is officially on my wish list. Am I the only nerd who bookmarks publishers and browses them for good books?

Creative Space: Urban Homes of Artists and Innovators is a book about the creative folks who are generally DIY who’s interiors strongly reflect pop culture. Written by Francesca Gavin, Visual Arts Editor at ‘Dazed & Confused’ magazine.

I received an email about pre-ordering this book today and thought it might be interesting. Sometimes looking through tons of fonts on a computer can be taxing on the eyes so I tend to like looking through books. 4000 Alphabets & Letter Motifs: A Sourcebook features “a lavish treasury of elegantly rendered typographic and calligraphic alphabets from the familiar Roman letters to scripts inspired by Runic and Cyrillic writing—along with numerals, music, and other symbols” that are copyright free. You are free to copy, trace and use them in any way that you wish.

You can pre-order the book by by Graham Leslie McCallum from Amazon.com which is due out on August 4. The author Graham McCallum is an artist, designer and craftsperson who teaches and writes on design while living in Durban, South Africa. He has several other books such as 4000 Flower and Plant Motifs and 4000 Animal, Bird and Fish Motifs, also available on Amazon.com

Introducting The Typographic Desk Reference. I have to admit, you probably can’t have too many typographic books around when you need one. Any one will do but this looks like the have-all for typography nuts like me. The foreword is by Ellen Lupton, and if you wanted information on typography she is the go-to gal for it. She calls it the “Ultimate tool for the type geek.”

I won’t fill you up with details because you can get all of the information you need from the website, right here.

I just saw the work by Draught Associates and needed to share their designs for Visual Aid, a book designed and compiled in-house. Cool graphics and looks like it’s a fun book!

I.D. and Moleskine teamed up to give us “A Week in Your Life”, featuring renowned designers to promote the new Folio collection. The project includes work from the following artists:

• Giuseppe Amato
• Marian Bantjes
• Yves Béhar
• James Biber
• Ayse Birsel
• Louise Campbell
• Claesson Koivisto Rune
• Han Feng
• Seth Godin
• Michael Graves
• Alfredo Häberli
• Jessica Helfand
• Linda Tischler

Oh, and did you know that April 27 was World Graphic Design Day? Me either. I think we should have a National Sketch Month, don’t you?

This has got to be one of the coolest music videos ever, it features two large-sized pop-up books that tells a story to go with the song. Adorable! The song is by Lisa Hannigan from her new album Sea Sew and the pop up books were created by Jamie Hannigan (a relative to the singer?) and Maeve Clancy.

Thanks to Design Sponge