Retro Modern Letterpress Book Cover Design, or: The Pleasures of Nostalgia
August 11, 2010 | Tags: Adam Smith, book design, graphic design, Kierkegaard, letterpress, Nietzsche, showcase
Some months ago, in a great little bookstore in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn—the kind of place that stay open later than some of the local bars—I was stopped in my tracks by a shelf of beautiful little paperbacks that looked like a novelty letterpress imprint from some local basement publisher:
Upon closer inspection, I learned it was about as un-boutique a publisher as you can get: Penguin, in a new “Great Ideas” series—the Russians, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Adam Smith, etc….a sort of brainy undergraduate’s dream team. At least it had been for me. Minus the Adam Smith.
Only this week did I run across the designer of the gorgeous, highly tactile covers: Mr. David Pearson, a London-based designer who specializes in book design and branding.
Aside from his portfolio, very definitely worth a look is his Flickr site, where he shares delicious scans of some of the original old-school sources of his inspiration, including these vintage Russian matchbook covers:
How to Choose a Font
July 24, 2010 | Tags: fonts, geeky design humor, graphic design, typefaces, typography
From Julian Hansen, a very clever, very young graphic designer in Copenhagen, a big old-fashioned flow chart that tells you all you need to know about picking a typeface. Especially if you cried watching Terminator.
Click on the image for the full-sized chart.
Julian sells a poster version here.
ISAIAH - 10,000 Voices Campaign
July 20, 2010 | Tags: branding, graphic design, identity design, ISAIAH, social justice
The Minnesota social justice organization ISAIAH hired Prescient Media to develop a comprehensive identity design and messaging platform for its 10,000 Voices for One Minnesota campaign, developing over the course of 2010 in advance of the MN gubernatorial election.
Prescient provided a compelling visual brand and a full compliment of collateral campaign materials, from stationary and brochures to postcards and DVD labels.
The beauty of the flying shoe
September 23, 2009 | Tags: graphic design, high art, illustration, inspiration, publication design
Browsing through the inspiring gallery of winning designs from the Society of Publication Designers’ 2008 competition, I came across this image, a Merit Award winner in the front/back of book category by designer/art director Eva Spring and illustrator Alli Arnold:
Aside from the charm and simplicity of the image, what struck me was the shoe – straight out of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Shoe:
Of all the great things about the painting, nothing is better than the shoe. And that shoe was on my mind because I’d seen it this weekend at the Brooklyn Museum Yinka Shonibare exhibition:
A good idea is a good idea, wherever you steal it from.
Typography porn
August 20, 2009 | Tags: graphic design, type, typography
I hadn’t had a proper fix since Alki1’s International Typographic Style photo set on Flickr. Then I ran across the blog of Jessica Hische, a Brooklyn-based designer and illustrator who specializes in hand lettering. Really pretty hand lettering.
Prescient Media designs for The New Lines
June 27, 2009 | Tags: graphic design, music, poster design, The New Lines
As brutal as the New York weather has been in recent weeks — and promises to be for at least another week — the rain last Sunday was just sporadic enough to let much of the Make Music NYC festival go off as planned: 850 concerts of every conceivable type in every corner of the city, especially outdoors.
The New Lines, a Brooklyn-based band that plays reverby, melancholy, melodic pop influenced in equal measures by Stephin Merritt, Broadcast, and Joy Division, had a pair of concerts at the festival. Mastermind multi-instrumentalist Hewson Chen asked Prescient Media to produce a poster in the old Bauhaus spirit for a pair of concerts it played that day.
If you were around Williamsburg/Bushwick that Saturday night or Sunday, you may have seen the result:
