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:
Disco-era logo love
August 6, 2010 | Tags: 1970s, logo design, logos, showcase
From designer/illustrator Eric Carl, a great Flickr set of vintage logos from a mid-70s World of Logotypes collection.
Lots to learn from a more innocent, Illustrator-free era, when you could be damn sure that the logo was going to reproduce well in black and white.
Some highlights:
So you want to brand a city?
August 3, 2010 | Tags: cities, gallery, identity design, logo design, showcase
When I studied typography with the legendary Ed Benguiat — type designer extraordinaire, with some 700+ typefaces to his name (and a second career as a jazz drummer) — he said that there was one project he’d always dreamt of: branding an airline. The scope, the scale, the range…what’s not to get excited over?
And if you like that idea, what about branding a city?
Start researching the competition at Stadtlogo Design, a huge and endlessly fascinating gallery of logos designed for cities. It’s heavy on European examples, since the site is the work of German economist Wilfried Weisenberger (and is in German), but there are plenty of U.S. examples too.
The work ranges from the lovely…
…to the hideous…
…from the somewhat too abstract…
…to the definitely too literal…
…from the Abstract Expressionist-inspired…
…to the 60s-inspired…
…to the Clip Art-inspired…
…to the…well…uninspired…
…to the just plain bizarre:
Stunning Flash websites
June 13, 2009 | Tags: Flash, music, showcase, web design
Last week’s Adobe newsletter included a list of bleeding edge Flash websites and asked readers whether any might be early candidates for site of the year.
For my money, the most exciting of the bunch is a sort of interactive music video for a lovely song called “Soy tu aire” by Spanish singer Labuat. Eye-popping, unexpected, and genuinely moving all at once.
Big kudos to Herraiz Soto & Co., the interactive ad agency that created the site.