#56 — Scher
Defy the staircase!
- What make a great book cover? Book designers on what book designs they like by other book designers.
- The site is a bit of a labyrinth, but the Society for the Preservation of Letraset Action Transfers is wonderful. Loads of 70s/80s promotional transfers for Star Wars, Doctor Who, Tintin, Transformers, etc. Warning: after a few minutes you may find yourself scribbling over the screen with an HB pencil.
- Over 200 Guggenheim exhibition catalogues and art books have been digitised and are now available for free on the Internet Archive. Fantastic resource.
- Defy the staircase! And nine more valuable lessons for designers from Paula Scher's recent talk in London. Her new monograph from Unit Editions looks lovely.
- When your store is a photo op – on the problems of having a beautiful bookstore. Reminds me of one of my favourite little places in London: the piranha tank that used to be in the Foyles children's section. So very sinister and brilliant.
- Do some people see colour better than others? My latest Creative Review column, which features the phrase "hypercolor fugue of chromatic nega-synesthesia" for some reason
- Is nothing a colour? Some thoughts on the meaning of absence in design. Featuring Dave Eggers, Italo Calvino and The Beatles.
- Booktuber Holly Dunn on the mystery and magic of what lies beneath the dust jacket. It's like I've always said: more books should have concealed nifflers.
- Can you judge a book by its odour? Cocoa, wood, rusks – every book has a distinctive smell. And each smell says something about how and when it was made, and where it has been. Living with a recovering anosmic, I find this stuff absolutely fascinating.
- Typesetting is an archive of publicly sourced images of found typography in the Leeds area. Love this project – makes me want to head out onto the streets of York to just … find. Made by the jolly nice folks at Colours May Vary.
- Dealing with the solitude of self-employment – freelancers reveal how they overcame feelings of isolation and created new communities as a result.
- Very much looking forward to Anime Architecture, the House of Illustration's new exhibition of background illustrations for classic Japanese sci-fi. It's worth watching the original Ghost in the Shell just to lose yourself in Hiromasa Ogura’s beautiful watercolour cityscapes.
- Nightlights by Lorena Alvarez and Nobrow Press is all sorts of wonderful. Basically a fable about the the tension between creativity and fame, with gorgeous artwork and … oh just get it already. You'll love it.
