Meanwhile #058

This is an old edition of Meanwhile from an inferior, more simian newsletter platform that has unhelpfully severed all the hyperlinks. It’s included here in the archive simply for sake of completeness.

Spine. Everyone's favourite book design magazine asked me a few questions about work and life and newslettering. Apologies for the state of my desk. 

Palaces of self-discovery. Thibaud Poirier has photographed Europe's most beautiful libraries and now I need to visit each and every one of them. Quite, quite stunning.

AIEE to Z-ZWAP. The complete 1960s Batman onomatopoeia collection. Would love to see these turned into a Tattly collection.

80s style tribes, then and now. Anita Corbin tracks down the punk, mod and skinhead girls she first photographed in the 1980s. Are they still rebelling?

SuperHi. In the first of a new series for SuperHi, I spoke to siteInspire's Daniel Howells about the state of web design in 2017.

Posteritati. The New York poster dealers have put together an archive of more than 40,000 film posters. Most excitingly, you can search by artist. Warning: you will want to spend money.

Things. There are still some of you completely unaware of Things Magazine – aka the heart of the positive, mind-open internet – which is completely unacceptable. Everything you'll ever need to know about everything is here. So many links.

Norbert Dragonneau, et al. On the twentieth anniversary of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, booktuber Holly Dunn takes a look at the different Potter covers and translations from around the world.

Three by three. Mathematicians try to work out how many different ways a nine-panel comic grid (such as that used in the layout of Watchmen) can be used. More interesting than it sounds. 

IADDB. Can't remember how I stumbled upon the International Advertising & Design DataBase, but oh my word it's incredible. Full, searchable scans of hundreds of magazines from 1894–2017. Just type your favourite designer's name into the search box and watch your day vanish.

New000000. A splendid project looking at contemporary use of black – or rather dark grey, dark brown, very dark blue and exceedingly off-white – on the internet.

Aitch or Haitch? Michael Rosen looks at why H is one of the most contentious letters in the alphabet – wrapped up in issues of class, religion and people who say the word "herb" incorrectly. 

The Corners of Cthulhu. HP Lovecraft and JG Ballard both put architecture at the heart of their fiction, and both made the humble corner into a place of nightmares.

That is all.