Meanwhile, April 2025
Sweeping the best hyperlinks out of my tabs and onto your desk
- Paperback and poster legend Robert McGinnis passed away last month, aged 99. His 2014 monograph The Art of Robert E. McGinnis is an absolute must, but the NYT obituary is a good starting point to get into his work.
- As well as invoking the almighty Sphenisciformes Satan to rule over us, Penguin is celebrating its 90th birthday with 90 Little Book Stops – you’ve got until 1 May to nominate a location for one in your neighbourhood.
- Also that day, I’ll be tuning in for St Bride Foundation’s lastest talk How to (and how not to) approach the business side of freelancing, in which Micaela Alcaino, Becky Chilcott, David Pearson and Jack Smyth discuss contracts, fees and other freelance hacks.
- Absolutely loved The Face Magazine: Culture Shift at the National Portrait Gallery. One heck of a nostalgia hit. Although I haven’t really got into the revived incarnation of the magazine, it’s nice to see they’re putting together an archive of old articles.
- Twelve years ago, Felix Heyes and Ben West’s book Google volume 1 replaced thousands of words and their meanings with the first image that appeared when the word was searched for on Google Images; a testament to the visual culture of its time. Google volume 2 updates the experiment with 25,000 images on 1368 pages, and an introduction by Douglas Coupland. It’ll be interesting to compare the two books (and hopefully one day a third), to see if/how AI-generated sludge has infected culture.
- Congratulations to the indispensable Fonts in Use for reaching THIRTY THOUSAND posts. Incredible.
- Bit obsessed with the work of Stephen Smith aka Neasden Control Centre, who has a fresh new website. Particularly love his work on Vintage Classics’ Julio Cortazar series.
- Intrigued by MUBI’s new cine-centric publishing venture, MUBI Editions. In their first title, Read Frame Type Film, film curator Enrico Camporesi, graphic design historian Catherine de Smet, and designer Philippe Millot discuss 24 works from the film collection at the Centre Pompidou that capture the affinity between cinema and typography.
- Lots of fantastic work in the Casual Optimist’s latest book covers of note roundup. Looks like type with dots is having a moment.
- On the latest Cover Design Meeting, Steve Leard talks to Orion art director Charlotte Abrams Simpson.
- Buying up South African art since 2004, apparently Nando’s has one of the largest private art collections in the world and potentially the largest on public display. Huh.
- Recent readings: Martha Wells’ first Murderbot novella All Systems Red is great fun; Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary is pretty much the epitome of the “book by the author of The Martian that is being made into a film directed by Lord and Miller and starring Ryan Gosling” genre; and I’m slap bang in the middle of Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone’s wonderfully titled This Is How You Lose the Time War. Lots of sci-fi this year … basically the Hugo Awards is my TBR pile.
- The Golden Era of Sign Design —To mark the launch of Field Notes’ spring edition “The Chicago Look”, a film looking at the work of Beverly Sign Co. Oh and there’s a book, The Golden Era of Sign Design: The Rediscovered Sketches of Beverly Sign Co.
- OOO — This collaborative design exhibition between Tom Etherington and Jon Gray, opens next month at the Old School Gallery in Alnmouth. Can’t wait to see what they’ve conjured up.A new exhibition in New York explores the work of prestige publisher The Folio Society and celebrates 78 years of visual storytelling through the art of book illustration.
- Mike McQuade — Elsewhere, Mike McQuade has a new site for his art and illustration and good lord it’s full of so much loveliness. Particularly envious of his ability to name artworks. Somehow this is always beyond me.
