NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING

My dad has published his first novel, a detective story called NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING. I designed the cover and screenprinted it at Kangaroo Press for the limited first edition. If he recoups his cost he will publish one of a few other novels waiting on deck. Pick one up at Mything Lynx Library, and visit Life's Bone for more from Dan's Myth.

MY POLAND

Via The Guardian: A new exhibition at the British Library presents the rich history of SF down the ages, from Lucian of Samosata in the 2nd century to the Russian novel that inspired 1984... This 1985 Polish samizdat edition of Zamyatin's 1921 Russian dystopian novel was published in Warsaw. My translates as "We". The novel influenced George Orwell’s Ninteen Eighty-Four: set several centuries in the future after the Two Hundred Years’ War has wiped out most of humanity, it takes place in a highly regimented city-state encircled by the "Green Wall", which is supposed to keep out the world.

5 POLISH BOOK COVERS

A fun, quick, challenging exercise in paying tribute to the world of modern Polish book cover art, prompted by 50 Watts' contest (open until May 20th). I started with one idea, came out with five, and after a hefty amount of self-critique I let these go and look forward to seeing what everyone else turns in...

1000 POLISH BOOK COVERS

Just when I thought I had seen it all at the outer limits of the Polish poster, I discover Polish book covers. Fans of Polish art and design have until now relied on fantastic posts at sites like 50 Watts to get their fix. I'm now aware that many of them can be found in a hardback book, curated by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizieliński and entitled One Thousand Polish Book Covers, which seems to be the definitive tome on this incredibly deep and diverse visual world.

For fun, and in celebration of this book's existence, 50 Watts has announced their contest to design a Polish-style cover for your favorite book, with a $400 cash prize. I plan on entering as a fun exercise, and if you're an artist or illustrator, you should too, as its not very hard to get inspired when looking at this stuff.

Here are some of my favorites introduced to me by 50 Watts - all of these images come courtesy of Will Schofield and his valliant work on that blog, so please check out his other posts here and here to see many more. And if Polish childrens books are your thing, feast your eyes on the Mizieliński's mind-blowing personal collection, chronicled on this blog.

50 WATTS

A Journey Round My Skull, my favorite blog on the internet, is now 50 Watts. And now its even prettier, like its cousin But Does It Float. Curated by the great Will Schofield, 50 Watts highlights fantastic and mysterious found book art and illustrations. Just see it for yourself. Also follow 50 Watts on Twitter, and find the link permanently on the right hand side of my blog for future browsing. Thank you Will for the endless inspiration!

CHILDREN'S BOOKSHELF: Tour Finds

As I hop around Europe (currently writing from Berlin), here are some great childrens book covers I found in various bookshops across the midwest on this past tour. This illustration on the cover of an edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales is one of my favorites I've seen in a while, and I was able to go back to a bookshop in Milwaukee where I saw this over a year ago and get a pic. Some of these are fun and cute, like Seymour Chwast's Alphabet Parade book, and some are quite mysterious, especially the childrens novel "The Min-Min" and the "let's travel by papercraft" book of architectural cut-outs (found at the amazing Zakka Japanese bookstore in Brooklyn). I'll be posting some more covers and pages from some other books I've found in the near future, and hopefully I'll have some finds from Europe as well.

Further reading: Children's Bookshelf - Den Kvite Konkylien

ALVIN LUSTIG

Alvin Lustig is one of my design heroes. He went blind and died at a young age. These are some of his amazing book covers. To see more of these and appreciate them more fully, get your hands on a copy of this incredible book seen above, profiled here by Grain Edit.

TOP 10 OF 2010: #3

This movie already had a great poster, and while I found myself thinking of lots of great conceptual ideas for the story told in this movie, I couldn't figure out how to execute them. Meanwhile I'm looking at all of these Blue Note album covers and old Penguin covers that say so much with just an arrangement of shapes, and I wanted to try to see how far I could get with this film's themes: Design, communication, position, weight, strategy, connection, closeness, isolation, loneliness.

DESIGN BOOKSHELF

I consider myself far more talented at collecting neat art books than I am at actually producing art... Thus I give you these photos of my new Ikea bookshelves stocked with all of my favorite sources of inspiration I've collected through the years. I recommend them all, and will be posting more selected images from some of these books soon.