West Virginia
Here’s a nice find… from Westvaco’s Inspirations for Printers 1953-1955, designed by Bradbury Thompson. Inspirations for Printers was a graphic arts publication issued by the Westvaco Corporation (formerly named the West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company) with the objective of showing typography, photography, art work and other graphic inventiveness on papers manufactured at its mills. (Via Parisian graphic designer Peter Gabor’s Galeries Pédagogiques de Design & Typo).
Rockport, Massachusetts
Here’s a fantastic reference tool “for the purpose of appreciation and categorization” of book cover designs and designers—browse by title, author, designer, art director, photographer, illustrator, genre, publication date, publisher, or typeface used (with extended links): The Book Cover Archive.
Thanks to Ian McCausland for the link.
London, U.K.
It’s hard not to be inspired by da Vinci—his sheer genius is undeniable. I was delighted to be able to take in an exhibition of 60 working wooden models of Leonardo’s inventions (faithfully recreated from his drawings by a team of skilled Florentine artisans) while visiting Wellington, New Zealand last November; the Leonardo da Vinci Machines Exhibition. So it was with great pleasure that I came across a post by Carleton Wilson re: the Universal Leonardo website, as inspiring and comprehensive an online resource regarding the great Italian master as the title would suggest—and definitely worth exploring.
Images of inventions from the ‘Browse’ section of the website: Leonardo’s self-propelled cart, flying machine, and giant crossbow.
Vancouver, Providence, Stockholm, Adelaide, New York…
My girlfriend Ev and I received a large box filled with wine-making paraphernalia from her parents for Christmas (admittedly I had enthused about the brilliant home-made dandelion wine I’d encountered last summer at friend Stefanie’s place in Banff, made by her Park Interpreter roommate Laurie Schwartz from prolific back-yard gleanings)… so, naturally, wine-making and wine labels are now on my radar.
Although I’ve encountered some beautiful labels over the years (some were included in the Communication Arts magazine feature I wrote re: design in Australia a few years back), I’ve never really designed any (other than informal labellings for libations given out at Circle from time to time). Serendipitously, a variety of wine label references have crossed my desk over the past week… and shown above are a few that caught my fancy. (Thanks to Gerald Brandt, Mirko Humbert, and Matt Warburton for the links.)
Images (from top): Garagiste Wines (a clever name for “guys who make wine in their garages”) by Matt Warburton; Whatchamacallit for Spit Decisions by Brandever; Dirty Laundry, also by Brandever; B Frank by Talia Cohen; Esule by Mash; Oriel Wines by Julia Hoffmann; Sav (made of birch sap) by Stockholm Design Lab.
Pasadena, California
A beautifully crafted animated narrative by Jonathan Jarvis that explains the complex situation of “the credit crisis” for the “unfamiliar and uninitiated”—a project undertaken as part of his thesis work in the Media Design Program, a graduate studio at the Art Center College of Design. Watch it here.
(Thanks again to Gregor for the link).
Berkeley, California
“Small is beautiful” is expressed well in The Good Life, the latest piece (a three minute parable on YouTube) from the passionately creative folks at Free Range Studios (creators of The Meatrix and The Story of Stuff) working in concert with social values business leader Mark Albion.
“Nearly everyone agrees that this economic crisis was set off by a simple human foible—greed. From the bankers to the borrowers, people just couldn’t seem to get enough of what they thought would bring them The Good Life.”
Winnipeg, Canada
…in the alley behind our office—a sporadic truism.
Bowen Island, British Columbia
This may sound wierd, but I feel honoured to be one of the 150 people on Marian Bantjes’ Valentines list. And so it was once again a delight this past week to receive a mysteriously engaging missive from the lovely lady, in handwritten script on glassine paper this time… Eye magazine described the Valentine letter they received here; my friend Adrian has blogged about his here; and the prolific Marian fills in the full back-story here. (Take a look at the personalized hand-drawn Valentines this crazy gal drew up in 2007. Maid Marian—gotta love her).
