COLOR

New series of Kafka book covers designed by Peter Mendelsund at Knopf/Pantheon. The calligraphic face, called Mister K (based on Kafka's handwriting) by Julia Sysmäläine, was designed separately in 2008. Read more about it on Peter's blog, or also find more on the CR blog here.

DEERHOOF

Apparently I'd sort of forgotten about one of my old favorites but recently a couple of friends have brought them up, and it feels good today.


The Forbidden Fruits

Desapareceré

Top Tim Rubies

HMMM...

Found on the Pilot Magazine blog (see also: Crisp), an interesting set of experiments from Turkish design studio Antrepo.

META

So yeah, I follow M/M (Paris) on facebook. Posted recently was this photo with the caption "lecturing tonight at head/geneva university of art and design. join us 7pm, auditoire". I guess the photo was taken in the car on the way to the event... shucks.

ILFORD

Found this image on ManyStuff, in a post about an exhibition of works by the Design Research Unit at the International Project Space in Birmingham. What interests me is how current the packaging looks. Either the mid-century trend is totally maxed out, or the Ilford packaging from 1946 is a classic. My vote is for classic.
Recently in a discussion with designer Christian Küsters, he brought up the point that design doesn't always have to be classic -- that one should be able to look at something and know exactly what era it's from. That idea definitely takes the pressure off of trying to make design 'timeless' all the time. Because really, is something actually timeless, or is it just so neutral that it never goes out of style?

ROLL & HILL

Recently graphic designer Alex Lin was featured on Sight Unseen -- a great people blog I've probably mentioned here before. Looking around Alex's site, this was my favorite project I think. Perhaps slightly on-trend with the graphic design scene, it's still pretty out there for a lighting company -- an interesting dichotomy. Roll & Hill's website here.

RIKA MAGAZINE

December cover of Rika Magazine, a new mag about models by Rika, a hand-bag company created by designer Ulrika Lundgren. You can also check out their blog here.
Frankly, I'm not *that* into model culture -- what I find interesting about this is the use of photo-on-photo. Last year a lot of my work utilized this effect and this seems to be a perfect example of collective consciousness (if we want to call it that). People in two separate places in the world creating the same type of work independently from one another -- I guess it's responding to the same stimulus in the exact same way, creating a movement of sorts. Too bad the wiki page on collective consciousness doesn't give us much to go on... maybe a good topic for a psychology MA.
Anyway, I like this cover. Image found here.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

The blog has been on vacation for the past couple weeks -- I was in Munich and Paris for the holidays, returning back to London with the worst cold of my life. Luckily things are finally getting back to normal. Happy 2011!

1972

Was just watching Woody Allen's Play It Again Sam, a film from 1972 set in San Francisco. The interiors feel kind of familiar, I guess it's the California vibe coming through. I'm trying to imagine the reception of the same poster if it were designed today -- love the cut out silhouette mixed with the super 70s style drawing.