Childrens' Stories

Less is more is the best way to describe the inspired poster work of Christian Jackson. These could just have easily been produced as a series of book cover designs. Simply beautiful!

Lunch With Mrs. O

Addressed to Hoefler & Frere-Jones who received this invitation in the mail yesterday for their recognition as National Design Award finalists. (I wonder if the lunch menus will be using Gotham). H&FJ were not the only distinguished type design award recipients this year. Matthew Carter received the Lifetime Achievement Award for his profound and long-term contribution to the contemporary practice of design. Prolific design author and editor Steven Heller was also recognized for the Design Mind Award given to a visionary who has effected a paradigm shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research and scholarship. R∙E∙S∙P∙E∙C∙T

Czechoslovakian Stamp Designs

I'm a long-time fan of Czechoslovakian postage stamp design and have posted some of my own favorites stamps in the past here. Oliver Thomas has a wonderful Flickr set of additional Czech stamp designs including those here and they are very well documented. The variety and styles of the hand lettered text on these stamps is stunning.

Design credits from top to bottom:
1. Zdeněk Sklenář, 1974
2. Karel Svolinský, 1980
3. Karel Vodák, 1968
4. Jaroslav Lukavsky, 1971
5. Jaroslav Lukavsky, 1971
6. Ivan Strnad, 1971
7. Bedřich Housa, 1972
8. Anna Podzemná, 1978
9. Josef Herčík, 1979

Work in Progress

I call it Unfinished.
:: From the Letterology Archives.

Arts & Letters Mark

Device created for the National Book League of Great Britain in 1949 by illustrator, wood engraver and type designer Reynolds Stone (1909-1979). He was another self-taught artist. Oh what a beautiful mark this would make for Letterology!

Scrabble Game Gets an A

It is hard to take on the original iconic Scrabble game with the beautiful wooden letter tiles, but Andrew Clifford Capener has turned over the gameboard entirely. He intends to create alphabet anarchy with his new designer edition he calls the A-1 Scrabble game. His protoType is designed to excite people about typography (doesn't everyone love it already?) as it provides the customer a choice of preferred font packs. Additional packs of assorted font designs can be ordered. His game is packaged in a beautiful birch wood box set with slots that contain the 6 magnetized board pieces. These fit nicely together to form the handsome black gameboard. The chances of Capener to make a move to produce the A-1 Scrabble set will be greatly increased if you sign his website. No promises yet or prices set, but let him know if it is a get.

:: Via: Good > Design

iHitchcock

:: From Designers go to Heaven

Spine Designs

Spines of Parkett Magazines from 2002 to 2008. From the collection of Crossett Library of Bennington College.

A Swedish encyclopedia of animals called Djurens varld (The World of Animals) printed in 1963-64. From P-E Fronning.

Reading While Walking

One of the best promotions for reading I have seen. Designed for Get London Reading by KentLyons, London. Do mind the pavement cracks!

Men of Letters Redux

I am so pleased to report the news today of on an article I wrote about three generations of the Benson family of stonecarvers for the Voice: AIGA Journal of Design. Some of you may recall my earlier post about the Bensons this past December, and how I discovered the account of their family's legacy from a 1978 documentary video I caught online. After writing the original Men of Letters post, I received an invitation from writer Steven Heller to do an adaptation of it for the Voice series. Writing an essay is not something I am practiced at, but I was quite honored to share their story. It is a fascinating account on many levels. The narrative includes handlettering, craft, American history, and a remarkable family of artists with more than one MacArthur award. They truly understand typography and the form of the letter. Most of us do well just to design with type and letters, and these guys raise the bar even higher by having to carve them into large blocks of stone. Their portfolio of work is a permanent record left on monuments, on the sides of buildings and on some of the most distinguished memorials in the US. In fact, long before I ever knew of John or Nicholas Benson or The John Stevens Shop in Newport RI, I marvelled at their beautiful stonework I found on so many of the memorials and monuments in Washington DC. I have taken scores of photos—film and digital of many of the words and text they've carved there—because of the beauty, but also because the permanence of a word carved in stone tends to lend it more spirit and meaning I guess.

In a conversation I had with Nick Benson weeks ago, he made brief mention of a book his grandfather, John Howard Benson co-authored called Elements of Lettering. Some of you may be familiar with his lettering work and book already, so I just wanted to connect the dots of the Benson family tree. I also want to share one last comment written about John Howard Benson which I think speaks well about all of the Benson's work. I came across it on Typocurious and it's from an article in 1943 of American Artist magazine written by Matlack Price. In it he writes, I am very sure that John Howard Benson gets the fullest possible measure of human enjoyment of his skills, and that his life and work provide us with an authentic definition of an artist. When as many people come to understand the work of the true artist, as there are people who merely enjoy it, a new golden age of art will have come to the world. ...If only artists could run the world!

I invite you to take a few minutes out to read the Family of Letters article (sorry, but Men of Letters was already taken) over at AIGA and view a slide show of the Benson's fine work. They truly are this country's first family of letters.

Design With Heart

From the top } Lace Heart letterpress print from Hijiri Shepherd of Heartfish Press.

Loveletters from Sabine Timm's photostream.

One of many one-off valentines I've made. 

E for Embrace by Paul Thurlby.

A delicate cut paper artwork of Robert Ryan.

Painted heart from Cassia Beck's photostream. 

Designers & Books, o-my!

A new blog is on the block. It's called Designers and Books and their mission is to foster conversation that will challenge students, stimulate emerging designers, energize established designers, and be of value to all members of the design community. Beginning with a website designed by Pentagram and a rough-cut list of 50 multi-disciplinary designers from several countries, it asks each esteemed designer to identify specific books which are meaningful and formative to their lives. Beginning here, you will find a list of 677 books to review to date. It's an embarrassment of reading riches which I will never live long enough to complete, but it is nice just knowing it is there. Next, they need the Designers & Books CliffNotes site with all the condensed versions of these great books.

Kafka ReCovered

The big buzz in the book business this week is Peter Mendelsund's new cover designs for a series of eight paperback editions of Kafka's books for the Knopf imprint Schocken. They are spare, colorful and when combined with the simple handlettering font, Mister K (designed by Julia Sysmäläine and based upon Kafka's own handwriting), they echo back to some of the works of Paul Rand and Alvin Lustig. Mendelsund is a smart book designer and I love this reinterpretation which is a whiplash from any other Kafka covers I have seen. I find it very refreshing. He claims that Kafka's work is often mistakenly associated with constructivism and facism, and designed with a dark and somber feel. His intention was to let the sunlight back into it and I think his covers reflect this well. The paperbacks should be released this Summer and he hopes to package the series as a boxed set. Read more about Mendelsund's Kafka project from his own words on his great book blog, Jacket Mechanical.