The Other Great Wall of China

The hand of Niels Shoe Meulman of Calligraffiti has left his "ununcompromising" China ink mark on a brick wall in Beijing, China recently. The repeat pattern of the four calligraphic strokes of the "un" letterforms create a visual texture that is undeniably striking. Shoe states that these thick brush strokes symbolize the power of reversal and they draw attention to themselves equally as much as the space between the strokes. The ink is to the absence of the ink just as a positive is to a negative, black is to white, or yin to yang in this case. Shoe is every much a believer in these dualities as he is in the beauty of the letterforms themselves.
      We live in a world of opposites and Shoe admits, "we can't truly be comfortable unless we were uncomfortable before. To be alive is only to be undead." Furthering this notion, he adds, "when science proudly presents its universal laws, some of us know that they are ununiversal. If you don't understand this, ununderstand."
      Say what you like (or unlike), but I think his work is unbeatable.
1111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
Post postscript: It just dawned on me, today is 11.11.11 and this work of Shoe's with all of the vertical calligraphic strokes is the perfect calligraphic metaphor for this date. It's a great day for wearing stripes!

Culinary Classics Cover Countless Cultures

This simply gorgeous Great Food series makes me hungry for the entire collection from Penguin Books. They are brilliantly designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, senior cover designer at Penguin, with the lovely lettering of Stephen Raw. The paperback covers feature spot varnishes and embossing to enhance the lettering and patterned photos of the background images. The patterns, each based upon ceramic surface designs specific to the period of the book's text, spill over to the rainbow-colored spines. Old pottery marks were the inspiration for placing the title lettering inside the culinary containers. Penguin released the series in the UK in April, but those of us in the US will have to wait until late October to get our mitts upon them. 

:: Found here and here.

Alan Trotter of Greater Than or Equal to, interviewed Bickford-Smith recently about the Great Food series in this video below. Delightful!

A serious interview with designer Coralie Bickford-Smith about her Great Food series for Penguin from Alan Trotter on Vimeo.

Text Patterns

When I first caught sight of the artwork below by Czech artist and poet Jiří Kolář (1914-2002), it reminded me of the growth rings in a tree. It is actually a collage he made of blackletter text in 1966. Although Kolář died nearly 10 years ago, he is still considered one of Czechoslovakia's most significant fine artists and poets of the latter half of the last century. Below are 2 other Kolář collage artworks from the same 2010 Prague exhibit. 

Taken by Greg Mullinex at a 2010 exhibit of Kolář's work in Prague. Thanks for sharing Greg!

Alphabet Dreams

Why has it taken so long for the interior design community to recognize there might be a market for typographic wallcoverings? Here are some nice off the rack designs, but one could easily print up their own custom designs as well.

:: From Freshome via Teaching Literacy

Body Text

Some smart packaging for Davina Peace which is a luxurious and ethically responsible brand of body care products. It was launched last November at Harrods. Designed by Micha Weidmann Studio in London.
:: Via: Designinspiration

Experimental Ex Libris

There is no date on this great bookplate for Frederic J. Libbie, but it is from a Flickr set of the Pratt Institute Libraries Special Collection and most others in this set range in date from 1730 to 1901. I found one other bookplate for Mr. Libbie in this set which is dated 1895, although it is far more ornate. If you look carefully at the Garamond type pattern on this one, the designer, or printer for that matter, began in the center of the diamond shape and spelled out his name so it is right-reading, and then reversed the order of the letters to the left. They then repeated this pattern reading up and down from the center until an E creates the entire border of the diamond-shaped pattern. Probably designed by a printer who had a lot of E's and I's at his disposal or they just couldn't bear doing another Victorian style bookplate with fat cherubs sitting atop a stack of books. One thing about typographical patterns...they seldom go out of style.