Video: Book cover in 2 minutes

I have really gotten a kick out of the Gail Carriger Alexi Tarabotti/Parasol Protectorate book series so it is fun to see how the design was assembled for the cover of the third installment, Blameless.

Video: How Ink is Made

This video is pretty long when compared with the average YouTube video but the long shots of gallons of ink, pigments and rollers is truly mesmerizing. These materials are such a huge part of our craft and yet we, as designers, know so little about them. Here's a chance to get up close and personal with the process that makes the inks that makes our designs come to life (our print designs anyway!)

NYC Event: Greetings from Mochimochi

Anna Hrachovec's solo show at gallery hanahou looks like it is going to cute and awesome! Hrachovec used over 200 balls of yarn to knit a wacky 10-foot installation filled mini-unicorns, a rat infested city, knit monsters and much, much more. The show opening is October 7 and it runs through October 29. RSVP for the opening at the gallery hanahou website.

Phaidon Design Classics ipad app

The Phaidon Design Classics book set is now available as an iPad app. Considerably more portable than the phone-book-like 3-book and much cheaper at $19.99 rather than $175. It contains over 1000 great design objects from "cars to chairs, tableware to cameras, from toys to airplanes."

The iPad really is the perfect venue for coffeetable books. I hope Phaidon and other publishers will consider the iPad and release other books in digital form.

Eye Candy: Jean-François Thériault

Images of wasted Las Vegas landscapes shot with beauty and love by Jean-François Thériault. Stunning.

NYC Event: In Search of the Miraculous or One Thing Leads to Another

The AIGA here in NYC is having a great retrospective of Milton Glaser's work. Check it out from October 1 until November 24th. The show explores how Glaser design ideas interact with one another over a period of time and how this ideas can come together to form totally new and interesting ideas. For those of you who can't make it, you can download the show brochure and see what it is all about.

Eye Candy: Custom Lettering of the 60s & 70s book

Our good friend Britton Walters brought to our attention an awesome book called Custom Lettering of the 60s & 70s that has culled all the great hand-drawn fonts from the 60s and 70s by designer Rian Hughes. A treasure trove of amazing typography for any hardcore type addict.

Typographer for Lawyers... and so many others

Typography for Lawyers is the layman's guide to good typography. While some of the information is quite specific to the law profession, the use of semi-colons, small caps, "curly" quotes and so many other simple facts are universally applicable. I would recommend this to anyone in a position to produce printed documents -- bankers, insurance agents, doctors, et al. Good typography is not just for designers.

(Thanks to Madeline at Tag Team Tompkins for the recommendation)

Put the Genius back in the wall

Regardless of what you think about Elizabeth Gilbert or her notorious book Eat, Pray, Love, I insist that you listen to this TED conference presentation. I don't normally insist that anyone do anything but, as a creative person (or a person who hopes that today will be the day that I do something truly creative), this presentation fills me with optimism that I might one day be able to do something great. I hope it inspires you to keep "doing your job" and that it will be a creative one.

Eye Candy: The United Plates

Illustrator John Holcomb depicted every state in the union out of food and called it The United Plates. See how your home state turned.

Seeing more then Black and White

Beautiful photographs taken by the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information during the Great Depression. These photos where some of the only color photos shot during that time period.