Meanwhile #109
It is one giant flat town.
Projekt 26 – “The artists shunned conventional layouts and hierarchy by integrating type and graphics rather than viewing them as separate elements. It may have been partly because fonts weren't available, so every letter was hand-drawn.” — Creative Boom chat with Projekt 26 about the increasingly influential field of Polish poster design.
Aline – “It ended up being five portions or panels that are then stitched together, but essentially yes, it is one giant flat town” — Javi Aznarez, Octavia Peissel and Jarvis Cocker discuss the making of the utterly charming video for The French Dispatch theme song Aline.
All of the Marvels – “I’ve probably done permanent damage to myself” — Comic Journal’s Laura Hudson interviews Douglas Wolk, whose new book follows his five year quest to read every single Marvel comic book published since 1961, from issue one of Linda Carter, Student Nurse (yes really) right up to the present day. That's around 27,000 issues, or 540,000 pages.
BrikFont – Typography warlock Craig Ward has got the LEGO out, and the results are delicious. He’s been instagramming letterforms and brick-built recreations of classic designs (his take Wim Crouwel’s iconic Vormgevers poster is particularly effective), plus he’s selling these rather lovely font templates/instructions on Etsy.
No Sudden Move – Another personal poster project, this time for Steven Soderbergh’s fabulous No Sudden Move. If you’ve seen it, perhaps you’ll understand the choice of type …
Rumi Ando – Loving these images of Tokyo rooftops by photographer Rumi Ando, who has edited out pretty much everything – windows, clouds, people – leaving just the raw geometry and colour of the buildings. Sounds like faint praise, but this one in particular would make a smashing rug.
Wayne Sorce – More urban photography, this time a little more raw. Flashbak is a great source for twentieth century street photography, both professional and amateur. I particularly like this series by Wayne Sorce, finding beauty among the grime of 1980s New York.
The Bird – Looking forward to this new book from illustration historian Philip Kennedy, exploring the fascinating world of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century ornithological illustration. I expect this’ll be of particular interest to fellow book designers – we love a bit of public domain avian action.
That is all.