Hello, hello. Here’s this week’s link salad, featuring all the martians, lighthouses and typewriters necessary for a healthy diet.
1 — I’ve spent every spare moment of the last week exploring public domain aggregator Artvee, which draws incredible high resolution scans from multiple university and museum collections. Slightly frustrating that there’s no information about who’s behind it – why so anonymous? – but my word there are some gems on there. I particularly like these illustrations for the French translation of H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds by Brazilian artist Henrique Alvim Corrêa, 1906
2 — Artist Dan Catt on how he incorporates art-based machine-learning system du jour Midjourney (and Pinterest) into his creative process. Still waiting for beta access myself – I desperately need to play with this incredible new toy.
3 — Of course the first thing I want to do with Midjourney, or any AI tool, is break it and make it do things it isn’t supposed to do. Reminds me of this old blog of typography that’s been subjected to Photoshop’s content-aware fill tool, with interesting/garish/beautiful results.
4 — Peter C. Baker and Linda Huang discuss her design for his book, Planes. A fascinating insight into the process of experimentation, rejection and iteration that goes into a book cover.
5 — From Ghostsigns author Sam Roberts, BLAG (Better Letters Magazine) is a new online and print publication for and about the international sign painting community, celebrating exciting work and sharing knowledge and resources. The first issue is cracking – the French Dispatch behind the scenes feature is particularly good. Also: major URL envy.
6 — Found via the wonderful Present & Correct blog, Paper Shipwright publishes downloadable cardboard model kits of ships, lighthouses and all things nautical. As someone who spent an absurd amount of time obsessively PVA-ing Games Workshop’s Townscape buildings together as a child, this is all exceedingly up my street. Bring on the paper cuts!
7 — Tor.com’s favourite books about the craft of writing, including wisdom from the luminary likes of Ursula K Le Guin, Stephen King and Ray Bradbury. Reminds me of my favourite Bradbury fact: he wrote The Fireman – the short story that he would later develop into Fahrenheit 451 – on a coin-operated typewriter. It cost him $9.80.