“Welcome to The Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies… where tools of the trade that have died or have just about died a slow slow death are cheerfully exhibited. Due to severe government budget cuts to the arts, our little museum’s acquisition funds are frankly, well, bupkus. So, we welcome Drawgerers to submit images of any artistic tools, machinery, gadgets, etc. that they feel have bitten the dust.” (Thanks Chris Glass!)
the illustrated brand
“There have a few interesting articles recently that have focused on the design of the New Yorker magazine, both praising and critiquing its consistency, and mainly taking issue with the inside of the magazine, but what is taken as a given by both is the very central role illustration has in that design, particularly in its striking covers. Made all the more striking of course as today there is so little use of illustration so central to a magazine’s brand image…
Over time however the ‘Poster Cover’ and its defenders in the magazine’s Art rooms began to slowly lose favor to the philosophy of ‘cover lines‘ and what would begin as a whole new direction in magazine cover design. This I think can also be seen as a sure sign of the rising influence of marketeers and advertising suits within a magazine’s boardroom and the increased marginalization of its art department’s influence. The magazine cover had become in many cases no more than a grotesquely enlarged small ad.” (Thanks Design Observer!)
Notepads based on the grids used in famous publications
“Grid-it notepads are a series of notepads based on the layout grids of famous publications: ‘By moving the grids from the backround to the foreground, and divorcing them from their content, we pay homage as well as render the invisible visible.’”
Also published in Graphic design, Infodesign & graphics, Visual thinking, Web design & dev Comments Off
printfetish
Awesome! “News, information, reviews and history on the subjects of beautiful magazines, self-published ‘zines, handmade books, small press, comix, art books and miscellaneous printed ephemera.”
The 51 Best* Magazines Ever
“(*Smartest, Prettiest, Coolest, Funniest, Most Influential, Most Necessary, Most Important, Most Essential, etc…) The essential strength of a magazine is its ability to amplify. An idea, or an image, or a story, set within the pages of a magazine and assembled by the right hands, can become the grist of breakfast chatter, dinner-party conversation, or elective body debate around the world. Until recently, with the advent of USA Today and the national editions of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, newspapers were by and large local endeavors. Magazines were national, and as they became international, their power of amplification grew exponentially.”
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The OVERnote
“If you’re like me, you live your life on post-its. Everything from grocery lists, to new ideas, to super important phone numbers that I should never, ever lose. It means that when I’m looking for that super important number, I have to look through every other post-it to find the one I want. Enter the OVERnote. The OVERnote is something I came up with to help me navigate this paper sea. Now my notes are self-catagorizing and I can find things at a glance.” (Thanks Magnetbox!)
DIY Nike Style: Zines and the corporate world
“What do corporations expect to reap in return from their zines? Not direct sales. Filled with the typical zine fare of rants, comics, interviews with musicians, and poetry, U Don’t Stop—like most other astroturf zines—doesn’t openly sell its patron’s products.”
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Aboveground Zine Library
“Reasons behind the name Aboveground Zine Library? It fits the idea of the library just right. Why isn’t it called underground zine library? The reasons is simply, it’s not an underground zine library. It’s out in the public and the library isn’t stashed in a secret location.”
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Return to Letterpress
“This past summer I took a Letterpress class at the University of the Arts here in Philadelphia. I ended up enjoying it so much I decided to take it again (though this time as a 10 week course instead of 5). I felt so good to jump back into doing this again. And now that I had one class under my belt, it was much easier to experiment and play around with some of the projects.”
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Buying a letterpress
“I received a great reader question today from Nicole about how to go about buying a small letterpress, so I thought I would share my answer with all of you in case this is something others have been wondering about.”
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