Reground is a grassroots initiative to divert the tonnes of coffee grounds generated in Melbourne each week from landfill into people's gardens. I've booked in a consignment, and also pledged their Pozible campaign to help them purchase a van to facilitate collections and delivery. Check out the nicely designed minimalist website and spread the love (and caffeinated compost).
Maps from the Spymasters
The CIA has recently released a large number of formerly classified maps. According to accompanying notes, "The mission of the Cartography Center is to provide a full range of maps, geographic analysis, and research in support of the Agency, the White House, senior policymakers, and the IC at large." In an era of digital online maps and very detaile satellite photography, it is interesting to view these hand-compiled attempts to summarise all known information about a particular area. Many of the maps are rather well designed and aesthetically pleasing.
A Designer's Mantra
The great German designer Erik Spiekermann sometimes hand-prints a series of letterprint posters. The typically clean and pithy example above could be the prayer of all designers for fair recompense, particularly in the era of Fiverr and Ninety Nine Designs.
Classical Poetry — Book Cover Design
James Martin writes expressive classical poetry about the human condition. His latest book contains 400 poems dealing with life, love, faith and philosophy. Corregio's Jupiter and Io seemed perfect as the cover for this volume. The title typeface is Linotype Didot.
Thriller from the Wimmera — Book Cover
Ray Scott writes hard-bitten thrillers with plenty of action and skulduggery. His latest effort gets going in the sunny Wimmera, with a salesman facing hitmen from his murky past. With a touch of North by Northwest, we depicted a rather worried man against a field of wheat and a merciless blue sky. Typeface used: Tablet Gothic Compressed.
Attunga — Science fiction book cover
Peter Wood has written an engaging and optimistic take on a future solar system. We wanted to depict an advanced interplanetary civilisation, and also bring in dolphins (cetacean intelligence is a major thread in the story) and the asteroid belt. Typefaces used were Trajan Sans, Conduit and Beloved Script. Peter's website is here.
Paper Sizes Old and New
This website does a good job of covering the myriad standard ISO page sizes. The page sizes under the obsolete page size menu are quite entertaining — who wouldn't want to order the Double Elephant, or the Super Royal? Modern rationalised page size series are dull by comparison.
Australian Calendars for 2017 — Cover Design
Craig Lewis' photographs of iconic Australian pubs and huts adorn a long-running series calendars and books. We enjoyed working on the 2017 iterations of his calendars, especially the high country huts. Typefaces used included Trajan Sans, Homestead and Amberly.
Singing as a Science — Book Cover
This book details the history of the teaching of singing, and how it transformed from a craft into something approaching a science. We combined an old opera handbill with an image of Maria Callas and used Trajan Sans for the title type.
Back to Paper
It never crashes, it's flexible, requires no power and is stable over several centuries ... yes, it's that old communications stalwart, paper! Most designers still break out a sketchpad on a regular basis, and according to this BBC article, there's a movement afoot amongst even the most digitally literate to keep their pads, pens and pencils in regular use. However, at the same time, PC designers are making it easier than ever to sketch intuitively on screen.
Making it Simple — Book Cover
Our client was looking for a cover that appealed to both genders and communicated in a direct, dignified fashion. After much experimentation with a variety of icons and logos, the final draft was characterised by symmetry and white space, with very clean type use. Typefaces used: Latina, National.
Converting Troublesome Files
Stuck with an obscure file you can't open? Cloud Convert supports a huge range of file types in a number of different categories. Conversion for the casual user is free with registration — the service has paid tiers for users with hundreds of files to convert. My own use-case was an old .pages file I couldn't open with any of my software, solved immediately on accessing this site.
Victorian Executioners — Cover Design
The chap pictured is the executioner, not his victim....
Trevor Poultney has put together a comprehensive discussion of all the official executions carried out in Victoria since colonial times. Executioners often worked under false names due to the opprobrium that went with the job. A lovely 19th Century portrait of Melbourne formed a suitable background to the title type and the rather sinister looking image of Walker, a hangman. Available soon.
Global Street Art
Animated street art from Granada, Spain
If street art is to your taste, Google is making a special effort to make viewing it exceptionally easy. The tromp l'oeil tricks used by some of the artists are genuinely remarkable. And given that street art in most places is likely to be rather ephemeral, cataloguing its diverse nature and global reach seems a worthwhile project. Unfortunately, google also has a history of offering short-lived services, so view it while you can...
Arts Law Trademarks
Copyright applies automatically to any creative work, but sometimes creators seek the stronger protection afforded by trademarking. An interesting discussion of the issue on a fact sheet supplied by the invaluable Arts Law Centre: www.artslaw.com.au/info-sheets/info-sheet/trade-marks .
Finding and Using Free Images
Authors and cost-conscious designers often find themselves searching for low-cost or free imagery for covers and illustrations. This site explains in detail the copyright and usage issues associated with the employment of such imagery. It also maintains an extensive and extremely useful list of free image sites.
Book Launch in the Sunshine
Rosemary Holmes, author of Adaptation, an engaging multi-generational epic about life on the land in western Victoria, reports on a successful launch for her book:
It was a great day on Wednesday, the sun shone and morning tea was outside in the courtyard and Michael Ronaldson (former Federal minister) spoke beautifully. After the launch there was a morning tea of scones, tea/coffee, served outside on the lawn. The next book launch is to be the 29th November here in Ballarat, at the Midlands Golf Club and the literary person from the Ballarat Courier is to make a speech. There are about 30 people coming to this event. Collins Bookstore here in Ballarat will be taking responsibility for selling the books and they are to promote it in their windows and around the store. Hopefully the local paper will write something about it.
I will be glad when the launches are over but it is all very exciting. My publisher has also suggested thatI submit the novel to the Foundation for Australian Literacy awards at James Cook University.
Noto — A Typeface for Every Language
Google has an endearing penchant for quixotic projects. Noto is that, but also a noble effort to construct a completely inclusive set of typefaces — covering all of the world's major scripts but also most of the minor ones. The name is derived from 'no tofu' — the little white squares that pop up when one attempts to type a character outside the character set of the font in question. The font itself is fairly vanilla, but highly readable and comes in four sans and four serif weights, and is free from Google.
Your Name Here — The Zen of a Blank Product
Department of There's an Internet Business for Everything: Yellow Images sells blank products ready for you to superimpose your own brand/product. There's something so soothing about a plain object not covered in all of the cruft designers are paid to create.
How to Design Children's Non Fiction
To get an idea of the quality of illustration in modern children's books, check out these two non-fiction titles: Tiny, by Nicola Davies and The Book of Bees by Piotr Socha. Both tackle big, complex topics and do so with humour, sophistication and amazing graphic impact. There has been an explosion of beautiful large format children's books in recent years, perhaps driven in part by parents keen to provide their children with an alternative to small glowing screens.