Hasta La Ideas

Milan 2014: this sofa by Swedish designer Markus Johansson echoes the curves and ripples of a shell and will launch at this year’s Salone Satellite in Milan (+ slideshow).

Markus Johansson named the Coquille Sofa after the French word for “shell”, which is often associated with a scallop shape.

“I toyed with inspiration found among mussels and shells, and I’ve been working with different levels of softness and hardness to render Coquille as comfortable as possible,” he explained.

The designer attached curved pieces of polyether foam to the wooden frame to make the ribs around the base and back.

Layers of soft padding were added on top, creating gently rippled contours like the exterior of a shell.

The sofa is upholstered in a light grey fabric and patterned by the shadows that fall across the surface of the undulating form.

It will be displayed at Salone Satellite, part of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile taking place next week from 8 to 13 April.

The post Coquille Sofa by Markus Johansson
resembles the curved form of a shell appeared first on Dezeen.

While Iceland is probably best known for its majestic scenery and interesting culinary traditions, the island nation’s largest cities are marked by the stoic architecture of Guðjón Samúelsson, an imposing designer that stood as Iceland’s state architect from 1920 to 1950. Perhaps most…

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Matthew Young at Penguin has designed an austere cover for a forthcoming edition of Robert Graves’ Good-bye To All That, published as part of the company’s ongoing First World War-related series…

The type-only design is a sombre take on Graves’ autobiographical account of his wartime experience; with centred text and in a brushed gun-metal grey the A-format design is akin to a field manual or handbook (and similar in appearance to Warne’s Observer’s Books from the 1930s).

The date set bottom-right signifies that the text is of Graves’ original 1929 version of his memoir which he revised and republished it in 1957. The strange, unsettling first edition cover of the book is shown at the bottom of this post.

Good-bye To All That is republished by Penguin on May 1; £5.50. Details here. More of Youngs work is at mymymy.co.uk.

Le photographe malaisien Zahir Batin met en scène les aventures ses figurines de la saga « Star Wars » dans la nature : leurs rencontres régulières avec des poussins ou dans l’espace, le deuil, la dépression, les combats et les promenades dans l’herbe. Des photos décalées et très amusantes, à découvrir dans la suite.

While your Arden edition might be a little easier in the hands, The Folio Society’s new Letterpress Shakespeare titles are a typographic indulgence that attempt a renewed engagement with the bard’s plays and sonnets…

The Society’s aim is to present Shakespeare’s words “in their purest form” and so the pages of each of the plays are devoid of the clutter of notes and glossaries, unlike most regular editions of the playwright’s work.

Of course, for most readers these elements are more than useful, so an accompanying “commentary” edition of the play is also included in each boxed set.

Therefore what the reader encounters in the large-format main edition is just the text: and in 16 point Monotype Baskerville, printed by letterpress onto thick, mould-made paper with feathered – ‘deckled’ – edges, it’s a treat to behold.

This aspect is the real highlight of the project – and the most labour intensive. Each volume was apparently printed just two pages at a time, each page having been put together by a skilled compositor at Gloucester Typesetting Services in Stonehouse, Gloucestershire.

This method, with this paper, means that the words are impressed deep into the page. I had a close look at a copy of King Lear and the quality of the lettering on the paper is sublime.

On the outside, each book is quarter-bound in leather with individually hand-marbled paper sides – complete with gilded top edges and a ribbon marker. The plays are divided into three colours: a dark purple-blue for the histories; red for tragedies; and green for comedies.

The solander box which houses everything continues the ‘traditional’ look and if anything is perhaps a bit on the pragmatic side – sturdy no doubt, but it’s overtly functional-looking, which jars a little with the hand-crafted nature of the type and paper within.

Needless to say, with only 300 copies of each volume available, they don’t come cheap: each play is £295; the volume of sonnets and poems, £345; the complete set coming in at £11,555.

So while hardly bringing Shakespeare to a wider audience – there are plenty of other publishers that can do that – these editions do at least honour the quality of the writing within. And there’s something about reading the text on the page without distraction that makes it a worthwhile experience, too.

Folio Society titles are available for purchase from foliosociety.com, by telephone on +44 (0)207 400 4200, or by visiting The Folio Society Bookshop, 44 Eagle Street, London WC1R 4FS.