Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

 

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 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies features the original text of Jane Austen’s beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action. As our story opens, a mysterious plague has fallen upon the quiet English village of Meryton—and the dead are returning to life! Feisty heroine Elizabeth Bennet is determined to wipe out the zombie menace, but she’s soon distracted by the arrival of the haughty and arrogant Mr. Darcy. What ensues is a delightful comedy of manners with plenty of civilized sparring between the two young lovers—and even more violent sparring on the blood-soaked battlefield as Elizabeth wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance—Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! Quirk Books $12.95 : Chronicle Books

[via, Czelt and BB]

Steven Hellers Design Disasters Turns Bad Into Good

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A quick note here to support a friend of UnBeige. We had the good fortune to have just received Steven Heller‘s latest book, Design Disasters: Great Designers, Fabulous Failures, & Lessons Learned. It’s a great collection of stories from a who’s who in the design world, from Marian Bantjes to Stefan Sagmiester, all talking about when everything that could go wrong did and what each contributor learned from what happened. As a special plug, former UnBeige editor, Alissa Walker, has a terrific piece in the book as well, which is worth the price of admission all by itself. Also, the book’s design is about as clever and fun as it gets, playing so well off the subject at hand. So, in short, we recommend that you run, not walk (unless it’s icy out or you have some sort of leg or joint condition) to your local bookstore to give Steven Heller your money in exchange for this terrific piece of work. Or do it online (because there’s a fairly high probability that he might not be at your particular store when you get there). Here’s from the introduction:

“In the best situations, failure is a trigger. But this is different than ‘trial and error,’ whereby a designer plays with forms until the perfect (or near perfect) one is achieved and actually results in something that will, as our Wiki states, ‘meet a desirable or intended objective.’ But many times what a designer thinks is perfect, and so releases to the world is a flop. With luck, even this will provide a lesson for what not to do the next time or the time after that…”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media

Competition: five copies of Novembre to be won

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Dezeen have teamed up with the publishers Skira to give away five copies of their monograph about Italian architect and designer Fabio Novembre. (more…)

A Designer’s Portfolio, 16th Century-Style


From the original Macc Book – as used by designers in the 1500s

Before black vinyl folders, and way before the website, the Mediaeval ancestors of today’s graphic designers produced ‘model’ or ‘pattern’ books to show their work to potential clients. Only a handful survive but the British Library has recently discovered a prime example – the so-called Macclesfield Alphabet Book.


“…and with this alphabet we achieved best of breed stand-out in the highly competitive gruel sector…”

Produced c1500, the book is filled with designs for different styles of script, letters, initials and decorative borders. All are believed to have come from one workshop, where the book would have been used not just in ye olde pitche meetinge but also to teach assistants how to reproduce the house styles.

There are 14 different types of decorative alphabets featured, including decorative initials with faces

‘foliate’ alphabets, ie those featuring leaves or other foliage


a zoomorphic alphabet

plus, the Library says, large, coloured anthropomorphic initials modelled after fifteenth-century woodcuts or engravings

as well as two sets of different types of borders, some of which are fully illuminated in colours and gold.


“Yes, very nice, but can you make my coat of arms bigger?”

The Library is appealing for donations so that it can acquire the book, which it describes as being of “outstanding significance” and which has been in the library of the Earls of Macclesfield since around 1750. So far it has raised £340,000 of the £600,000 purchase price. If you can help, please email chloe.strickland@bl.uk or gabrielle.filmer-pasco@bl.uk

UPDATE
I asked the British Library about whether people should use gloves, here’s what they had to say:

“We recommend that people do not wear gloves when handling collection items unless they are touching certain vulnerable surfaces such as un-protected photographs, lead seals or the surface of a globe.

Instead we prefer people to ensure that they have clean, dry hands. There are several reasons for this. Gloves can blunt touch and make people less manually dextrous as they cannot feel the item that they are handling. This can cause them to grab at the item they are viewing or to hold it too firmly. This can actually increase rather than minimise the risk of damage to the item.

It is also very difficult to turn or lift pages with gloved hands. We have recently filmed a series of short videos which demonstrate the best way to handle and use different types of collection items.

This includes a video entitled ‘Using Gloves with Collection items’ which demonstrates how difficult it is to turn or lift pages with gloved hands. These videos can be viewed on our website by following this link.

Lastly gloves can also catch on loose pigments or fibres as well as picking up and transferring dust.”

Elms Lesters Painting Rooms: The Book(s)


Elms Lesters Painting Rooms book, designed by Iain Cadby, is limited to just 1000 copies and comes in a numbered box

Eliza Williams’ feature in the current (February) issue of Creative Review takes a look at London’s Elms Lesters gallery, which regularly exhibits works by artists who learnt their trade on the streets. Recent exhibitions in the central London space have shown work by the likes of Adam Neate, Phil Frost, Futura, José Parlá, Mark Dean Veca, Stash, WK Interact, Delta and Space Invader.

Paul Jones and Fiona McKinnon, the duo that run Elms Lesters galllery, have been working closely with graphic designer Iain Cadby, of Worlds studio, for the past two years. Cadby has designed the just-launched 502-page Elms Lesters Painting Rooms book which celebrates the gallery’s 25th anniversary by cataloguing 17 exhibitions from the last 12 years. And Cadby has also been designing the gallery’s exhibition catalogues for the last year. Read on for CR’s interview with Cadby about his work with the gallery…

The Elms Lesters Painting Rooms book, limited to just 1,000 copies, is a lavish affair: it comes packaged in a white, individually numbered screen­printed box. Removal of the dustjacket reveals an irrides­cent hardback cover, blind embossed, with iconography pertaining to the gallery and its artists.

Within the book, the chronological cataloguing of various events is split into sections by smaller pages which serve to make the chapter divisions more evident. Interviews with the various artists also sit on smaller pages within the book, employing different stocks and coloured inks.

Creative Review: Tell us about your relationship with Elms Lesters – you’re a big fan of the gallery aren’t you?
Iain Cadby: I can’t remember how I heard of it or when I first went there but it must be about nine years ago. Seeing things like Delta’s work in there was amazing. Having known his work for about 20 years – to see it in the flesh and to have the opportunity to potentially buy and own a piece of that artwork endeared me to the gallery.

My relationship with Paul and Fiona was born out of a mutual love of the work, especially the graf guys. My love was primarily for Futura and Delta – and Paul is a huge fan of all the artists – but you don’t really get bigger fans of Delta than me and Paul. I guess I was going there a lot and trying to spend as much time there as I could – for me it was like hanging out in the British Museum – it was just nice to be in that space. Then I became a client – I was buying pieces from the gallery.

CR: So how did you end up working with the gallery on these books
IC: Paul and Fiona were round my house putting up a work by Delta and I was showing them some of my work and they said “Hey do you want to do a book on the gallery?”. I was like “Yeah, I’d love to.”

CR: Tell us about the book…
IC: It’s been a true labour of love for all of us: almost two years, in fact, culminating in 11 days in Italy printing on two KBA presses… We ended up printing on irridescent paper for the hard cover which is blind debossed… I created various graphic elements from the gallery’s artists’ work – the cover is meant to be an expression of the gallery. So yes, Fiona and I have spent a huge amount of time collating all the work – there’s over 500 image – working out all the right people to write it from an art historical point of view, the right person to write the introduction about the gallery and the history of the area and the gallery. The book is arranged chronologically because you need the story to be clear…

Within the book, there are smaller sized dividers to help separate the shows and then also smaller pages that contain interviews with the artists. These pages are not only smaller than the other pages – but they utilise different stocks and colours and sometimes printing up to eight colours which is fairly rare, I’d imagine. On some of the intro pages there’s eight colours going on. One of the sheets we did was completely outrageous – there was 15 colours.

CR: Since starting work on the gallery book, you’ve also designed various catalogues for the shows in the space during 2008 – talk us through your approach
IC: The only thing each of the catalogues have in common is the size / format – every one I’ve done is very different – and each is inspired by the work of the artists that appears in the books. Each is very much my interpretation of the expression of the artists in the book. It’s also an expression of the excitement that I feel from these guys.

IC: The cover of the Adam & Ron Show book [May 2-31, 2008] is purposefully beautiful-ugly. It’s meant to be garish. It’s meant to be gameshow-meets-horror-film-meets-Metallica-meets-McDonalds. Ron’s work is very darkly ironic and deeply subversive and Adam’s work has this British urban angst, so the cover is trying to communicate some of those things. The cover is always the most important part in delivering the essence of what it is. And the introduction of each catalogue has a different aesthetic which carries on the language introduced in the cover.

In the Adam & Ron Show catalogue, the intro came from a nice letter which Adam had written to Ron, many years ago, saying how much he admired his work, and Ron wrote back in his typical way with a gag basically – next time you’re giving away free art – let me know before so I can grab one! This started an email dialogue between them which is light but revealing at the same time, so I created what is in essence a sort of email language between them, hiding in lots of references to both of their artworks and also lots of symbols relating to their work and even some Portuguese – because Adam lives in Brazil and a lot of the cardboard he works with has Portugeuse text on it – and other iconography relating to their work…

CR: The colours are really vibrant in the intro, have you used any special print processes here?
IC: Normally you print in four colours (CMYK) on white paper – I think when you first start out making work – maybe when you’re at college and you start doing your first couple of print jobs you normally have one or two colours to play with and the trick with two colours is to try and make it look like three colours – so there’s a little bit of that. Although this is much more subtle. Looking this you’d probably think it’s been printed with just two colours – but in fact there’s three colours – so these are tri-tones. This isn’t anything outrageous print-wise, but tri-tones are just an interesting thing you don’t get to use very often. Three colours and the curve from zero to a hundred of each colour – has to be on a curve and the curves can’t clash otherwise you get that moiré effect. What IS interesting is I often – almost always when working on these projects – do a scatterproof. A scatterproof is a wonderful thing – I first saw one when I was working at Why Not Associates – they had drawers full of these things – I couldn’t believe them – you test what you want to do in many different ways and these are all printed on a sheet. Then you can look at all these and choose the ones which work the best.

So I did scatterproofs for this catalogue… There’s tri tones and a metallic – on orange paper and on white – and you print various versions of the same thing but with slightly varied colours to see what will look the best. Scatterproofs – printed on the press that will produce the books – are brilliant. It’s an amazing way, it’s the only way, when you’re doing experimental stuff, to know what you’re dealing with.

CR: And the Delta catalogue [June 1-30, 2008] also looks like there’s some nifty print processes going on…

IC: Fairly intense this one – I redrew elements of Boris’ work so I could use these graphics as half tones to build up the cover image in printed layers. I printed a silver first, then I printed white on top in different percentages, then I printed gold, then I printed another silver which goes on top of the whites and the gold and then I printed another white which then sits on top of the silver and the whites to create different layers and it’s fairly strange when you hold it in certain lights it actually does have a three dimensional quality.

The elements that I created – as a sort of visual language to carry across all the information – are the bold parts and it’s basically a very simple isometric shape – which is then exploded and then I built in Boris’ work too – so everything fits together.

The gold was originally going to be a flouro pink and underneath where the gold is – it was going to be two 100% hits of white with a fluorescent pink on top. But the fluorescent didn’t react well to the white printed on black. It needed to be printed on to bright white, so I ended up using gold. On the computer, the pink looked great – but when you get down to making something, things change and you learn stuff…

The artwork was a bitch. I was using percentages of colours – and then I was choosing the second white to try and work out what the percentage would be where the whites overlap.

CR: The catalogues and the gallery book are lavish affairs. Tell us about your relationship with the gallery – do you work closely with them on the layout of each publication? Do you have restrictions with budgets?
IC: Fiona will look at everything I do, while I’m doing it and in terms of the layout and the choice of work, we try and create a flow and sense of rhythm. If you were to give us both the same 50 images and asked us to pick eight, I bet you we’d both pick at least six of the same images. We’re really synchronised in our way of thinking. Fiona and Paul are both incredible – sometimes I feel that I’m given the freedom that they give their artists. They allow me, budget wise, to do what I’d like to do with the catalogues – they’re not restrictive or prescriptive in any way, either creatively or financially. I get to do my thing – which is great but that comes with a massive amount of responsibility because I have to deliver something exquisite because otherwise I’m failing – I’d be letting them down.


The cover for the catalogue for José Parlá’s Adaptation/Translation exhi­bi­tion [October 10 to November 8, 2008] is printed on cloth to show off a detail of one of the artist’s canvases. The book’s introduction features an essay on Parlá’s work by art historian Michael Betancourt, arranged far more traditionally than the intros of the other books. The catalogue has space not only for the works the artist showed in the exhibition, but also for numerous photographs taken by the artist on his extensive travels that relate to and inform his work

IC: Every book has its own unique set of challenges. My mission is to give these artists something that represents them completely but is a gift. When I give the guys their books, it’s an educated risk I take with the design and I hope they’re going to respond and that it will resonate with them in the correct way. So far, so good – but you really pay the price by taking that approach. What if they absolutely hate it?”

Every guy that I’ve given a book to – they look at it very quietly and go through the whole thing. And while every person has a totally different reaction, they always take their time and go through it very slowly. Anthony Lister said, after going through his catalogue “I didn’t know I warranted such a lovely colour.” For me that’s the moment that makes it worthwhile.

The Elms Lesters Painting Rooms book is published by the gallery and costs £175
Printer: Damiani (Elms Lesters Painting Rooms book). Moore (catalogues)

worldsdesign.co.uk
elmslesters.co.uk

CR Feb Issue


CR’s February cover, illustrated by Letman

The February issue of Creative Review is out on Wednesday 21 January, with features on Luke Hayman, Letman, Indian advertising, The Guardian’s new home, The Elms Lesters Painting Rooms and more…

Our Work section features first sight of the logo for Condé Nast’s forthcoming Love magazine, Dougal Wilson’s puppet-tastic video for Coldplay and Spin’s identity for Argentina’s PROA gallery

Features include an interview with Pentagram’s Luke Hayman in which he reveals the secret of his success – CR, of course (ahem)

A profile of Job Wouters, aka Letman, hand-lettering artist extraordinaire and brother of our former Creative Future, Roel. Job also designed our cover this month, which carries on our theme of basing the design around a listing of that month’s content. Also, our guest typeface this issue (as seen here) is Dessau Pro Stenzil Variant by Gábor Kóthay, distributed by Fountain

How The Guardian’s editorial design has grown, almost accidentally, into an all-encompassing visual language for the paper, which now includes signage at its new home (by Cartlidge Levene)

A look at why The Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, shunned by the mainstream gallery world, has given street art a home

And an examination of the role that advertising can play in ensuring that India doesn’t repeat the mistakes of the west in the face of growing consumerism

Plus, in Crit, we have all the usual discussion and comment including a look at advertising’s love of pain

And the all-important findings of our research into studio snacking and listening habits

Plus, subscribers will notice a change to Monograph this month. We are now using this rather beautiful Stephen Sultry Grey cover stock

Inside this month we feature Paul Belford’s collection of vintage Bollywood posters

And here’s the back cover with a key to the various pens that Letman used to design the front

It’s out on Wednesday 21 January. Enjoy.

Competition: five copies of J. MAYER H. to be won

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Dezeen have teamed up with Berlin architects J. MAYER H. to give away five copies of their new monograph, published by Hatje Cantz. (more…)

New Comment Policy On CR Blog

Or, Death To Trolls…

So far, on CR Blog, we have limited the moderation to anything that is openly offensive or potentially libellous. However, of late the quality of the debate here has been suffering from a rash of comments that really contribute nothing.

We don’t mind swearing, but to post a comment along the lines of “shit. the lot of them” or “that’s crap” does nothing to generate the type of informed debate that we hope the site can foster. We are all for criticism but, if you don’t like something, we want to know WHY.

So, as from now, we are instigating a more active moderation policy. Anything that, in the opinion of the moderators, is pointlessly abusive or adds nothing to the debate will be deleted.

And, as a reminder, here are the other criteria that we would ask you to observe:

“CR encourages comments to be short and to the point. As a general rule, they should not run longer than the original post. Comments should show a courteous regard for the presence of other voices in the discussion. We reserve the right to edit or delete comments that do not adhere to this standard.”

Thanks

Alexa’s Top 90 Design Weblogs

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Want to know the top design blogs according to Alexa? Well, we’ve compiled all 90 of them. I have no clue how they come up with these rankings, but hey, these are great sites to check out and bookmark! (ReubenMiller ranks 24 – not bad.)

1. Treehugger

2. MoCo Loco

3. Inhabitat

4. Cool Hunting

5. The Cool Hunter

6. NOTCOT

7. Hostess with the Mostess

8. Graphics and Illustrations

9. Designspotter

10. Design You Trust

11. Fuel Your Creativity

12. Swissmiss

13. Cribcandy

14. Josh Spear

15. Design Observer

16. Positive Space

17. Hawksmont

18. Oh Joy!

19. It’s Nice That

20. Functioning Form

21. The Ad Mad

22. Sub-Studio

23. Desire to Inspire

24. Reuben Miller

25. Creative bits ‘n’ bobs

26. Graphic Design Blog

27. Poppytalk

28. Print Pattern

29. 2Modern

30. Design Sojourn

31. Roadside Scholar

32. Idealist

33. Curiobot

34. Design Notes

35. Graphic design for life

36. Land Living

37. Designers Block

38. Decor8

39. Architectradure

40. Design Crack

41. Absolutely Beautiful Things

42. Design Sponge

43. Serial Consign

44. Elit Alice

45. Love Made Visible

46. Twenty1f

47. 30gms

48. Pasta and Vinegar

49. Oh My So Cute

50. Cuteable

51. Rolling Rains

52. Style Court

53. Scoutie Girl

54. Cool Design Ideas

55. Bookmarkd

56. Redsil

57. Push A Pixel

58. Black White Bliss

59. DesignTaleStudio

60. Nordic Design Blog

61. Trend Insights

62. Funfurde

63. 49 Sparks

64. Studio469

65. Neo Nomad

66. ImedaGoze

67. Things of Random Coolness

68. LedLightRay

69. PagePlane

70. A Thing of Beauty

71. Raven’s Nest

72. Design Scout

73. Rebang

74. Reverseorbit

75. Inert Greymatter

76. Trendmatter

77. Design Boston

78. The Zaum of Mr Brown

79. The Terminally Juvenile

80. Designer’s Library

81. Greenwix

82. Old Glutton

83. Blog Sessions

84. Something In The Way

85. Dog Opus

86. Rag and Bone

87. Storm from the East

88. Lena Corwin

89. Obsidian Dawn

90. All the Best