Hasta La Ideas

The ability of the photographic portrait to encapsulate a sitter’s personality in a single definitive image is questioned in a new book of Double Portraits by Christoph Klauke

Klauke’s book presents a series of these so-called Double Portraits in three chapters, taken over the course of several years in London, New York and California. In each, the image on the left was composed by Klauke using his 10 x 8 camera. After taking the first shot, Klauke waits for several seconds while the sitter attempts to maintain his or her pose, inevitably shifting position or expression. He then takes the second image.

The pairs of images are subtly but noticeably different – one formal and controlled, the other revealing perhaps a little more of the reality of the sitter or a sense of them when they are slightly less guarded.

None of the portraits are captioned on the page but readers will recognise Mark E Smith, David Adjaye and Zadie Smith above.

56 of the images are presented in the self-published book in a limited edition of 750 copies priced at £45. The book will be launched at Claire De Rouen Books in London in September, details here

Want to learn a new skill? Hone your craft? Or just switch off that Mac and do something a little less boring instead for a while? Then our August issue is for you with details on workshops, short courses and a host of ideas to reinvigorate the creative mind. You can buy the August issue of Creative Review direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money too. Details here.

The Phaidon Atlas of 21st Century Architecture and The Phaidon Atlas of Contemporary World Architecture are inspiring sourcebooks for the ages, but as with many authoritative, lushly illustrated volumes, it is impossible to fit them in one’s pocket, unless one has very special pants. Fear not, culture-conscious traveler, because Phaidon has just released The Phaidon Architecture Travel Guide App, an iPhone- or iPad-ready resource that’s yours for $3.99 from the iTunes store. With some 1,500 projects from 840 architectural practices (cherrypicked from both atlases), the app can be browsed by location, project, practice, and building type. Plus, the bookmarking options make it easy to create a “To See” list of architecture marvels around the globe. And travelers, take heart: no Wi-Fi or 3G is required to run the app.

Got an app we should know about? Drop us a line at unbeige [at] mediabistro.com

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

by Mya Stark At first glance, one might feel that “The Best Things To Do in Los Angeles: 1001 Ideas” has three strikes against it. It’s a book rather than a blog or an app; it’s…

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Andrew Davidson has produced a beautifully detailed set of hand engraved illustrations for the cover of adult editions of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter novels.

Davidson was commissioned by Bloomsbury, who will publish the series and Webb & Webb, who are designing the covers.

The illustrations were created by printing hand crafted wood engravings made on nine by seven-inch English boxwood onto Japanese paper, “which seemed to create the perfect effect,” says Davidson.

“I wanted them to look as if they had come straight from the pages of a book taken from the library at Hogwarts [the boarding school for wizard’s where the books are set].”

The finished book covers will look something like this, and will be on sale in September.

The project took around two and a half months to complete, and each of Davidson’s illustrations represents a key scene, character or setting from that novel: designs for early books in the series feature the Hogwarts Express train and Gothic castle, while later covers have a darker feel and feature ghouls, skulls and serpents.

“Each image aims to capture the spirit and setting of each book – as the stories become darker, so do the engravings. There are also hidden clues in each of the illustrations to look out for…” he adds.

“The brief was to create a set of covers that would stand out on the shelves of any shop and to make the author’s name a key focus, which is why we’ve used large type and bold colours,” explains Webb&Webb director James Webb, who designed the covers before commissioning Davidson’s illustrations.

“We wanted to steer clear of using photographs of the characters, or the black and white imagery used on a lot of teen fiction, so we presented the idea of using Andrew’s illustrations to Bloomsbury. We had originally approached Andrew to work on a set of Harry Potter covers three years ago, and are working on another project with him now for Royal Mail,” he adds.

Webb&Webb have worked on the project since August. “We had to devise around 100 variations before we settled on a set that would meet sales, marketing and design needs – it’s always a tricky process,” says Webb.

Andrew Davidson is represented by illustration agency The Artworks. To see more of his work, click here.

We hate to fly and yet love airplanes. We eschew airplane food yet can spend hours happily discussing the EPCOT-y optimism of the curvy blue plastic silverware favored by Icelandair, the smart lighting choices (and kooky liveries) of Virgin America, or the evolution of Delta’s increasingly unhinged pre-flight safety video. We wish that the short-lived dramatic series Pan Am had not been grounded after one season. And so it is with nostalgia for a “golden age of air travel” that we never actually experienced—and yet can get an intoxicating whiff of in the streamlined, space-age-polymer forms of Marc Newson—that we anticipate Keith Lovegrove‘s Airline: Style at 30,000 Feet, out next month from Laurence King. Charting a course through interior design and fashion (pass the Pucci), technicolor food, and logos a-go-go, the book shows how airborne culture has changed from the 1920s to today’s sweatpants-and-flip-flops milieu. Here’s a cinematic sneak peek made by Lovegrove and Andrew Lennox:

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.