I love well designed book covers ... and particularly love it when I stumble across a site dedicated to showcasing the very best covers. Its like having the books but without the grief that comes from the SO when you buy them.
bookworship is one such site ... and what a site it is!
I've added a few faves that stand out ... including a mandatory Pelican classic.
If you like a well designed book cover then I would highly recommend checking out bookworship.
Shawn Hazen, the graphic designer behind the project, explains his rationale in the 'about' section:
"This site represents the obsessions of an atypical book collector.
While I certainly love “valuable” books, that’s not necessarily what you’ll see here. For the most part, these are graphically interesting, but otherwise uncollectible, books that entered and exited bookstores quietly in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. I read a lot of these books, but my motivations for posting them here are primarily visual, since I’m a graphic designer. That’s why it’ll be a bit of a mixed bag."
I like your mixed bag Shawn ... thank you for sharing these books!
While I've been off I've been able to tick off some of the 'someday' tasks in my GTD system. One of these 'someday' tasks was to set up a Tumblr that celebrates sci-fi and fantasy cover art ... especially from 'pulp' paperback novels.
The idea came from Cousin Silas and Kevin Lyons who both read voraciously and love their pulp sci-fi. They post pics of the books they are reading on Facebook and I love to see these pics ... so I decided to collate them in one place for future reference.
This place is the Tumblr of the "Kingsport Art Club" and can be found here >> link <<
If illustration is your thing then please bookmark the site. I will try, with the help of Cousin Silas and Kevin Lyons, to keep it fresh and updated regularly.
I'm a wee bit late to the game here ... but for my friends of faith ... and those who aren't but are interested in fab illustration ... my friend Mark Van Steenwyk has a Kickstarter out.
He has written a book entitled "A Wolf at the Gate" ... it is billed as an imaginative retelling of the legend of St. Francis and the wolf, in which peace overcomes violence ... and is beautifully illustrated by Joel Hedstrom.
Mark has raised his initial goal and has a few 'stretch' goals that are of interest to me ...
If he raises $9,000 Mark will also professional record an audio-book that will be freely available in digital form to EVERY backer ... and if he raises $11,000 Mark will commission and collaborate with a musician to create a children's album based upon the book. Again ... this will be freely available in digital form to EVERY backer.
As of writing, we have 16 days left and I, for one, want to encourage anyone interested to pledge what they can to make these stretches happen.
Over Christmas I was fortunate to receive the following books:
"Teach Yourself Film Studies" by Warren Buckland,
"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien,
"William Shakespeare's Star Wars" by Ian Doescher, and
"The Field Guide to Typography - Typefaces in the Urban Landscape" by Peter Dawson.
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"Teach Yourself Film Studies"
I bought this book for 1p + postage from a bookseller on Amazon. I want to relearn Film Studies in preparation for starting a wee film club. Its a fascinating book ... well written and insightful ... just what I was looking for.
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"The Hobbit"
As regular readers of the ol' Nanolog will know, I collect J.R.R. Tolkien's books ... and have a particular soft spot for Bilbo's journey 'there and back again'. I think this is my 18th copy ... one with a lovely inscription on the inside front page from my wife. She buys me a copy for my birthday and my Christmas ... instead of a card ... as her wee nod to my obsession. She knows she's my main obsession and is just playing along.
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"William Shakespeare's Star Wars"
Another gift from my wife ... hitting my other 'fantastical' obsession - Star Wars. The book is 'A New Hope' written as Shakespeare would have written it ... reimagined in glorious iambic pentameter. It is a fascinating read ... one to be savoured and chewed over as much as consumed. Loving it.
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"The Field Guide to Typography - Typefaces in the Urban Landscape"
I picked up this book in a bookshop ... it was on sale and cheaper than Amazon ... I fell in love with it from the moment I picked it up ... it is as informative as it is beautiful to look at. According to the book's blurb on Amazon:
"The Field Guide to Typography explores and explains the myriad typefaces that we see around us in our day-to-day lives, from airplane liveries to computer screens, from billboard hoardings to signage systems. It presents over 120 typefaces old and new, common and unusual with photographic references to help font spotters identify particular typefaces in the wild. Accompanying background information explains the origin, usage and key features of each typeface, and Field Facts provide little-known nuggets of information to expand your typographical awareness. Attractive and informative, The Field Guide to Typography is a unique visual reference for novice font fans and experienced designers alike, and a comprehensive celebration of our expanding typographic world."
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I have plenty to keep me going ... and I am grateful to Olly and my parents for their generosity.
I found Recovering the Classics via Swiss-Miss and instantly fell in love. Recovering the Classics is a crowdsourced collection of original covers for the greatest works of fiction in the public domain.
Unfortunately The Hobbit is still under copyright ... but there are some fab books covered within this collection.
If you like book design, I would highly recommend the Recovering the Classics collection ... especially considering the covers are also available as prints.
I was rather taken with The Art of Penguin Science Fiction when I was sent a link to it by my friend Kevin Lyons. I have a love for both sci-fi books and great cover art ... and this repository does both.
I particularly like it when you click on a cover and the site gives you loads of detail plus some interesting trivia too. Take "The Reefs of Space" ... a book I have and loved reading ... I find the backstory fascinating.
Anyway ... dive in and lose yourself to fab cover art.
After I took the trip from Project Thirty Three to 50 Watts ... I found myself at Julian Montague's blog (http://montagueprojectsblog.blogspot.co.uk). His 'DAILY BOOK GRAPHICS PROJECT' is a visual treat ...
Almost everyday I post some sort of graphic element (mostly covers) from a book. Unless otherwise noted all of the books I post are ones that I have scanned myself, I don't curate this blog from the web (I spend a lot of time at thrift stores and book sales). My original plan was to do it for a year – February 21, 2009 to February 21, 2010, but I have decided to keep going. for the foreseeable future.
I really appreciate covers like this one ... and value what Montague is doing here with his project. These covers, like the old covers in Project Thirty Three, need to be remembered and archived for folks like me and those coming behind me.
I'm not sure if I have posted about The Bookcover Archive or not ... but it is certainly worth another post. It is a massive archive of Bookcovers for a really inspirational visual treat.
What's more, I particularly like the search criteria - you can search by Designer, Photographer, Illustrator, and even Typeface.
Search, for example, for the Typeface Akzidenz Grotesk and you get this ...
I really like this archive and, whilst I doesn't seem to have any Tolkien, it is certainly worth a bookmark.
Their blog >> http://blog.bookcoverarchive.com/ << is well worth a read too. A fascinating read on all things books and bookcover design ... that said, it hasn't been updated in 2 years. Booo!!!
With a breathtaking collection of unique photography, Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation takes the reader on a tour of the most visually stunning and important products produced by the world's most innovative company — Apple®. Follow Apple's journey through a photographic collection of their most important desktops, portables, peripherals, prototypes, iDevices (iPad, iPod and iPhone) and packaging.
Iconic uses vivid color and detail to document Apple's journey in design, form and function — and looks back at over 35 years of Apple innovation. Four years in the making, the author captured over 150,000 photos of nearly every product Apple has made, including rare prototypes and even packaging. Complementing the photography are forewords and essays from an impressive group of luminaries, commentators and influencers in the Apple community. See the progression of more than three decades of product design that has made Apple the brand it is today.
Wow! This book looks amazing ... my thanks to Stuart for sending me the link.
One of the benefits of long train journeys is the opportunity to read ... and while I was away in Leeds and then latterly in Slaithwaite (more on both later) I got the chance to finish William Gibson's fantastic story "Zero History" ...
Hubertus Bigend, the Machiavellian head of global ad-agency Blue Ant, wants ex-musician Hollis Henry to uncover the maker of a secret, obscurely fashionable denim called 'The Gabriel Hounds'. Hollis knows nothing about fashion - which, curiously, is why Bigend hired her. Soon, though, it's clear that Bigend's interest in underground labels might have sinister applications. Powerful parties, who'll do anything to get into this territory, are showing their hand. And Hollis, as Bigend's representative, is about to find herself in the crossfire.
It is such a compelling read that this is the second time I've read it ... and I got more out of it this time round.
What I love most about Gibson's work ... especially his 'Blue Ant Trilogy' ... is his attention to detail. I find his descriptive prose an utter joy to consume and can really visualise where he takes the story.
I would highly recommend this series ... start at "Pattern Recognition".
From there I moved to this modern-day fable ... "Mr Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore" by Robin Sloan. I've only just started it but it already has me intrigued. I particularly love stories written in the first-person ... I think it has something to do with my love of Lovecraft ... and this story has a really modern, upbeat, hip feel about it ...
Recession has shuffled Clay Jannon out of his life as a San Francisco Web-design drone - and serendipity, coupled with sheer curiosity, has landed him a new job working the night shift at Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. But after just a few days, Clay begins to realize that this store is even more curious than the name suggests. There are only a few customers, but they come in repeatedly and never seem to actually buy anything, instead they simply borrow impossibly obscure volumes from strange corners of the store, all according to some elaborate, long-standing arrangement with the gnomic Mr. Penumbra. The store must be a front for something larger, Clay concludes, and soon he's embarked on a complex analysis of the customers' behaviour and roped his friends into helping to figure out just what's going on. But once they bring their findings to Mr. Penumbra, it turns out the secrets extend far outside the walls of the bookstore...
I'm only a few pages in but it has me hooked. It is going for less than the price of a coffee on the Kindle store at the moment ... so dive in and join me.
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just around the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know what no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
I don't know why it has taken me until 2013 to read "Nineteen Eighty Four" by George Orwell ... but I have corrected my mistake and am loving it.
It is so apt for now ... so right ... especially with the Shephard Fairey cover.
Dan Brown's books are a guilty pleasure of mine. I'm a big fan of his easy-to-read, escapist nonsense ... and his latest book "Inferno" has all the hallmarks of a belter.
It stars Tom Hanks ... no, wait ... Robert Langdon and the beautiful city of Firenze aka Florence (a city I visited briefly on my honeymoon).
I know it isn't high brow literature ... and that Stephanie Meyer has more respect in the cultured cabals that seek to shape our reading than Brown does ... but I don't care. I can't wait to escape into Langdon's world and hope you won't mind in my posts are a wee bit sparse on here while I do.
This afternoon, whilst visiting Peebles in the Scottish Borders, my wife purchased me what could easily be described as the ultimate edition of "The Hobbit" ... a 700 x 1000mm 'Spineless Classic' version.
I'll be honest ... I nearly wet myself in excitement when I saw it. It is stunning and well worth the cost and the hassle getting it home.
I love books and I love reading. Unfortunately I am the worlds-worst for (a) stockpiling books that I never read and (b) read so slowly that I can’t get through all the books I want to.
Here are some of the books I want to read and am slowly working through ... starting with “Drawn in”.
“Create: Stop Making Excuses and Start Making Stuff” by Stephen Altrogge is another book that sits in the intersection of the Christian faith and creativity. It is short and practical, and I can’t wait to get into it. I believe in its central premise - that we are all creative - and look forward to soaking up its advice and encouragement.
The title of the next book instantly grabbed me - “APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur - How to publish a book” by Guy Kawasaki & Shawn Welch - because I want to publish a book. I am not a writer in the same way that I am not a musician, but I am a facilitator and I would love to help up-and-coming writers get their work “out there” in the same manner as I do with the music I help surface on my netlabel. Kawasaki is a legend and anyone who get’s Seth Godin’s vote gets mine too.
“Sketchnotes Field Guide for the busy, yet inspired, professional” by Binaebi Akah & Charlene McBride is a short workbook that I read in one sitting (it must be short) that discusses a topic that has recently captured my attention - Sketchnotes. Sketchnotes is a form of note-taking that involves more visual elements. It's not just about the words, rather it is about how pictures and presentation can be used to enhance the notes taken. It's about creating artefacts that can clearly articulate the subject matter. I'm a big mind-mapping fan and I see this as the next level, so if you see me scribbling into my may Moleskines please ask to see what I'm doing ... I may have a Sketchnote to show you.
I am a huge fan of Leo Babauta’s writing and couldn't resist picking up his booklet on his GTD (Getting Things Done) hack: “Zen To Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System”. I practice GTD in my work life and personal endeavours using my Moleskines and apps like “Things” almost religiously. The thing is, however, that I'm always up for making better and believe, from Babauta’s other writing, that he’ll have some valuable lessons to teach me.
I'm not a big ’Self-Help’ book fan but “How to be Remarkable” by Colin Wright grabbed my attention and for 77p I couldn't say no. Wright is a prolific author and all-round interesting person, and I figured his advice would be worth considering. We’ll see.
While researching an idea for an album cover, I came across Things Magazine's The Pelican Project. An online archive of Pelican's bookcover designs from the 1930s through to the 1980s.
The screengrab above highlights some of the fascinating designs produced in the 1960s.
I was particularly taken with "The Rise of Meritocracy" by Michael Young from 1965.
It is a love letter to reading. Hendricks is trying to remind everyone he can about the wonder that is reading ... and he does a really, really good job.
He places an emphasis on forming the habit of reading ... and suggests ways in which folks can read more ... whilst on the loo or in a queue ... or during the ad-breaks. This is a habit I am trying to recapture ... thanks to Hendricks.
I highly recommend it ... and it is free until Thursday, 7th February.
Kevin Hendricks is someone I would love to grab a coffee with. He gets the interwebs and his latest project ... which I am a bit late on (apologies) ... is a real inspiration to me.
"The Stephanies" is a book written together by Kevin with his 6 year old daughter Lexi ... with illustrations from Lexi.
It is ... in their own words ...
... a short, goofy little story about two girls who are both named Stephanie. Sharing a name causes all kinds of problems and the two girls continually square off:
“My name is Stephanie!”
“No, my name is Stephanie!”
“Grr…” both girls grumbled.
It’s great fun. If you’re into children’s books, think more Robert Munsch than Margaret Wise Brown.
I love it ... albeit I am not their target market.
I love it because it is an awesome artefact ... a reminder of a time when a father and a daughter worked together and made something happen. Their experience has 'edges' ... it has substance ... it's more than memories and photographs ... it has physical form. I find that inspiring.
I love it because it is really good. I love kids books and have a few in my collection at home. The best thing about kids books is they can and are a great canvas for cutting edge illustration and storytelling. I'm not suggesting Lexi is a cutting edge artist ... yet ... but children's books are far more accommodating and accepting of a wide variety of expression ... and, to be honest, what better than a child illustrating a child's book ... there is a real 'on the level' thing here that I find delightful.
I love it because they made it happen. Kevin is a knowledgable chap and he knew what services to use to make this dream come true.
First off ... he used Kickstarter to crowdfund the process. I think they doubled their request ... and really got into the spirit of Kickstarter with some awesome incentives. I really would have liked a batch of those home-made cookies!
Kevin then used Amazon's CreateSpace service to create physical copies to add to the Kindle copy he created using tools such as Word and Photoshop.
Which brings me to my final point ... I love it because Kevin and Lexi could make it happen.
Theirs was and is a 100% independent production ... funded by kindness and generosity ... but created using easily available tools. Tools that need a bit of savvy to use but tools that give the opportunity to ordinary folks (not saying Kevin is ordinary ... far from it) with the willingness to learn the ability to do what Kevin and Lexi have done.
I think this is a prime example of how publishing is changing. Self-publishing is accessible to the masses ... or at least ... out of the hands of the gate-keeping Publishing industry. Yes ... Amazon are now the gate-keeper ... as are Apple ... and Barnes and Noble ... but they are enabling folks too ... giving them the tools to create.
Who knew I'd have my own netlabel this time last year? Its that kind of thing. The opportunities have changed and its savvy folks like Kevin with his adorable daughter who are paving the way for others to follow.
Well done Kevin ... Well done Lexi. I look forward to your next project and Lexi ... I really hope you keep on drawing.
Watch them read 'The Stephanies' together below ... and if you can ... please support them by buying a copy.
My friend Travis Mamone has released another eBook ... entitled "O Come Emmanuel - Advent Meditations" ... and I was honoured to design the cover for him. Albeit when I say design ... I kind of just put text over one of my photos ... but I think it works.
The Fox Is Black's latest 'Re-Covered Books' comp has me wishing I had more skills and could compete. I am just a photographer who adds type to his pictures.
That said ... I am really looking forward to what is created. The strength of submissions for previous competitions has been first class ... and Solomon's taste is truly impeccable ... his winners are always something special.
