I’m not sure if it’s cute or creepy or a bit of both but today marks the release of a fur-covered edition of The Wild Things by Dave Eggers.
Frightening or fantastic, you be the judge (but maybe don’t test it on a 4-year-old).
Archive for the ‘design’ Category
Fur-Covered Edition of Dave Eggers’ The Wild Things
Thursday, October 1st, 200930 More Beautiful Old Books
Friday, September 25th, 2009I just can’t get enough of these gorgeous covers. There are books with cool, interesting or neat covers now, but even the changes in binding over the last 100 years have (in my opinion) reduced the art factor of books. Heavy, decorated cloth on boards, gilt, watermarks behind text, embossing/debossing, floral decorations, illuminations - these are no longer the standard fare in producing books.
I wish I had all the money in the world to build a giant library, fill it with lovely, antique books and spend all my time in it. But for now, I’ll be content to buy one or two really special, exquisite old books as a treat for myself each year.
Frida Kahlo letter sells for $3,750
Friday, September 4th, 2009
Earlier this week we had a very interesting sale for art fans - a letter from the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo for $3,750. Written in August 1947, the letter to Arturo Sidon concerns the purchase of five watercolours and states that reproduction rights are not to be included. A rather mundane letter but letters from Kahlo are particularly hard to locate.
Kahlo is famous for her use of bright colours and was heavily influenced by European realism and surrealism. Her self-portraits, often painful in their themes, are particularly sought-after. She was married to Mexican artist Diego Rivera but had a turbulent marriage. Her lovers included Leon Trotsky. Salma Hayek portrayed her in the 2002 movie, Frida.
The letter might have gone this week but you could still pick up a handwritten invitation from Kahlo to the opening of her first solo exhibit in Mexico. She famously attended the exhibit after being carried to the event on her bed because she was very ill from gangrene in her right leg. The invitation is written as a poem. It is available for $7,500 and you’d also receive an illustration by Rivera created for the first anniversary of his wife’s death - it reads “Para la Niña de mis ojos (that translates as the girl of my eyes), Fisita mia el 13 de Julio de 1955.”
When I sitting here reading about people like Frida Kahlo, I can’t help but think that I lead a very dull life.
A Book Lover’s Guide to IKEA seating
Tuesday, August 25th, 2009Like the title says…..What no hammock!
Bloomsbury Rethinks Cover for Justine Larbalestier’s Latest Novel, Liar
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009
The before and after book covers for Justine Larbalestier's upcoming novel, Liar
Someone over at Bloomsbury made the ridiculous decision to use an image of a white girl with long straight hair on the cover of a book about an African-American girl with short “nappy” hair.
Liar, Justine Larbalestier’s first thriller, is written from the point-of-view of Micah, a compulsive liar and is scheduled for publication in October of this year.
Bloomsbury has apparently heard the outcry of the masses protesting the mismatch between book and cover and have now agreed to redesign the cover using an image that reflects the race of the book’s protagonist. (Shouldn’t that have been a no-brainer?!)
Larbalestier discusses the Liar book cover fiasco and the lack of author input in cover diesigns in general on her blog.
Imaginary Retro Paperback Book Covers
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009Another fantastic picture gallery from the Telegraph. This time, they’ve put together a series of imaginary film novelisations featuring retro covers. Love it!
Here are some of my faves but be sure to check out the full gallery.
I Can Read Movies: a series of imaginary retro paperback book covers for film novelisations
Dan Brown’s latest cover unveiled
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
It’s rather depressing when the cover of Dan Brown’s next book is revealed and it’s considered to be a news story (but then it is July and there isn’t much happening in the book world apart from another round of redundancies). The book, called The Book that Supposed to Save the Publishing Business or The Lost Symbol, doesn’t come out until September 15.
Towering Deep-sea diver in Jules Verne’s Hometown of Nantes
Monday, June 8th, 2009How fantastic. In Adventure and fantasy writer’s Jules Verne’s hometown of Nantes, France, the Estuary 2009 Arts Festival will include a 9.5- metre-tall deep-sea diver, the latest creation from French mechanical marionette street theater company Royale de Luxe.
The theater company includes elaborate stories with each of their creations, and the giant deep-sea diver is no exception. His history includes the Titanic, a dead sister, a missing niece, secret messages from geysers and a job spent sawing icebergs.
On Friday, the giant “woke” and made his way through the town, to the delight, admiration and astonishment of onlookers. The functioning marionette weighs two and a half tons, and requires 30 people to operate and move him.
I can only imagine Jules Verne, with his love of adventure, a story well told, and the grandiose, would approve.
The Book Borrowers Exhibit at the Bellevue Arts Museum
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009 
A week or so ago my boyfriend told me our plans for the day were a surprise, but that he was sure it was so up my alley it was practically made for me - and he was right. We went to the Bellevue Arts Museum in, well, Bellevue, and saw their current exhibition called The Book Borrowers.
The exhibit showcases the work of artists who, through various techniques and transformations, have created sculptures, objets d’arts from books. There was a copy of Shel Silverstein’s beloved book The Giving Tree in which the tree had been painstakingly carved and brought forward to cast its own shadow: a three-dimensional paper tree. The detail and intricate lines were amazing.
There was a half prone figure created from books. Encylopedias and phone books, sandblasted into the appearance of stone, became stumps, mountains, a replica of the grand canyon. Some works were minute, microcosmic, with moving parts (I had a very hard time keeping my hands to myself). Some were abstract and strange, clearly intending a subtext beyond form or function. Some were so amibitious their completion amazed me. But all began with the humble book, printed words and pictures on paper, and brought from it something new.
From the web site:
A book can be many things: an object, a source of knowledge, a cultural artifact or an idea. From each volume, layers of meaning and subtext can be mined, not only from the words and images inside, but from the subtle design elements, the materiality of its pages and spine, and its symbolic value as a recorder of human evolution. For 550 years, the printed page has been our primary means of communication, though it is steadily being overtaken in the digital age.
The Book Borrowers highlights 31 works from locally, nationally and internationally renowned contemporary artists transforming books into sculptural works. Pieces in the exhibition explore the book’s inherent qualities and reflect upon this unique juncture in time. Manhattan White Pages turned into the head of Buddha, laser engraved volumes poignantly dissected, stacks of encyclopedias sandblasted into monumental landscapes – the works in this exhibition reveal new and unexpected layers of meaning that go beyond the book as a source of information and offer a fresh look at its place in an increasingly digitally oriented world. The Book Borrowers is both a nostalgic homage to the book and a reflection on our current progression beyond it.
The second paragraph was printed on one of the walls of the exhibit, and I was surprised to find that while I was fascinated by it, it also made me feel very melancholy. The idea of print media ceasing to exist, or being something for specialty collectors (like music on vinyl now) rather than the norm is heartbreaking to me. I love books. I love the weight of them, the feel. I love the softness of the pages of an old, old paperback. I love the thin ribbon bookmark that comes in some hardcovers. I love when there’s a blank, creamy page, empty save for the author’s dedication. I love a stack of books next to my bed, precarious, teetering, enticing. I love a book that has been read in the bath, and the way its pages become wavy and crimped, like a cocker spaniel’s ears. The Book Borrowers exhibit was comforting in that it showed the book will always be valuable, always be art, even if its form changes. The obvious dedication, time and skill that the artists put into each piece suggested reverie and respect. Books will always be loved. But the sense of loss at the words on the wall was real.
The part that devastates me perhaps most of all is the idea of losing that bookstore smell. I don’t believe it will ever come to that entirely, and if it does it is a long way off, but the notion was jarring. The smell of new bookstores is different from used bookstores, is different from libraries, is different from antiquarian collections, but they all have the musty, spicy, underlying smell of paper at their root, and my nose knows nothing better. I have difficulty imagining walking into an e-reader factory, closing my eyes, inhaling and smiling.
*Exhibition ends June 14th, so if you’re in the Seattle area and want to view it, now’s the time!
Arthur Rackham’s Illustrations
Friday, April 17th, 2009
If you love art, and illustration - and I think by now I know you well enough to say you do - you should check out our feature on Arthur Rackham.
Rackham’s pieces were known for their luxurious use of color and keen attention to detail. His styles ranged easily from vivid, bright splashes of color to more muted, subtle tones. He became a member of the Royal Watercolour Society and mastered the watercolor method of painting, seen in many of his works. Many of the books Rackham illustrated include both his black and white and color plates. As well, some, such as Hawthorne’s Wonder Book, include Rackham’s experimentation with partially colored prints, similar to the effect seen with Japanese woodblock art.
Much of Rackham’s work depicts gnomes, fairies, goblins or other creatures from mythology, folklore or fable. His work has been an inspiration to many, including film director Guillermo del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth) and modern illustrator Brian Froud.
AND, because not all of you can be as rolling in wealth as some of us (*polishes diamonds absentmindedly*), we’ve arranged the books by price.
Some of these are children’s classics - Sleeping Beauty, Hans Christian Andersen Fairytales, Cinderella, Peter Pan, Mother Goose - and the legendary tales are made SO much more enchanting my Rackham’s art. The stories become objects of art, to treasure.
Campaign to ban Comic Sans typeface
Friday, April 17th, 2009The Wall Street Journal writes about a campaign to ban the Comic Sans font.
The font, a casual script designed to look like comic-book lettering, is the bane of graphic designers, other aesthetes and Internet geeks. It is a punch line: “Comic Sans walks into a bar, bartender says, ‘We don’t serve your type.’” On social-messaging site Twitter, complaints about the font pop up every minute or two. An online comic strip shows a gang kicking and swearing at Mr. Connare.
The jolly typeface has spawned the Ban Comic Sans movement, nearly a decade old but stronger now than ever, thanks to the Web. The mission: “to eradicate this font” and the “evil of typographical ignorance.”
(Sigh) I’d rather people campaigned to ban guns, fast food joints that offer free toys to children, self-help books and James Frey.
Human Bookshelf
Thursday, April 16th, 2009Joining the bibliochaise, reading chair, book-storage table and more in the halls of coolest bookish furniture and book gadgets ever, I give you….the human bookshelf.
Cool.
I want one. :-D
Literary tattoos
Friday, March 27th, 2009Nice blog. Some nutter put Where The Wild Things Are on his arm.
Reminds me our of Authors With Tattoos feature.
Eloisa Cartonera - Using Cardboard to Create Books and to Help People
Wednesday, March 25th, 2009
In the midst of the Argentine economic crisis, those desperate for money began collecting paper and cardboard from municipal waste to sell for recycling. These people are became known as “cartoneros”.
From this crisis, creativity was born. In 2003, Eloisa Cartonera was established, breathing new life into the cartoneros community. Eloisa Cartonera publishes the works of new and classic Latin American writers such Cesar Aira and Alejandro Lopez and purchases cardboard used in the books from the cartoneros. The cartoneros also paint and decorate the books.
The authors help by giving up their copyrights. These donations have made it possible for Eloisa Cartonera to publish 5,000 books a year and to pay the cartoneros five times as much as they’d receive from garbage processors.
Eloisa Cartonera is located in Buenos Aires but the concept has spread throughout Latin America. 
The books are inexpensive (one newspaper article reports that an Italian distributor bought 70 copies for three euros) and offer a promising return for foreign distributors as the books can be marketed outside of the country as a cultural and social project, not to mention unique pieces of art. It seems as if it’s a winning proposition for all involved.
Eloisa Cartonera has a website where you can see some of their work.