Roosters, Dogs
Updating you on recent designs, brutalist landscapes, the last iPod, the importance of naming objects, and 60s typography.
I’ve updated my site with a few recent book and poster designs, including this for Open Letter, a cover for Wojciech Tochman’s excellent Roosters Crow, Dog’s Cry – ”A portrait of a Cambodia in which the memory of the Khmer Rouge terror is still alive, where the nation is suffering from a trauma referred to as baksbat, or 'broken courage syndrome’.”
Artist Clemens Gritl designs computer models of imagined brutalist architectural landscapes, reflecting urban utopias of the twentieth century. Best way to describe it: imagine if Star Wars' city-planet Coruscant was designed in the sixties, the entire surface covered in concrete.
I’m a big fan of Alexandra Lange's book The Design of Childhood, so I’m rather looking forward to her follow up, Meet Me by the Fountain, exploring one of America’s most iconic institutions: the mall. Would be interesting to compare it to a parallel study of the British shopping centre and its own distinct conventions, peculiarities and cultural waypoints.
And so it’s finally happened, the last of the iPods has been discontinued. A fine excuse to link to this again, the sniffy MacRumors forum from the day the original model was announced. Personal favourite: ”Doesn't a Mac with a CDR undermine the need for most of this? All that's left is the number of songs you can play and the ability to listen to all of them with headphones anywhere. Do I really need ALL my songs ALL the time?”
I’m not entirely sure, because it’s all a bit French, but I think my favourite contemporary artist, Katrien de Blauwer, finally has a proper monograph coming out this summer, a retrospective look at ten years of being a “photographer without a camera”.
Naming objects Is the opposite of thoughtless consumption. When we christen cars, instruments, and the other important possessions in our lives, we interact with them differently—and we may be more likely to appreciate them. I’m so glad it’s not just me.
Photographic composites by Doris Mitsch document the mesmerising flight trails of vultures, crows and bats. Imagine a series like this but based on the movements of WFH-ers; a time-and-motion study of daily activity between desk and fridge and desk and toilet and desk.
“Sometimes whenever we talk about creativity, it can have this kind of feel that it’s just nice, or it’s warm, or it’s something pleasant. It’s not. It’s vital.” – I’m a little bit in love with this Ethan Hawke talk on sandcastles, foolishness, Top Gun and giving yourself permission to be creative.
I think it’s safe to assume that Meanwhile readers have wonderful taste, and therefore you’ve watched Alex Hirsch's Gravity Falls all the way through at least six or seven times, yes? What you may not have seen is the accompanying book, an impeccably recreated facsimile of Journal 3, completed and annotated by Dipper and Mabel. TV tie-ins are often a bit lacklustre, but this is book design at its very best.
The Peculiar Manicule is a fantastic little archive of 1960s and 70s ephemera, psychedelia, typography, and mod miscellanea, compiled by a seemingly anonymous Seattle graphic designer (or at least I couldn’t find their name anywhere, too distracted by the overall fabulosity of it all). Worth a visit just for the colours. Colours were different back then.
That is all.
