If Cats Worked

::From Jan Willemsen's Flickrstream

Speed Reading

Publisher Quercus Books teamed up with the clever Italian design duo Matteo Civaschi and Gianmarco Milesi of H-57 to publish a book for people with short attention spans. Each true story is told in a series of witty pictograms, providing a snapshot on our world. With more than 200 stories, Life in Five Seconds cuts to the chase in order to keep you informed of world events, cultural icons, and famous people. But wait, there is more! You can download the free Quercus Eye app for Android, iPhone or tablet, and point it at some of the designated pages, and the story will spring to life faster than you can turn the page.


See more extracts from LiFS here.

Lettering Works

I'm back to work after a sunny break in Arizona this week and featuring the lovely lettering work of NYC artist and designer Jeff Rogers. His lettering work looks a lot like play. 

The Color Printer in 1892

John Franklin Earhart (1853-1938) was an author, book designer, printer, painter and teacher who spent five years creating his book "The Color Printer, A Treatise on the Use of Colors in Typographic Printing". Finally published in 1892 by Earhart and Richardson, his book demonstrated practical techniques for mixing and overprinting various ink colors and combinations, embossing, borders, ornaments, metallic inks, tint blocks and book composition. According to Richard Sheaff, "the book required 625 forms and 1,625,000 impressions" despite being a small edition. In the late 19th century, Earhart was considered one of the earliest practitioners and developers of "Artistic Printing", a movement which relied heavily on decoration, novelty and the use of highly ornamental typestyles. This was an era rich in decorative design and ornamentation and the printing arts began to flourish as merchants began to recognize the many advertising opportunities to be made. This was also a fascinating time in the arc of design history, and as job printers competed with skilled lithographers drawing on litho stones and engravers who could print with stunning detail, their work continued to thrive. Earhart's book surely was a cornerpiece in the development of Artistic Printing and is still considered to be one of the great books for letterpress printers. I had the good fortune to thumb through a good copy of this book at the Seattle Antiquarian Book fair last month and was overjoyed to find it there. I was nearly as excited to learn that I could also find the book in it's entirety here.  

     

             

Twinkieless in Gotham

It's a sad day in Gotham today for fans of the Hostess Twinkie. A look back at the baked goodness in the funny pages of Marvel and DC comic book advertisements. See 229 more Hostess ads archived over at Tomorrow's Heroes. A delight in every byte.
::Cross-posted over at Book Patrol today.

What About the Twinkie?

First Kodak and now Hostess Twinkies. Another great American icon sadly goes down. Stock up now...they'll last forever.

Lester's Lettering

A short film of Seb Lester featuring his skilled and steady handlettering work. He just released two new limited-edition prints based on the poetry of Dylan Thomas and a quote from William Shakespeare.

New prints of Lester's stunning lettering work. More images can be seen here. Both prints are for sale, but in limited runs. Below are some found shopping lists with Lester's lettering which make me hungry for more. 

Me too!
HT to Colourworks!

Hispano Olivetti

To accomodate international growth in 1929, Olivetti opened its first manufacturing plant outside Italy where they produced typewriters and other office machines. What followed were some of the most celebrated promotional posters in the 20th century from many of Europe's most accomplished designers. 

1959 Pintori Giovanni poster for the Olivetti 82 Diaspron. From Un Deux Trois.

Pintori Giovanni's 1950 for the Lexicon 80 from Un Deux Trois. 

Another Pintori Giovanni from 1960. From Un Deux Trois.

A 1940 poster by A.Gil from Designpedia.

Faster than a speeding typewriter; an 1923 art deco version of the sleek black Olivetti typewriter of the day, by A.Bresciani.  

Spanish version of the famous Olivetti typewriter poster by Raymond Savignac, 1954. From Un Deux Trois.

A 1930 poster by E.Kiss. From Biblioteca Digital Hispanica via Flickr.

A 1950 poster for the Divisuma Adding machine from some unsung design hero. From Un Deux Trois. 

Nizzoli Marcello poster for Olivetti, 1950, from Un Deux Trois.