An amazing series of sculptures made out of carved books by Montreal-based artist Guy Laramee . These landscapes symbolize the erosion of knowledge, just like mountains which flatten over time to become fields, that erases everything we know and everything we are. A minutious and painstaking work that almost seems unreal and is the witness of 25 years of artistic practice.
‘SECRET BOOK’ BY ALEXSANDRO PALOMBO
Description tokyodandy
Humor Chic illustrator Alexandro Palombo will soon be releasing limited copies of his new tome, ‘The Secret Book’. It follows on from Humor Chic’s first book, ‘Karl Lagerfeld – Vision of a Funeral’ that has long since sold out but we can bring you images from below. ‘The Secret Book’ is available from the Humor Chic Website.
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“Pharrell: Places and Spaces I’ve Been” Book by Rizzoli Preview
Description hypebeast
Grammy award winning Hip hop producer Pharrell Williams or Skateboard P prepares to conquer the publication world with his upcoming print debut “Pharrell: Places and Spaces I’ve Been”. The book that largely documents Pharrell’s worldwide travels also features contributions by Jay-Z, Ambra Medda, Nigo and Takashi Murakami. In a conversation with GQ previously, Pharrell said of his book: “It’s just things and people that have moved me and inspired me around the world and that I am also honored to know.” Slated for release October 16, the travel book can now be pre-ordered at Rizzoli.
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Notable Fiction
Description coolhunting
Award winners and near-winners to read this Spring
While the Huffington Post blazed the way for new media winning a Pulitzer Prize on Monday, the literary world was stunned by the board’s refusal to name a Fiction winner for the first time since 1977. They did, however, reveal the three finalists—a posthumously completed novel by David Foster Wallace, 29-year-old Karen Russell’s debut novel and a hardcover re-release of Denis Johnson’s 2002 novella. In the spirit of fostering a rich community of conflicting ideas, we’re taking advantage of their indecision to stockpile our spring reads. Here, Pulitzer’s uncrowned picks along with three titles that did snag some prestigious awards in 2011 to get you through the season.
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
The Fiction Pulitzer is designated “for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life”, and the committee notes Foster Wallace’s last work as a story “animated by grand ambition, that explores boredom and bureaucracy in the American workplace.” Published more than two years after the author’s suicide in 2008, “The Pale King“—which is actually a compilation of unfinished pages and notes pulled together by his editor Michael Pietsch—tells a deeply sad story of stagnant mundanity in a Midwest I.R.S. office, jumping to the other end of the spectrum from the pleasure bender of “Infinite Jest”. Those un-annointed in Foster Wallace’s singular prose will benefit from diving into his repertoire from here.
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
Unfolding the wild Florida Everglades world behind the short story Zoetrope published in 2006, “Ava Wrestles the Alligator”, “Swamplandia!” marks Russell’s enchanting first go at a full-fledged novel. Between her masterful grip on protagonist Ava’s teenage narration of her life on her family’s swamp-set theme park and a commanding knack for presenting environmental, economic and societal issues against a lovably dysfunctional family dynamic, Russell is off to a resoundingly strong start.
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
In just 116 pages—the expanse of one quiet afternoon, perhaps—Johnson shares the life of Robert Grainier, whom the Pulitzer committee describes as “a day laborer in the old American West, bearing witness to terrors and glories with compassionate, heartbreaking calm.” As we chart today’s uncertain path of everyday life on the brink of another kind of new frontier, it’s comforting to follow Grainier through “Train Dreams” as he faces Johnson’s beautifully drawn world with courage and vulnerability.
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
With the 2011 National Book Award emblazoned on its cover, Ward’s second novel represents literature’s most respected contribution for the year. The story, chosen from 315 nominees and five finalists, spans the 12 days leading up to Hurricane Katrina as seen by a pregnant 14-year-old girl, Esch Batiste. Zeroing in on the tiny moments threading through mostly tragic lives, Ward has established the lyrical, powerful voice of a master storyteller in “Salvage the Bones”.
The Tiger’s Wife by Téa Obreht
Beyond the popular buzz it garnered, “The Tiger’s Wife” established credibility with Obreht’s selection as one of the National Book Awards’ 5 Under 35 in 2010 and NBA Finalist in 2011—the first author to earn such a distinction. Written primarily during her college years, the book follows a Balkan family (their exact country is never specified) through the region’s conflicts from the present day and stretching back to WWII. Conveying wisdom in her rich narrative, Obreht’s first novel promises a bright future from the prodigal writer.
Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman
The well-established author of various story collections drove her point home with the success of her latest collection, which continues with her expert ability to weave significant feeling and cultural statements into a series of beautifully captured narratives about being Jewish after WWII. Score one for independent publishers, too—”Binocular Vision” was the first volume published by Lookout Books, christening the house by going on to earn NBA Finalist status and then winning the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Contributions by Ami Kealoha and Kelly O’Reilly
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Birth of a Book
Description originale
A short vignette of a book being created using traditional printing methods.
For the Daily Telegraph. Shot at Smith-Settle Printers, Leeds, England. The book being printed is Suzanne St Albans’ ‘Mango and Mimosa’ published as part of the Slightly Foxed series.
Shot, Directed & Edited by Glen Milner
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Type Matters!
Description coolhunting
Simple tips for enhancing everyday typography
The art of typography has historically been a form led by specially trained professionals, well-versed in the workings of setting and design. With the technological revolution the population at large holds the reins to the world of type, often muddling the more specific aspects of design. For the less informed, Jim Williams provides Type Matters!, an introduction to the finer points of type. Designed to offer basic instructions to amateurs, the book succeeds in conveying esoteric typesetting knowledge by way of example.
While the details of letter placement and typeface design are typically left to professionals, nearly everyone is affected by type’s subtle messaging, consciously or not. “Typefaces are like clothes for language: they come in thousands of different styles, and all say something different about the wearer,” writes Williams. “It is therefore important to select the most appropriate typeface for the message.”
The book’s soft leather cover opens to a series of well-designed pages, the knowledge of type embedded in lines of examples. Introductory concepts like weight and letter spacing are paired with lesser-known bits to demonstrate what ultimately constitutes an elegantly executed page, as well as what gets in the way. The world of type also offers a delightfully strange lexicon, so you’ll be armed with intimate knowledge of jittles, picas, nuts, ligatures, ink traps, muttons and kerning.
The beginner’s reference ultimately aims to improve the appearance of the documents that represent us. Whether it be a carefully executed resume or a quickly jotted email, the appearance of words on a page is a subliminal indicator of the person who wrote them.
“Type Matters!” ships 10 April 2012, and is available for pre-order from Merrell and on Amazon.
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How 30 Great Ads Were Made
Description creativereview
Published today by Laurence King Publishers is How 30 Great Ads Were Made: From Idea To Campaign, a new book by CR’s Eliza Williams. The book takes readers behind the scenes of 30 of the last decade’s most successful ad campaigns…
Featuring interviews with the key creatives, directors and clients for each campaign, the book offers an insight into how great ad campaigns get made, along with some surprising facts about some of the most popular ads of recent times: for example, did you know that the children’s brows in the Cadbury’s Eyebrows spot were manipulated by puppeteers rather than CGI? See the pic above for the proof.
Each campaign featured is illustrated with imagery showing the stages it went through in development – including sketches and early ideas that may have been abandoned, storyboards, animatics and photos from shoots, and shots of the final ads.
More info on the book is available on the LKP website, here.
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Shigeru Miwa: Only One Me
Description emptykingdom
Shigeru Miwa’s ‘Only One Me’ is a children’s book that’s illustrated beautifully and minimally with the poems of Shuntaro Tanikawa. Portraying melancholic duo-tones, the story revolves around a little boy’s observation on Alzheimer’s disease. Not much is known about the illustrator but Shuntaro is one of Japan’s most well-known poets that wrote the original lyrics to ‘Astro Boy’.
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Small Demons
DEscription coolhunting
Discover the “Storyverse” of real world places, music and movies from your favorite book
Taking an ambitious approach to filtering information online, Small Demons is a new site dedicated to opening up the worlds inside of books. Not just another search engine for what’s inside your favorite novel, Small Demons collects and catalogs the millions of references to real-world and fictional music, movies, people, and objects that are found in literature. Your new favorite restaurant could be on the next page of the book you’re reading, and Small Demons hopes to provide a place where you can draw meaningful connections between stories and everyday life.
The site uses both algorithms and human touch to make these links and open up what Small Demons calls a “Storyverse,” or the expanse of details that support a good story. “A computer can tell us how many times a song appears in a book. But it can’t tell us that it is the song that the couple dances to at the wedding reception or the song the jilted lover plays after being dumped. It can’t tell you the emotional resonance of it. So we are going to be relying on librarians and authors and gifted amateurs to come in and help us fix and add and weight and evaluate all the data we are generating,” says Richard Nash, the start-up’s VP of Community and Content.
Founded by former Yahoo Product VPs Valla Vakili and Tony Amidei, the original idea for Small Demons came to Vakili while on a trip to Madrid and Paris. He also happened to be reading Jean-Claude Izzo’s celebrated Mediterranean noir novel Total Chaos, the first book in the French author’s well-known Marseilles Trilogy. Vakili changed the Paris leg of his trip and headed to Marseilles, finding himself enchanted by the fact that he was enjoying the same scotch and walking down the same streets as the protagonist in Izzo’s book. The story in Total Chaos had a life beyond the page, and Vakili realized that many more books had the same experiences to offer.
Small Demons is currently in beta, and you can apply for an invite here.
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Bookguns by Robert The
Description zillamag
An original project by New York-based artist Robert The who carves guns out of of books. Cool you might say (or not if you really hate guns), but the concept goes much deeper: “Obsession with the semiotic erosion of meaning and reality led me to create objects that evangelize their own relevance by a direct fusion of word and form. Books (many culled from dumpsters and thrift store bins) are lovingly vandalized back to life so they can assert themselves against the culture which turned them into debris”. If you take the time to read the book titles, it will make much more sense.
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DIY Furniture: A Step-by-Step Guide
Description originale
Featuring 30 designs by leading designer-makers from around the world DIY Furniture shows you how to use simple techniques to make stunning designer furniture from scratch.
Along with designs for seating and storage, the book also features projects for making your own bed, wardrobe, lighting and garden furniture. Each project features hand-drawn diagrams with short, easy-to-follow instructions on how to build the piece.
All the projects can be easily assembled using common materials to be found at the local hardware store, allowing the reader to create unique designer pieces at a fraction of the normal cost. Brief biographies of all the featured designers are included at the end of the book.
Christopher Stuart is an industrial designer and artist based in Indianapolis. He runs Luur Design (www.luurdesign.com). He was formerly Senior Industrial Designer at Thomson Consumer Electronics and has been a consultant for brands such as Panasonic, Cisco, Philips, and Heinz.
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Jason Dill ‘Dream Easy’ Book
Professional skater and Fucking Awesome brand founder Jason Dill has long lived an interesting and eclectic lifestyle. Never one to shy away from controversy, the skater releases an upcoming photobook titled Dream Easy that features a series of photographs. The book will be available starting August 27 through various retailers in Japan including TOWER BOOKS, BEAMS and Supreme.
Source: SLAMXHYPE
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Stephen Shames ‘Bronx Boys’
Description smileinyourface
A selection of photos that American photographer Stephen Shames made of a group of boys growing up in the Bronx, New York, is now published as a book titled ‘Bronx Boys’. Stephen followed the boys for a period of 23 years (1977 till 2000) capturing their lives on the streets and at home, the happy times, the love and tenderness, but also the troubles, the fights, the shootings and the drug deals leading to several deaths and visits to jail.
You can download the book for $20 via FotoEvidence.
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The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad App Trailer
Description adverblog
Many remember the Alice in Wonderland and Touching Stories apps as benchmarks for interactive storytelling on the iPad. The iPad2 brings a natural progression with The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, by the film makers at Moonbot Studios.
The story is effortlessly floating, and its playful interactivity makes the most of the iPad features. I recommend you install both eBooks, compare the two and you’ll find the game has changed very quickly. Similar to cinematographer Roger Deakins crossing over and bringing his camera skills to animation films such as Wall-E and Rango, this Morris Lessmore eBook is driven by an experienced Pixar creative, William Joyce of Robots fame.
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Famous graphic designer - Iram Boom
Graphic designer Irma Boom has made over 250 books, 50 of which are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Her ‘Think book’ for a giant coal company has become an international icon of Dutch design. She sees her books as objects, that communicate ideas and stories, and speak to all human senses.
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絵に描いたようなオアシス、ゴビ砂漠
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New work from Olly Moss.
