{ feuilleton }

I wrote about Peter Shaffer’s fascinating play, Equus, in September last year, and in passing touched on the horse and Mari Lwyd-inspired paintings of Clive Hicks-Jenkins which seemed to complement the play’s themes of sexuality and passionate obsession. Callum James had been having similar thoughts about Clive’s art and urged his friends at The Old [...]

Back in February I posted some pictures from a 1971 collection of Art Nouveau illustration and design, some of which were competition entries from The Studio magazine. The Studio, which later became the long-running Studio International, can be seen from issue 11 onwards at Archive.org now that they’ve started uploading Google’s book scans. I’ve only [...]

Enthusiasts of Charles Ricketts’ illustrations can find book collections of his drawings and paintings but the artist (with partner Charles Shannon) was also a printer, typographer and book designer who would no doubt have preferred his illustrations to be seen in their intended setting. Archive.org has a few choices examples of Rickett’s books, of which [...]

My third CD design for the Tectonic label is another piece of relative minimalism which once again features photos by Liz Eve. All the backgrounds on this occasion are microscope close-ups of vinyl records, very fitting for a double-CD collection of recent 12″ releases.
The Tectonic logo (which predates my involvement with the label) is based [...]

The first of the books I’ve been designing for Tachyon Publications appears this month. Two more are due to follow and I’m working on another at the moment; more about those titles later.
The Best of Michael Moorcock was a pleasure to be involved with not only because I’ve been reading Moorcock’s fiction for a very [...]

Or Gramato-graphices. In quo varia scripturae emblemata, belgicis, germanicis, italicis, hispanicis, gallicis characteribus exaata… scripta, aeri incisa, et impressa per Cornelium Boissenium Enchusanum to give the full title. A treatise on penmanship and calligraphy from 1605 by Cornelis Dirckszoon Boissens. Also another free PDF at Archive.org. Searching for better reproductions turned up this stunning engraving [...]

Continuing an occasional series.
The poster at the top left is the unused Ministry of Information design created to maintain Britain’s resolve after war had been declared in September 1939. This simple slogan struck a chord recently among Britons sick of the climate of fear, security theatre and authoritarian coercion which, deliberately or not, appears to [...]

A post for Ada Lovelace Day, “an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.”
Susan Kare was, and still is, a graphic designer specialising in user interface graphics. Facebook users may recognise her gift icons but her earlier work is even more familiar to Macintosh users since it was her job [...]

“Lenin is dead but the Russian Communist Party lives on” (no date).
More typography and yet more Soviet poster art which seems perennially popular with graphic designers. Bold Constructivist designs like this example are part of the reason why: over 80 years old yet still striking. Type foundry P22 have a set of Constructivist fonts similar [...]

Marvellous. Typefaces sorted by popularity according to surveys. Interesting for this Bodoni fan finding Bodoni as the first serif at no. 3. Some surprises too—is Univers really that popular?
Created by Squidspot. See the whole thing here. Via Metafilter.

Autobahn by Kraftwerk; Vertigo #6360 620.
Colin Buttimer was in touch last week to let me know he’d copied my Barney Bubbles post (with my permission) to his excellent new site, Hard Format, which is devoted to the art of music design. In the intro to that piece he repeats something he’d mentioned to me earlier, [...]

Or Fables and other short poems : collected from the most celebrated English authors : the whole curiously engrav’d for the practice & amusement of young gentlemen & ladies in the art of writing to give its full title, a children’s primer from 1731 and another free title available at Archive.org. John Bickham was one [...]

I created a cover design recently for Jeff VanderMeer’s new novel, Finch, and shortly after completing that Jeff asked if I could put together some cover ideas for his forthcoming writer’s guide, Booklife, which Tachyon will be publishing later this year. Jeff is known as a fantasy writer but this book was intended to have [...]

Nothing doing here for the past twenty-four hours due to things collapsing at the webhost end. Everything seems stable now (fingers crossed). In future when this happens check my Twitter feed for reports.

So then… The above is the better of my two entries for a Valentine’s day competition on the Extensis blog which required you [...]

Given this week’s conjunction of a Poe anniversary and the Presidential Inauguration, creating this was irresistible. Obamicon.me allows you to turn any photo into something resembling Shepard Fairey’s ubiquitous Obama poster. The only drawbacks are the way the processing stretches the type and the use of Arial for the title, a font which few self-respecting [...]

top left: Leo & Diane Dillon (1969); top right: Tom Huffman (1968).
bottom left: Gray Morrow & Henry Berkowitz (1967); bottom right: no credit.
Great examples of typically florid Sixties’ cover design at Font of all Wisdom – Unique lettering in design, a Flickr pool. The masterful Leo & Diane Dillon illustrated many of Harlan Ellison’s [...]

Pages from Letters and Lettering (1902), “A Treatise with 200 Examples” by Frank Chouteau Brown. A free PDF book at Archive.org.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Studies in Pen Art

The beautifully elegant Gotham typeface by Hoefler & Frere-Jones was already becoming pretty ubiquitous even before the Obama brand designers chose it for all their campaign graphics. I’ve used it myself a couple of times recently, notably on the jacket for Keith Seward’s Horror Panegyric. Some typefaces have a flush of popularity then fade as [...]

Two of many stunning calligraphy samples from Studies in Pen Art (1914) by William E Dennis, a free PDF at Luc Devroye’s extensive font site.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Flourishes

The Tugra, or imperial monogram, of Suleiman the Magnificent, c. 1550–65. From the calligraphy section of the Islamic art collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Ottoman calligraphy and Arabic typography
• Flourishes
• Ghubar
• Calligraphy by Mouneer Al-Shaárani
• The Journal of Ottoman Calligraphy
• Word into Art: Artists of the Modern [...]