{design} – Page 235 – { feuilleton }

Into the Media Web by Michael Moorcock

Here at last is the book I spent a good part of last year designing. Into the Media Web is a huge volume as befits a huge talent, 720 pages of Michael Moorcock’s non-fiction spanning fifty years of his career from his days writing for sf and fantasy fanzines, through to journalism, reviews and articles for major newspapers and magazines. Moorcock expert John Davey did an amazingly thorough job of compiling, editing and annotating it all, and it’s been a considerable pleasure to design such an important collection. Alan Moore provided the substantial introduction. Savoy Books haven’t announced a price yet but it’s going to be about £45 since it’s another limited edition and weighs a ton. Into the Media Web makes a fine companion to last year’s The Best of Michael Moorcock from Tachyon, also edited by John Davey (with Ann & Jeff VanderMeer) and whose interior I also designed. Details about Into the Media Web‘s design follow below.

The dust jacket is matt white with a spot UV layer which picks out the titles and lines in gloss.

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Jugend, 1900

Continuing the rake through back issues of Jugend magazine, the German fin de siècle periodical of “art and life”, this post covers the year 1900 and will be the final Jugend image trawl. I mentioned in the post for 1899 that the magazine loses its Art Nouveau dynamism as the years pass. 1900 represents the point where all the graphics which make Jugend valued today—and which gave the name to the German manifestation of Art Nouveau: Jugendstil—are being pushed aside by the burgeoning nationalist and militarist fervour which led eventually to the First World War. At this point a couple of the notable Art Nouveau stylists such as Otto Eckman and Julius Diez are still present, and the work of Hugo Höppener, aka “Fidus” is increasingly prominent. In subsequent years the eccentric Fidus is mostly on his own, pursuing his obsession with naked figures, and his work seems even more curious in such staid surrounds. As before, anyone wanting to see more of these graphics is advised to explore the bound volumes at the Heidelberg University archive. The two books for 1900 can be found here and here.

A picture by the Symbolist and Secession artist, Max Klinger.

Nymphs and satyrs by English artist and illustrator Robert Anning Bell.

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Weekend links 13

• Watch the trailer for the newly-restored version of Fritz Lang’s masterwork, Metropolis.

• My cover design for Jeff VanderMeer’s Finch was voted best cover in the 2010 Spinetingler Awards.

• Figment announces the 2nd Annual Figment Album Cover Design Contest. The judge this time round is William Schaff.

• Two interviews at The Quietus: Jon Brooks of The Advisory Circle and Richard H Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire.

• “Merely a Man of Letters.” Jorge Luis Borges interviewed in 1977.

• Another Engelbrecht: The Miniature Theatres of Martin Engelbrecht.

• The Unearthing Box Set by Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins.

• The gays: RIP Felix Lance Falkon, author of the landmark study, A Historic Collection of Gay Art (1972). The Independent is the latest newspaper to look at sexuality in the animal kingdom.

• Publisher to Release Philip K Dick’s Insights Into Secrets of the Universe.

• Roger Ebert shows the world a draft of his unfilmed Sex Pistols screenplay, Who Killed Bambi? Jon Savage comments.

• Further Flickr sets: History of the Book/Typography and Dutch Graphic Design. Related: more Dutch graphic design at the NAGO.

• Far Red: Video by u-matic & telematique, music by Monolake.

• Has steampunk jumped Captain Nemo’s clockwork shark yet?

• An edge over which it is impossible to look.

• Surrender. It’s Brian Eno.

• Ecstatic Peace Library.

• Songs of the week: See Emily Play by Pink Floyd and Metropolis by Kraftwerk.

Louis Rhead bookplates

Yet another Internet Archive discovery, examples from a small book collection from 1907 of ex libris plates by Art Nouveau illustrator Louis Rhead (1857–1926). Rhead’s brightly-coloured poster art is often represented in Art Nouveau design books, less visible is his black-and-white work, some of which, like the example below, owes a clear debt to Aubrey Beardsley.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The illustrators archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Pratt Libraries Ex Libris Collection
• The Evil Orchid Bookplate Contest
• David Becket’s bookplates
• Louis Rhead’s peacocks
• More Arabian Nights
• Buccaneers #1

Weekend links 12

Simulation No. 136 (1973); From the Archigram Revival Project.

• Scientific American looks at DMT: “the only psychedelic known to occur naturally in the human body”. Related: Hofmann’s Elixir: LSD and the New Eleusis, a book from the Beckley Foundation Press.

• “People weren’t quite sure what this guy was doing.” Colin Marshall talks to Eno biographer David Sheppard.

• LA FAN presents its debut group show, Eve in the Garden of Lost Angels, curated by Milla Zeltzer, at Optical Allusion Gallery, downtown Los Angeles, from May 15 to June 12, 2010.

• Masturbation: literature’s last taboo. The words “last” and “taboo” should never be used together; taboos don’t vanish, they migrate.

• Announcing the Text: Development of the Title Page, 1470–1900.

• The Anachronism is an award-wining Steampunk short about two children who discover the wreck of a giant squid submarine on a beach near their home.

• Out There is a brand new, bi-annual, international magazine for gay men and their friends.

• The Big Picture looks at the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull.

• Expo 2010 opens in Shanghai on May 1st.

• (Walter) Benjamin in Extremis.

• Nathalie returns to Bomarzo.

• Acronymic songs of the week: Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds (1967) by The Beatles; The Stars That Play With Laughing Sam’s Dice (1967) by The Jimi Hendrix Experience; London Social Degree (1968) by Billy Nicholls; Love’s Secret Domain (1991) by Coil.