Category: art and illustrationPage 8 of 11

Vector Magic

VectorMagic is an “online tool for precision vectorization.” In other words, it is an autotracer that converts pixel-based images (photos, screen captures, etc.) to vectors, which can then…

Best book covers

Since I posted about the best magazine covers of the year, why not have a look at book covers too? When I first saw this selection of “the…

X-Rite and Pantone

X-Rite acquired Pantone several days ago for $180 million. Panton has been the leader for print color matching for decades. X-Rite produces a variety of color calibration software…

Book Design: Persian Ceramics

I’m in the beginning stages of designing a new book about Persian ceramics. It will be a small book (for an art book), at 9.5 x 10 inches…

Leila and Massimo Vignelli on living by design

Massimo Vignelli has been an influential promoter on Swiss industrial graphic design — design that tends to expose an underlying grid and often uses only Helvetica for type….

Typographic illusions

Which eight from this group looks the most balanced? Most people whose eyes have been trained by long exposure to the conventions of the Western alphabet would probably…

How to design a book without special skills or software

It is now possible for anyone to print a book fairly inexpensively, using services such as Lulu or Blurb. Of course, printing should be distinguished from publishing, which…

More fall color

This photo was taken on the walk to Taughannock Falls near Ulysses, New York, in the Finger Lakes region. For more fall color, see the clickable thumbnails below….

Cornell color

I’ve been on the road in PA and NY. Will return tomorrow. We’ll file this post under “photography.” It’s an image of a lake on the Cornell campus…

Thinking with Type

Continuing our week of laziness link love while I’m on the road, I Love Typography has a review of Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton. I think you…

Text decoration

Since posting is light while I’m traveling, I think it’s time to devote another link to Bibliodyssey, that great ongoing compendium of book arts through the ages. This…

Portuguese libraries, photographed by Candida Höfer

Candida Höfer‘s photographs of Portuguese libraries, now on display at the Sonnabend Gallery, 536 West 22nd Street in NYC, presents libraries as places of opulence. In these settings…

Color names

Chirag Mehta has made a little application that will return a color name if you enter a hex code. Take the html web palette for this site, for…

The end

A Flickr set. via Swiss Miss

Eugene de Salignac, photographer of NYC

David Pescovitz of Boing Boing calls our attention to an exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York. The exhibit consists of early twentieth century photos…

What is this?

It’s not a pipe, we know that. It’s the first page of google image results for a search Joe was doing. The most striking thing about it is…

Language is a virus

From a series by Tom Tomorrow. via language log

Using Ampersands

Below are a batch of ampersands, arranged more or less chronologically, according to when the original model was created. (Can you identify the faces? They’re all ordinary faces…

Do computers make students sloppy?

That’s what David Dabner of the London College of Printing says.

Kontrapunkt typeface

Most free typefaces are worth about what you pay for them. But the Danish design firm Kontrapunkt (I think the word means “counterpoint”) has released its fine corporate…

Little Planets

Quoting from the site: A peculiar sort of remapping for spherical panoramas that makes everything look like an illustration out of The Little Prince. Basically, to make these,…

On the Road

Click the image above for an extensive collection of covers of Kerouac’s On the Road. How interesting to see all the different takes on the book! The Italians…

Morphing symmetry

Reader Raymond Brown has written in with another approach to looking at facial asymmetry. (This follows up on my left face/right face experiments.) He explains his technique this…

Ghost signs

I love ghost signs. I’ve been meaning to take some pictures in SF. Now I find (via Book of Joe) that Sam Roberts has an entire blog devoted…