Giles Hoover – Page 3

November 30, 2023March 30, 2024

Beautifully Briefed 23.11: Considerations

A selection of diverse items for this entry in the series: a new publication from The Guardian, open source fonts for your 2023 goodness (along with more for ’24), and the Natural Landscape Photography Award winners. Also: DAK. Let’s get into it.

The Long Read

Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of The Guardian, including its unusual-for-journalism payment model (that, frankly, some outlets in the US would be wise to copy). Now, they’re on newsstands with a “bookazine” called The Long Read.

The back cover. (See the front cover at the left in the header image.)

“We know that for many people, myself included, when it comes to long, immersive pieces, reading in print […] is still the most satisfying reading experience, and one that should be cherished in a climate so saturated by disturbance,” quotes It’s Nice That. With most of these more evergreen stories taking months or even years to build, hardy print felt the best way for them to live. [A] ‘bookazine’, it balances all the things we love about magazines (“the drama, the pace, the energy”) with the considered typesetting of a book. A lot of attention was given to packaging its large volume of text – clocking in at 55,000 words – to make the reading experience as relaxing as possible, from body type size to column widths.
Liz Gorny, It’s Nice That

An article title page — indeed, the best of a newspaper magazine in book form.

Read more at It’s Nice That, and give The Long Read a look at The Guardian bookstore or a newsstand near you.

Three Open Source Fonts for 2023, and 50 for ’24

As a self-confessed font junkie, I’m always interested when a new one comes across the bow — but there are so many these days, they’ve unfortunately become almost commodities. (That’s a huge shame, but also a discussion for another time.) So it’s interesting when I see ones that are not only good but also available for everyone, free and open source.

Monaspace is the first of three I want to highlight, “a monospaced type superfamily with some modern tricks up its sleeve.” Designed for code — hence the monospace — it’s a successful answer to the question, “Letters on a grid is how we see our code. Why not make those letters better?”

Get the full story or download from GitHub.

B612 is designed for — get this — the screens on Airbus commercial planes. “[T]he challenge was to improve the display of information on the cockpit screens, in particular in terms of legibility and comfort of reading, and to optimize the overall homogeneity of the cockpit.” Read the back story here.

B612 is available from Google or GitHub.

Inter is described as, “The 21st century standard,” “a workhorse of a typeface carefully crafted & designed for a wide range of applications, from detailed user interfaces to marketing & signage.” One of the world’s most-used font families, it’s perfect when readability is at the fore.

Inter is detailed and downloadable here.

But there’s more!

Brinca by In-House International. (Image via *CreativeBoom*.)

CreativeBoom has their annual compilation of 50 new fonts for the coming year up, “a comprehensive list of the best fonts that demand your attention in 2024. We’ve compiled this comprehensive list by asking the creative industry for their favourites, analysing work from the last 12 months, and taking on board the design trends emerging right now.”

National Museum in Gdańsk by Tofu Studio. Featuring Migra by Pangram Pangram. (Image via *CreativeBoom*.)

Great stuff. Creative. Boom!

Special Bonus: Simon Garfield publishes biographies on Albertus, Baskerville and Comic Sans. Seriously:

The Natural Landscape Photography Awards

For once: a contest that demands more — like the original RAW files. (Literally the raw image from the camera, before processing, for those who don’t know — think film negatives, rather than the resulting prints.) Okay, sure, it’s not perfect; there are entry fees and it doesn’t have a long track record, but the rules are solid with respect to image integrity.

Of course, the quality of the subject chosen to photograph is, if you’ll pardon the expression, subjective. The overriding theme here seems to be the perfection of dramatic subtlety — not an easy thing to get right.

The two photographs above are both by Adam Gibbs and reflect the judges’ desire to reward photographers who display a diverse portfolio of subjects.

A winner from the “abstracts and details” category for the first and a great title for the second image that does indeed tell so many stories. Rounding it out, another beautiful black-and-white:

See the contest website for the complete selection of 2023 winners. (Via PetaPixel.)

Remember the DAK catalogs?

If you’re a certain age — that is, were around in the ’80s — the DAK catalog was a regular. (Give me one, together with a JC Whitney catalog, and a weekend was gone.) A recent post by Cabel Sasser brought it all back:

Oh, the products. The explanations. The fun.

I’m not going to spoil the effort put into the story of Drew Alan Kaplan, a.k.a. DAK, Joseph Sugarman, Products That Think, or any of it: go enjoy for yourself.

October 30, 2023March 30, 2024

Beautifully Briefed 23.10: Shifting, Branding, and Creating

A variety of interests addressed this time: a bit on Shift Happens, a great question on branding, and Leica’s new M camera — and its content credentials. (Plus, bonuses.) Happy October!

Booking a Keyboard

We talked about this title back in January, but it’s worth the reminder:

Marcin Wichary has long been interested in keyboards. In his words,

Keyboards fascinated me for years. But it occurred to me that a good, comprehensive, and human story of keyboards — starting with typewriters and ending with modern computers and phones — has never been written. How did we get from then to now? What were the steps along the way? And how on earth does QWERTY still look the same now as it did 150 years ago? I wanted a book like this for years. So I wrote it.
—Marcin Wichary, Shift Happens

This title fascinates me, partially because it’s an interesting subject — one we’ve all interacted with, often without thinking about — and partially because it’s a great, well-covered exercise in book design.

A very cool photograph of an IBM Electric. Photo by Marcin Wichary.

Further, Marcin has done a fantastic job in getting the word out. He’s designed a killer web site, written some great updates, and gotten some good press — including a recent interview with Ars Technica, in which he says:

I am a web guy, and I used to think that the web (just like typewriters, once) took away a lot of hard-won typesetting nuance and tradition. But it turns out that the web also makes it much easier to do certain things. To have a word be surrounded by a rounded rectangle—a visual representation of a key—is a few lines of CSS or a few clicks in Figma. But for the book, I had to cut my own font and then write Python scripts to do typesetting inside the font-making software, which I’m pretty sure you are not supposed to do[.]
—Marcin Wichary, Shift Happens

Really looking forward this title. Copies are, as of this writing, still available.

Let’s Talk Branding.

It’s Nice That asks a great question: “Are rebrands starting to look the same? The challenges facing commercial design,” in which author Elizabeth Goodspeed discusses whether “shortened turnarounds and economic tensions” are taking a toll on originality.

Westinghouse branding guidelines from the ’60s.

The answer might seem to be, “Well, duh,” but it’s nonetheless a thoughtful and insightful article that asks the correct question: “how does one define originality in an age saturated with visual stimuli?”

[T]he digital applications more often associated with modern rebrands, while comparatively easy to update, may counter-intuitively promote less care and attention towards their making. [A]nother possible issue contributing to rebrand redundancy: lack of rollout support beyond rebrand launch. Even a unique identity may lose its spark when its primary consumer touchpoint is what a social media manager produces on Canva after skimming the brand guidelines once. Further still, many clients no longer approach design studios to harness their expertise but, instead, with preconceived notions of the result they expect; design studios may want to create original work, but sometimes clients are willing to pay more for a rebrand that mirrors their own preconceived ideas of what the work should look like.
— Elizabeth Goodspeed, It’s Nice That

The logo’s the same, but the applications vastly different.

The whole article is great (and richly illustrated) — give it a few minutes of your time.

Special Bonuses #1 & 2: Let’s look at a couple of places where branding has been in the news recently (pun intended). Also from It’s Nice That, an article on The Irish Independent rebrand. Here, as is often the case recently, it’s the custom illustrations that carry the day:

“Andy Goodman is the illustrator responsible for the lively work found throughout, which toe the line between measured and playful,” It’s Nice That writes. Agreed 100%.

Less successful is England’s The Guardian, whose ongoing campaign to raise money — they don’t have a paywall, relying instead on reader contributions — perhaps could have used more work:

These ads don’t really have me on the fence: *The Guardian* deserves better.

Meh. (And this from a huge fan of The Guardian.) Creative Boom is more positive.

Special Bonus #3: From the wildly successful, original branding department comes, of course, the brilliantly-named Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. They’ve been covered here twice before, but are back in the news with a new branding Manual. See why that’s capitalized at Dezeen.

The Eames Institute branding oozes positivity, class, and — you guessed it — infinite curiosity. Nice.

Leica, Adobe, and Content Authenticity

One would assume that Leica users are the epitome of content authenticity — there’s nothing like the world’s best lenses (IMHO), attached to some incredible cameras, to provide photographers with all that’s needed to make the best possible images.

Leica’s new M11-P, however, packs a world first: hardware encryption that supports a system called the “Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI).” In CAI corporate-speak, it’s “the future of photojournalism […] usher[ing] in a powerful new way for photojournalists and creatives to combat misinformation and bring authenticity to their work and consumers, while pioneering widespread adoption of Content Credentials.”

Leica’s new M11-P. A bargain at $9,195. (Lenses extra, of course.)

B&H puts it another way:

The Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) is a collaborative effort initiated by Adobe in partnership with various other organizations, including The New York Times and Leica, among others. Announced in late 2019, its primary goal is to develop a standard for digital content attribution. The rise in manipulated digital content, deep fakes, and misinformation has underlined the need for a more transparent system of content attribution, which the CAI seeks to address.

The interesting thing here is Adobe’s initiative. What’s their goal?

Adobe has been suffering a few hits recently. They’ve just raised prices — on the heels of record profits — and “monopoly” is not in any way a stretch. Photoshop? Entered the lexicon. InDesign? No credible alternatives. Illustrator? Professional standard across multiple industries. In other words, we’re stuck with ’em, and they know it.

This line of thinking is expanded at CreativeBoom: “Is Adobe Becoming the Frenemy of Creatives? But that’s not all.

Ignore’s Adobe’s unfailingly cute examples: AI + texture = exactly what some “creative director” needed. Seriously uncute.

They’re pushing hard into AI, too, and surprisingly up-front about it changing creative work in ways potentially less creative:

Firefly 2 was unveiled yesterday at the 2023 Adobe Max conference with the artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tool incorporated into Lightroom’s new lens blur feature that simulates depth of field along with a host of other tools. However, it was the new “Generative Match” tool that will allow users to upload a reference image to guide the AI image generator to a specific style that prompted Adobe to comment that the new tools could mean less work for photographers.

Adobe is appealing to companies who want a “consistent look across assets.” It is offering brands the chance to generate hundreds, if not thousands, of similar images for different uses such as websites, social media, and print advertisements.
— Matt Growcoot, PetaPixel

Or how about this example: An agency or freelancer working on a vector image in Illustrator, and need to add something that they either don’t have the time or talent to do myself. Previously, they could find either a stock item — made by a human (who is paid, by the way) — or hire it out (again, to a human, and again, one who is paid for their work). Now? Just tell the computer what you need.

All of which ties nicely back to the previous section on whether branding is beginning to homogenize. Is AI going to accelerate that process? You betcha.

Value human creativity, folks. Artists, teachers, writers, thinkers: all the people pushing at the edges of the envelope will now have to push even harder, in an era when envelope-pushing is increasingly demonized.

Special Bonus #4: Ars Technica argues that the U.S. Copyright Office’s blanket ban on the copyright-ability of AI-generated images isn’t going to age well, using photography as an argument.

Special Bonus #5 (Updated 31 Oct): Via Nick Heer’s excellent Pixel Envy, we have a great explainer from Tim Bray regarding The Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA), the actual implementation of CAI. Better than my brief description by a country mile.

Special Bonus #6: To round out this post, from the department of envelope-pushing: PRINT Magazine put together the book covers of the 11 most-banned books in America. Dangerous, indeed!

October 21, 2023October 21, 2023

Gallery Update: Helen, Georgia

This is my second try at a fall photostroll in Helen, a German-themed town in the Georgia mountains north of Athens, and I’ve got to tell you: Helen and I are not getting along.

Technically, it’s my fault. But I feel the relationship may have soured; I just might neglect to make a third attempt.

In late October, 2019, I was there with an unfamiliar lens and although I took a stack of photographs, the vast majority of them were junk. I got eight — eight! — worth putting up. Again, my fault. But not at all the results I’d wanted.

This week, I was back. I had two beautiful fall days to make up the deficit.

Day one saw 68 photographs taken with my favorite 35mm, but I could tell almost immediately that it wasn’t going the way I wanted. It was flooded with tourists — expected and okay, frankly, but not built for wider shots. “No problem,” I said to myself. I’ll enjoy some schnitzel, have a good night’s sleep, and clean up with the detail shots in the morning.

Alas, not only did I get out of the wrong side of the bed, my back somehow got out of the other side — I wasn’t walking anywhere. Crap.

Worse, upon examination back in front of the big computer, I wound up with less than superlative results: only 30 of those 68 got posted.

Have a look at the Helen gallery when you have a moment, with my wishes that your fall attempts at leafing don’t leave you behind.

September 28, 2023September 29, 2023

New Gallery Bonus: Deepstep, Georgia. (Also, a New Georgia Gallery Setup.)

A while back, on the road from Milledgeville to Sandersville, I spied a sign:

That little town — more a hamlet, really — is called Deepstep, and I’ve marked it for a stop since. On the way home from Augusta (part 1, part 2), I finally had the opportunity.

Alonzo G. Veal & Son (What We Don’t Have, We Can Get), 9665 Deepstep Rd.

Veal & Son Building Detail #1, 9665 Deepstep Rd.

What a great little spot.

The gallery’s only eighteen photographs, but absolutely a worthy addition to the newly revised Middle Georgia group. Those galleries cover everything from Pine Mountain in the west to Sandersville in the east, Madison in the north to Dublin in the south.

Indeed, I’ve rearranged pretty much all of the Georgia galleries:

The new Georgia gallery group: five items instead of three, all featuring rearranged contents.

Atlanta gets its own (to be expanded soon, I hope); the cities of Augusta, Columbus and Savannah another; Macon, my home base, a third; the aforementioned Middle Georgia, a fourth; and finally North and South Georgia (Helen, St. Simon’s, etc.).

As always, thanks for taking the time to stop by.

September 28, 2023September 28, 2023

New Gallery: Augusta, Georgia (Part Two)

As mentioned yesterday, I’ve been meaning to get to downtown Augusta with a camera for years. Actually, that not correct: I’ve been meaning to get to downtown Augusta . . . period. I’d never been there, despite living 130 miles away for almost two decades, despite having been nearby, despite — well, you get the idea.

Statue at James Brown Plaza, Broad St. and Augusta Common

So it was a pleasure to get to the home of Woodrow Wilson, James Brown, Jessye Norman, and countless others — and see a city a lot like so many others in the American South, a city that’s struggling with identity, history, vacancy, gentrification, and so many other issues prevalent in the 2020s.

The Confederates and the Albion, Broad St.

One of them is the continued presence of a huge Confederate memorial, a shame in a majority-Black city — and just in front of the Lamar Building, soon to be luxury apartments. What message are Augusta, and its new luxury residents, sending?

Nonetheless, the day’s efforts resulted in some satisfying images, from architecture to neat details:

Augusta Cotton Exchange Building #1, 32 8th St.

Miller Theater (Entry Detail), 708 Broad St.

Edgar’s Above Broad (Logo) Sign, 699 Broad St.

Augusta is a riverfront city I’m looking forward to returning to. In the meantime, please enjoy a total of 128 photographs in the newly-posted gallery.

Augusta Riverwalk Marina (with Freedom Bridge)

September 27, 2023September 28, 2023

New Gallery: Augusta, Georgia (Part One)

Together with Columbus and Macon, Augusta is one of Georgia’s “Fall Line” cities, and is home to more than 200,000 people. Located on the eastern edge of the state on the Savannah River, it was founded by James Oglethorpe in 1736 on the site of a Native American river crossing.

Augusta has long been on the to-photograph list, but it’s just far enough away from Macon to make a quick, unplanned trip difficult — so this past weekend, when another trip was cancelled, I took advantage of the available time and made it happen.

Blue Against Blue Against Blue, 943 Ellis St.

Of course, rather than a quiet Sunday downtown, I ran headlong — no pun intended — into the Augusta Ironman marathon. There were crowded street corners, intersections closed aplenty, and a combination of competitors and supporters everywhere.

Boll Weevil Cafe and Sweetery, 10 James Brown Blvd.

Nonetheless, it was a beautiful early-fall day in Georgia, and over the course of several hours, I really enjoyed photography in downtown Augusta — as usual, without people in the shots.

Excepting, of course, The Godfather of Soul:

Spirit of Funk Mural, 190 James Brown Blvd.

The photostroll also included the Riverwalk, a stretch both at water level and atop the levee — doing my best to stay out of the runners’ way, moving around to the chants of “water!” and “ice!”

Fountain at Riverwalk Enterance (#1), James Brown Blvd.

The first 64 photographs — part one of two — have been posted to the new Augusta gallery. Stay tuned for the second part, along with a bonus gallery and some housekeeping news, tomorrow.

September 18, 2023March 30, 2024

Beautifully Briefed 23.9: Falling into Brilliance

As summer turns to fall, let’s take a look at Type 1 fonts, a library index, revolutionary posters, posters for “get lectured,” and two different photography contests. Let’s get right into it.

Adobe discontinues a standard: The Type 1 font

Back in the early days of desktop publishing — up to about the turn of the century, give or take — everything typographic used PostScript, a programming language by Adobe. (Other stuff, too, like Adobe’s vector program, Illustrator.) PostScript fonts were the so-called “Type 1” variety, made up of a bitmapped “suitcase” that housed the standard display sizes and an outline file used by the output device to print clean, what-you-see-is-what-you-get beauty.

The Apple LaserWriter Plus and some vintage Macs: nostalgia! (Note the book — heh.) Image: YouTube.

Companies from Apple to Microsoft didn’t want Adobe to hold a monopoly on output tech, so later fonts evolved into TrueType and then OpenType, the latter of which is the standard today.

So much so that Adobe has now discontinued Type 1, and they, along with Microsoft, have stopped being supported. Which is understandable and yet a shame: some of us still have hundreds of them.

Ars Technica has the best roundup.

Meanwhile, I’m going to investigate a conversion utility. Will report back.

All the Libraries in London

It’s Nice That has a post that reminds us of a library’s central purpose: to leave knowing more than you did when you entered. “The library, in our shared public imagination, is a special place,” the author argues — reminding us of what libraries were established to do, often distinctly different from the modern reality (especially in the United States).

In the library you begin to be convinced that language matters, that words have the power to clarify, to rouse, to make us feel something, to help us understand the political and cultural features of historical and contemporary moments.
Lola Olufemi, It’s Nice That

All the Libraries in London. Cover design: unknown. Image via It’s Nice That.

All the Libraries in London does something artistic with a simple listing, elevating it, reminding us how compelling the ideal that libraries represent really is:

This is a political and artistic listing, one that invites the reader to rediscover their own memories of their local library as a site of discovery. The book’s authors invite us to reflect on our personal relationship to libraries as well as the necessity of collectively securing their future existence.
Lola Olufemi, It’s Nice That

Alan Kitching, Durning Library. Image via It’s Nice That.

We need more of this everywhere, but especially here in the States. Meanwhile, check out this great item at It’s Nice That.

Special Bonus #1: Another British treasure, via the very British Antiques Roadshow (a British original, natch): this incredible poster by Ralph Steadman.

Ralph Steadman’s Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) poster. Image via Wikipedia.

Special Bonus #2: British book designer Steve Leard has launched a new book design podcast, Cover Meeting, featuring interviews between Leard and fellow book designers on the work, the industry, and more. The Bookseller has more.

Cuban Movie Posters. No, Really.

While we’re on the subject of great posters — and It’s Nice That — let’s talk about how Cuba’s revolution-era political posters transformed their poster design for films. Appropriately enough, a new film, El Cartel Cubano, highlights these amazing (and, likely, never seen before) items.

Besos Robados, ICAIC, by Sotolongo & Carole Goodman. Image via It’s Nice That.

“How come our posters in the US aren’t this beautiful? What did this say about the priorities of the revolution? What did the medium or choices in the scarcity of materials used say about the economic situation in Cuba?” It’s these questions which form the bedrock of El Cartel Cubano, a fascinating and tender tribute to the artists on the island.
Adrienne Hall, co-director, El Cartel Cubano

Sur, by Michael Myiares Holland. Image via It’s Nice That.

I have to admit: this isn’t a subject I would have leapt at, but It’s Nice That sold it. Awesome.

Get Lectured (on Architecture)

Closing out our trifecta of great posters, Archinect‘s Get Lectured series brings us these fantastic items from their Fall 2023 series:

Woodbury University School of Architecture’s Fall 2023 lecture series.

The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture’s Fall 2023 lecture series

Some real gems: see more.

Finalists of the 2023 Urban Photography Awards

Going to soapbox a little here: pay-to-enter photo contests aren’t usually something I want to spread the word about. So ArchDaily‘s basically-a-press-release, “URBAN Photo Awards 2023 has announced its list of Finalist Photographers, marking the penultimate stage of the international contest,” was guaranteed a pass.

But there’s a problem: some of the photographs are really compelling.

This one’s my fave:

See the contest website, or ArchDaily‘s post.

Winners of the 2023 Black and White Photography Awards

Another contest, yes. They’re everywhere. But … wow.

Street Lights – Ottawa, by Gareth Jones, category winner, architecture

Another mushroom? By Hector Ballester Ballester. Silver mention, architecture.

Alamillo bridge, by Manuel Ponce Luque. Finalist.

The concert, by Helena García Huertas. Finalist.

Reflections on the stairwell, by Max Dobens. Finalist.

And that’s just the buildings/architecture — there are portraits, street photography, landscapes, and more. A reminder to aspire, every day, with every image.

The Black and White Photo Awards (2023). (Via PetaPixel.)

August 17, 2023March 30, 2024

Beautifully Briefed 23.8: Summer Stew

The August heat is met with some refreshingly cool items for you this time: beloved movies reimagined as vintage paperbacks, graphic design on the Internet Archive, and winners of the 2023 iPhone photography awards. Plus, a bit on social media that hopefully won’t leave an aftertaste. Let’s dig in.

“Good Movies as Old Books”

This is Colossal points us to an extraordinary personal project by graphic designer Matt Stevens: classic, acclaimed movies visualized as vintage paperback books. Everything about these spells “win.”

From the aged look, illustration choices, and director-as-author to the logo and occasional price, these are all … perfect.

Volume One is 100 titles, and while that book is sold out, prints are available at his website. The items in Volume Two, due this month, are guaranteed to be awesome.

Graphic Design on the Internet Archive

Emigre #20 – Expatriates. Courtesy of the Internet Archive via archive.digital.

Another treasure via Jason Kottke:

archives.design is a labor of love site run by Valery Marier where she collects graphic design related materials that are available to freely borrow, stream, or download from the Internet Archive. I’ve only scratched the surface in poking around, but so far I’ve found Olivetti brochures, a collection of theater programs from the 19th and early 20th centuries, several Apple things, The Vignelli Canon, a specimen book of wood type from the 1880s, and many issues of Emigre. What a resource!
Jason Kottke, kottke.org

An advertising brochure for the Olivetti Tetractys, circa 1956.

Some of these are fantastic — set aside some time to explore and enjoy.

2023 iPhone Photography Winners

I don’t always link to these contests — it often seems like the publicity (and rights!) are all about the folks holding the contest rather than the people entering them — but I often look, and am always impressed with the quality coming out of a “simple” iPhone.

Long Nguyen, France – 1st Place, Travel – “Last Night before Xmas”

Scott Galloway, United States – 1st Place, Nature – “Wonder Wheel”

And while both of the above are (relatively) recent phones, in the latter case showing the macro capabilities of an iPhone 12 Pro Max, even older phones can highlight the talent of the person using it:

Derek Hager, United States – 3rd Place, Photographer of the Year – “Tucson Morning”

Shot on a 2017 iPhone X. Nice.

See all the winners, for 2023 and years past, at IPPAwards.com. (Via PetaPixel.)

A Moment Regarding Social Media

I’m not going to spend much time on this; I eschewed pretty much all forms of social media years ago now, and don’t regret it. That said, I do keep up with social media in the meta sense (a word that’s been stolen, as far as I’m concerned, by — wait for it — a social media company), and have noted the pain and concern associated with the implosion of Twitter.

While this conversation started with Nick Heer and the always-excellent Pixel Envy, it’s obviously evolved as the year has seen one extraordinary ~~cage fight~~ event after another.

Threads on Apple’s App Store, via the BBC.

For the past decade, It’s been all but required for serious brands to maintain a social media presence […] yet instead of scrambling to claim digital real estate across all these newly emerging platforms, some companies are choosing to be more judicious about which platforms they choose to join. In some cases, they’re learning from brands who jumped the social media ship years ago.
Chris Stokel-Walker, BBC

The quote above, from the BBC, attempts to answer the question, “Why your favourite brand may be taking a social media break.” Short answer: it’s complicated. I’d argue there’s an even shorter answer — it’s smart! — but for people and brands that aren’t yet established, social media is often key to discoverability.

This may be especially true for artists, designers, photographers, and others in the self- and small-business-employed creative field. Indeed, let’s go to a great source for those in the arena, Creative Boom, who recently spent a minute asking, “Creatives are saying social media is over… so what next?”

Like any new craze, it was fun for a while. But there’s certainly nothing new about it any more. Facebook’s now been around for almost two decades. Twitter’s 17 years old. Even Instagram has reached its teens. And while many of us joined these platforms during their fun, “anything goes” eras, when everything was about the users, now it’s all about the algorithms and their use to make venture capitalists vast amounts of money.
Tom May, Creative Boom

While I agree that social media is a mess and has been for a while, I’m absolutely not going to tell you to give it up — only to remind you that I have given it up and continue to be completely okay with the decision.

I do want to ask you, though, to choose wisely:

Facebook’s “Threads (an Instagram app),” their answer to the Twitter/X debacle, as shown via Apple’s iOS App Store privacy report.

Tapbot’s “Ivory,” available in Apple’s iOS App Store and showing that app’s privacy report, for the Mastodon social platform.

Enough said. Turn off the computer, go forth, and enjoy a beautiful summer’s day.

August 4, 2023August 4, 2023

Updated Gallery: Automotive (Details)

Two different photographic opportunities have meant additions to the Automotive gallery recently: some motorcycles in Columbus, and some BMWs at an event in Hampton, a suburb of Atlanta and home to the Atlanta Motor Speedway.

All of these were taken with Leica’s superlative APO 90mm macro (yes, I know, I go on and on about this lens — it’s that good), and almost all are just details — a lens that long in a crowd means leaving the big picture aside in favor of the minutiae. Luckily, that’s a strength of the camera system, and one of my favorite ways to use it.

The Harley logo wasn’t one I was familiar with — and it’s great — but the BMW is fantastic in its retro glory, complete with copper screws.

Meanwhile, speaking of BMWs, they hold their Ultimate Drive Experience yearly in the Atlanta area, and Gerald and I are in regular attendance. It was my first time seeing a number of new models, including the new M2:

Didn’t like this until I saw it there; it’s a shortened M4 but wide and swollen in all the right ways. However, the undisputed star of the show was the new XM. Like many modern BMWs, it’s better in person — exuding presence:

I wish I’d somehow been able to better convey its stance, its proportions, and what I imagine it would look like coming up behind you. Then again, $160k and 664 horsepower will do that. Speaking of horsepower:

Nuthin’ like a carbon fiber engine cover in a three-ton machine. That said, for both Gerald and I the far-and-away favorite wasn’t the XM but rather the iX:

The iX is a little ungainly from some angles, but its battery-powered, carbon fiber goodness is both fast and efficient. Plus, it sports one of the best BMW interiors going right now, and that’s saying something. (Ventilated wool seats for the win, folks.)

These events usually boast parking lots filled with classics, but either the late Sunday afternoon or thunderstorms kept the older items safely garaged. However, there was a sweet and very bright red i8 gracing the scene:

If you’re at all into cars, there are 150 photographs in the automotive gallery waiting for you to enjoy. (As the note says, “some bias may be shown.”)

Have a great weekend!

Update: Gerald had already posted on this, but I didn’t see it in time to link above. Thanks, man!

July 22, 2023July 22, 2023

Updated Gallery: Columbus, Georgia

Gerald and I were in Georgia’s lower Chattahoochee River valley yesterday, visiting the city of Columbus — and ran across a couple of treasures. Naturally, there was a camera handy.

The first is the best restaurant I’ve enjoyed in a long while: The Animal Farm.

If you’re in or going to be going to Columbus anytime soon, I cannot recommend it highly enough. The food was superlative, the service excellent, and the ambiance simultaneously upscale, casual, and fresh.

The second — and no less tasty — stop was the Ma Rainey Museum of the Blues. This period house downtown is small but demonstrates a remarkable comeback from the (literal) wreckage they started with in the ’90s. I’d originally wanted to return to the Columbus Museum, but it’s being renovated; Gerald’s suggestion here was pitch-perfect.

Bust and Albums, Ma Rainey House, 805 5th Ave.

Record Player Detail, Ma Rainey House, 805 5th Ave.

Inside, Gerald and I enjoyed a lengthy conversation with Xavier, a guide who was knowledgeable and enthusiastic; he absolutely made us want to explore more blues history. (I’m also going to be listening to some Ma Rainey on Tidal.)

Meanwhile, gallery of Columbus photographs is deep and varied, spanning almost fifteen years and 180 items — check it out.

As always, thanks for visiting.

Update: Gerald’s take on the day.

July 18, 2023July 19, 2023

50 Books | 50 Covers, 2022 Edition

AIGA once again surprises and delights in their annual competition of book design.

Since its inception in 1923 as the Fifty Books of the Year competition, this annual event highlights AIGA’s continued commitment to uplifting powerful and compelling design in a familiar format we know and love. As book jackets became more prevalent, the competition evolved with the field to acknowledge excellence in cover design. Beginning in 1995, the competition became known as 50 Books | 50 Covers.
AIGA Press Release

The jury and I were very impressed with both the quantity and quality of the entries this year, which made choosing only 50 extremely difficult. Among the trending techniques this year were use of exposed bindings and elaborate page sequencing and mixed paper choices. For me, there was a greater overall sophistication in book design, with a mix of aesthetically beautiful and graphically brash approaches in the final choices.
Andrew Satake Blauvelt, Director, Cranbrook Art Museum (Chair)

As usual, there’s some overlap with various lists of “best of 2022” — here’s Foreword’s — but, as LitHub puts it, these are the best book [designs] of 2022 that you (probably) haven’t seen.

A selection of my favorites, in alphabetical order:

Simplicity itself — along with some awesome block type — add up to a great cover. (Love the angled blurb, too.)

Book design by Zack Robbins and Bentzion Goldman

One of the great things about this post is the “50 Books” part; this cover’s okay, and the spine more than okay, but it’s the interior design that really wins in my book (pardon the expression):

Kudos: the photography is great, but the spread above is artistic in wonderful way.

The trend, mentioned above, to mix paper stocks and styles is shown to full effect here. This book has too many great examples to post; see more .

Meanwhile, Uncovering Singapore’s Traditional Chinese Puppets may not be a title you’d automatically reach for, but…:

More mixed papers (sizes, too), more great stuff. (See additional examples.)

Cover and jacket design by Lindsay Starr.

This is an interesting, compelling cover and jacket design as shown above. However, once again, rather than post it all here, I’m just hoping to whet your appetite — you need to see this one unfold (literally).

Great colors, great combinations, great cover.

I’m always a sucker for photographs of practical items used in ways that make book covers great, and this one’s a shining (pink) example.

There’s so much great design work done in the children’s book market it’s not even funny. The first of two great examples. (See more from this title.)

A book’s edges are so often a canvas left unexplored. Not with this book, Pacita Abad. (See examples from this title’s wonderful interior, too.)

I’ve highlighted this design before, but every time I see it I like it more. Glad to see it as an AIGA 50 Covers winner.

Book design by Brian Johnson, Michelle Lamb and SilasMunro.

Typographic Messages of Protest, indeed — done in an appropriately powerful way. The suggestion of motion is a great touch.

“Block party,” defined. Excellent.

The second children’s title on this list, including an interesting and distinctive style. (See the interior of this book.)

Again, these are only some of my favorites — there are many more, all of which deserve a look. Congrats to all the designers who made these title happen and thanks to the AIGA for this annual delight.

See also: Last year’s winners. Via: It’s Nice That.

July 10, 2023July 10, 2023

Updated Gallery: Downtown Macon

As is typical in July in Georgia, it was hot yesterday — but not so much that I didn’t spend a few minutes wandering around with the camera and superb 90mm. Especially since I was down on MLK, an area of downtown Macon I don’t frequent as much as, say, 2nd St.

Some detail shots (as usual):

Studio Door, Serenity Entertainment, Cherry St. Ln.

Visit Macon’s Keyboard Building Detail, 450 MLK Blvd.

Side note: I was completely unaware that Steve Martin and Edie Brickell had teamed up for Bright Star, a musical set in the Appalachians. (I presume, unfortunately, that the 2020 season at Theatre Macon might not have shown.) It probably won’t surprise that I enjoy a musical now and than — and am a big fan of both Martin and Brickell — so was glad to find it on Tidal.

Bright Star (Painted) Poster, Theatre Macon, 3rd St. Ln.

In any case, 23 new photographs have been posted to the Downtown Macon (2022-2023) gallery. Peruse and enjoy — and thanks for visiting.

July 7, 2023March 30, 2024

Beautifully Briefed 23.7: Items of Independence (Day)

The mission for these posts is simple: independent, unrelated items which add up to something interesting. This time, it’s nifty type, aka NFTy.pe, photographic AI (or not), the 2023 Logo Trends Report, great London Review of Books illustrations, and a worthy art book list hijacked for a rant on stickers. Boom!

Better Than it Sounds: NFTy.pe

Typefaces have become, from this designer’s point of view, become commodities — perhaps even part of a broken system. Most clients don’t have a budget for unique type, there are too many spread across too many different sites, and, as Creative Boom puts it, “ownership has become poorly policed, if not non-existent.”

NFType really flips the script on all of that and attempts to reimagine the industry from creation to sale. In a nutshell, NFTy.pe uses a combination of modular type design and generative scripts to create fonts with unique visual attributes. The upshot is that no two character sets are exactly the same. And thanks to smart contracts and embedded metadata, ownership is quick and easy to verify.
— Craig Ward, NFTy.pe creator, via Creative Boom

Create a unique typeface that rewards, in more ways than one.

As pointed out, it’s not just for type users:

There’s a lot of work to be done to put some distance between the dumpster fire that represents much of the NFT space and projects – like this one – with actual utility. I wouldn’t vouch for the worth of a lot of what I’ve seen out there, but the underlying tech – the smart contracts themselves – [is] actually genius and will be a game changer for any industry where provenance is a key factor – agriculture, property, fashion etc.
— Craig Ward

The whole article is worth a read, or go straight to the source.

Photographic AI

This year has been centered around AI, it seems — and, as illustrations go, some of the results are indeed a new form of art. Take this one posted by Dezeen as part of their AItopia competition:

Created by Midjourney for Daniel Riopel.

Fantastic. Its creator, a production technician in the prefabricated housing industry, deserves major kudos for describing something to the Midjourney engine that’s intricate and, if I dare use the term with AI, creative. (Several of the images there are excellent — check ’em out.)

That said, I’m not a fan of articles like PetaPixel‘s recently-posted “Photographers May Have to Embrace AI, Whether They Want To or Not.” Simply put: no. I don’t have to embrace it, because nothing has changed — either I can get the photograph I want using the cameras and lenses I have or I can’t. I’m not going to “generate the fill,” pure and simple. (I don’t control the computational photography my phone produces, but Apple isn’t prone to creating what isn’t there.)

I’ve been trying to write on this subject for a while, without success. Possibly because I don’t need a longer version of the above paragraph, possibly because it’s something else I haven’t been able to articulate yet — even to myself.

The 2023 Logo Trends Report

It’s back! BrandNew points us to the latest in styles and, as advertised on the tin, trends:

“Sonics,” part of the 2023 Logo Trends Report.

“Ritz,” as in the cracker, part of the 2023 Logo Trends Report.

Always an interesting read, including this fantastic tidbit directly related to the previous section:

“Don’t worry about AI stealing your job. To replace graphic designers with AI, clients will need to accurately describe what they want. We’re safe.”
— Bill Gardner, LogoLounge

Read the full report, “a whirlwind of ideas, symbols, and AI, evolving how creators like us create,” at LogoLounge.

Illustrations at the London Review of Books

Because we cover books here often (pun intended), an article on Jon McNaught’s awesome illustrations for the London Review of Books absolutely caught my eye. “A collaborative relationship,” it’s called — and the results produced not only illustrate a huge variety of subjects in a consistent style, but do so in a way that delights:

A great illustration by Jon McNaught.

Of the examples posted, there’s not a single one I don’t like. Copyright Jon McNaught.

Since 2011, Jon has been collaborating with the renowned literary journal, creating works that have a quietly mesmerising quality. His scenes breed comfort with their universality, but also their ability to evoke specific memories and feelings in the individual viewer. Through his covers, Jon artfully captures the essence of everyday life by representing the vastly contrasting nature of British weather, plus the uniqueness of London’s architecture, green spaces and public transport.
— Olivia Hingley, It’s Nice That

See many more illustration examples and read the article at It’s Nice That.

Hyperallergic‘s Art Books to Read this summer

Hyperallergic‘s coverage of art, despite the annoying pop-ups, is worth its bookmark — illustrated by this list of 11 Art Books to Add to Your Reading List This Summer. Some, like the Philip Guston I recently saw highlighted on Perspective, are as relevant as ever. It’s a great list.

As usual, whenever I see something like this, I’m going to do something else at the same time: mine it for potentially great book design. Which, if you’ll indulge, leads to this short rant: I hate good covers marred by stickers.

“Read with Jenna?” Seriously?

Solid cover. Soooo, who’s Jenna? Is she important enough to mar the cover with? (I DuckDuckGo’d the answer: maybe … if you watch television. Not sure that’s the audience publishers should want to cater to.)

This time, the “sticker” is National Book Award Finalist. Better, but still.

Another solid cover — perhaps even really good, something that’s appropriate for a title up for the National Book Award. Real shame, then, that the sticker gets in the way, winding up completely distracting from the very nice circular title treatment (I’m sorry I don’t know either book designer to list here.)

I understand that it’s a little like trying to hold back the tide with a shovel, but it’s something I needed to express. [/rant]

Bonus #1 (awful): From the disturbing trends department: TikTok may start publishing books. Barf.

Bonus #2 (amazing): Via Kottke, a fantastic poster and perhaps better question:

Poster for the 2023 International Book Arsenal Festival, by Art Studio Agrafka

A book festival. During a war. In a city under martial law. While schools and legislatures here in the US ban books about Black and LGBTQ+ experiences based on bad faith complaints of tiny fundamentalist parent groups. Tell me, who’s doing democracy better right now?
— Jason Kottke, Kottke.org

That’s all for early July, folks. Go forth and make your summer a better place.

June 30, 2023March 30, 2024

Beautifully Briefed 23.6 Follow-up: New Automotive Logos

Within literal days of my writing that we should be done with the automobile companies’ logo updates, we got three. (Well, two and a preview.) Details follow.

Infinity

Back in the early ’90s, Nissan introduced a premium brand called Infiniti. Following the likes of Lexus (Toyota) and Acura (Honda), Nissan wanted a piece of the upscale action and knew that a public that still remembered Datsun would need convincing.

So they embraced the home country: Japan. They leaned heavily into the distinctive style and craftsmanship; their initial products were different and put up an interesting argument when compared to (especially) Lexus.

Awesome original emblem from the 1991 Q45’s “grille.” Photo by Ben Hsu.

Alas, they lost the cachet almost immediately — to a point where today, I almost always get out of an Infiniti’s way due to their being the official representative of the poorest-quality drivers on the road. (And I say that as a BMW driver.) It’s also, unfortunately, one of the most-likely brands to wear a coffee-can-sized exhaust finisher, heavily-tinted windows, and/or dubious lowering springs.

Enhancing customer connection and delivering thoughtful hospitality across all touch points underpins INFINITI’s comprehensive refresh. Central to the update is a new global retail architecture design, along with an evolved logo and new multisensory experience.
— Infiniti Press Release

So to hear them recommit to the “Japaneseness” of their brand is, well, interesting. Perhaps the signature scent will help.

Note the available illumination.

Brand New, as usual, has the best coverage, but as it’s a subscription, alternatively see this story from Motor1.

Opel

Forgive the color banding — it’s in the original.

Opel earned a brief mention here on Foreword in December 2020, when they ~~joined~~ were sold to PSA — Peugeot, Citroen, and company — which a month later (!) merged with Fiat Chrysler to form Stellantis. They’re back with an unfortunate update to embrace their 2028 switch to all-electric.

The “increased sharpness,” as Motor1 puts it, is appreciated, I suppose — but the break in the middle goes against everything the lightning bolt its meant to represent. In fact, I’d argue that the mark now doesn’t resemble lightning at all. (Perhaps clouds?)

Sigh.

Preview: Alpina

So, on to more interesting things: Alpina. Established in 1962 as a tuner and racer of BMWs, it’s had more or less the same logo since 1967 and was established as an actual manufacturer in 1983: they do more than just tune BMWs, they reengineer them. These days, they stand for the ultimate Grand Tour cars, simultaneously more comfortable, more powerful, and more stylish than the cars they’re based on. (See the lovely Alpina Z8 at the top of this post, for instance.)

Aplina’s 1962 logo: exhaust and crankshaft, sir. Nuthin’ like it.

Naturally, that means most of them aren’t available here in the US.

The ultimate unobtanium machine: a 2022 Alpina B3 touring. Drool.

In any case, they’ve recently entered into an agreement to be purchased by BMW itself, not unlike AMG becoming part of Mercedes-Benz, and, starting in 2025, are scheduled to represent the middle ground between BMW and Rolls-Royce — hopefully continuing the comfort, power, and style. It seems that the new ground will be the upmarket models only (that is, no 3-series-based items, and possibly even no 5-series), so think of items $200,000 and up.

Now, an eagle-eyed I5 Talk forum poster noted a filing with the German government:

The proposed wordmark, horizontal.

A close-up of the Alpina “A.” Note that it’s the trailing one; hopefully, not a sign of things to come.

BMW Blog has the details.

Bonus #1: Motor1 has updated their roundup of every automaker logo refresh from recent years.

Bonus #2: All of the automotive — and carmaker logo — stories here on Foreword, from newest to oldest.

June 14, 2023March 30, 2024

Beautifully Briefed 23.6: Welcome to Summer

This time, several items related to books and bookstores; two more — possibly the last two — from the automotive logo category; and PRINT Magazine’s 2023 roundup of great design.

Book Four-For

AI book covers? Here, now.

Creative Bloq, which I wasn’t familiar with, has a post up that’s only here because it’s the first I’ve seen of what is sure to be a trend: AI imagery on a book cover.

Image: Bloomsbury UK (Also: Where’s the body to go with the head?)

“Causing controversy,” they say, in that…:

[F]or a while now, with concerns over copyright and ethics plaguing text-to-image generators. Perhaps the most existential worry of all is the idea that AI could put human artists out of work – and while many still find the idea fanciful, we’re already seeing examples of AI-generated art being used commercially.
— Daniel Piper, Creative Bloq

The article itself has a hint of click-bait about it, what with Twitter users spotting a NY Times bestseller but complaining about the UK version of the cover design . . . but the larger question of AI coming for the book designers everywhere is valid.

Then again, AI imagery has the potential to reshape much of the creative landscape. Let’s hope — hope! — that it’s deployed ethically.

B&N’s Market Repositioning

BookRiot asks whether Barnes & Noble’s new presentation as “a local bookstore” — something that’s part of the community in a way that Amazon can never be —is genuine, let alone successful. (We have a B&N here in Macon, which I visit infrequently, and which doesn’t feel “local.”)

Background: The BookRiot article (and the image) above ultimately stem, I believe, from a NY Times option piece from 2018.

Temples of Books

As regular readers know, I’m a huge fan of combining books and photography. Naturally, great photographs of great libraries strike just the right chord:

Cuypersbibliotheek, Amsterdam, Netherlands

As This is Colossal puts it, “Written by Marianne Julia Strauss, Temples of Books: Magnificent Libraries Around the World celebrates the stunning architecture and quietude associated with wandering the stacks.”

Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Exeter, New Hampshire

Positioning these spaces as intellectual havens, Temples of Books highlights their wide array of offerings, including botanic gardens, archival repositories, and of course, room to read. “As an institution that can curate knowledge, scrutinize the status quo, and encourage education, the library is more important today than ever,” a statement says. “This responsibility is only growing as the freedom to publish on all manner of channels increases.”
— Grace Ebert, This is Colossal

Instant wishlist item!

Take Action for Libraries

Simple brilliance: a handy step-by-step guide on what to do if you don’t like a book at your local library.

Carmaker Logo Updates: Porsche and JLR

Jaguar Land Rover > JLR

Formerly Jaguar Land Rover, but generally known in the industry as JLR, the British company¹ decided to have a FedEx moment and rebranded. Alas, Paul Rand was unavailable, so there’s no brilliance in the execution. (We’ll absolutely leave whether walking away from Land Rover as a brand is a smart move for another, longer discussion.) Motor1 has the details.

Porsche > Almost all other mainstream car brands

There’s a new Porsche logo!

The new 2023 version of the Porsche logo. (Image: Porsche)

That’s right: it’s a very subtle change. But it’s a significant one, perhaps because it’s only the fifth in the company’s 75-year history:

All five Porsche badges. (Image: Porsche)

The biggest changes are the backgrounds and the prancing horse in the middle, which is completely redrawn. (And, yes, has more than a passing — heh — resemblance to Ferrari’s.)

Not-at-all-staged photograph by Porsche.

Wallpaper* has the best coverage I’ve seen.

Bonus: Motor1 has a roundup of every recent (2015+) automotive change in branding. Of course, I’ve covered most of ’em here, too.

Update: Nissan, already on the updated list above, might be up to something.

PRINT‘s Best of 2023

PRINT reminds us that not everything is digital these days — so much of the work still goes on paper or packaging — in their 2023 roundup of great stuff:

The 2023 PRINT Awards celebrated outstanding design in every shape and form, from the delicate texture and exquisite form of print to digital design that married technical skill with precise craftsmanship.
— PRINT Magazine

The best in show is a brilliant environmental design, the annual reports category is oddly satisfying (I didn’t know that Land O’ Lakes is a cooperative that owns Purina, for instance), the editorial category contains brilliance, and many, many more worthy of a design lover’s attention.

Sadly, their book design category is a bust. I like “The Every,” but pretty much any of my Best of 2022 picks run circles around it (and the other two choices):

But there are gems. I really like Bakemono, for instance, a winner in the fonts category and the best monospaced font I’ve seen:

Italian foundry Zetafonts brings us Bake Mono.

It’s a long article (they call it a 74-minute read!), but when you have a moment, grab a drink and an iPad and enjoy — hopefully as much as I did.

And that’s it! Settle into summer, and stay tuned for more soon.

1
Technically, it’s an Indian company, as JLR is a subsidiary of the TATA conglomerate.