Giles Hoover

Photography and design for print production

Category: Beautifully Briefed

Posts in this category summarize and/or link to interesting items across the Web, and may include more than one of the other categories Foreword writes about regularly.

  • Beautifully Briefed, November 2021: Four on Photography

    Beautifully Briefed, November 2021: Four on Photography

    Four different, yet valuable, interesting, and informative links to photography items heading into this Thanksgiving weekend.

    Architectural Photography Awards

    Starting with ArchDaily: The Architectural Photography Awards 2021 Announces its Shortlist. Some great stuff here:

    ArchDaily 1
    ArchDaily 2
    ArchDaily 3
    ArchDaily 4
    ArchDaily 5

    All simple, yet so much more. Well done.

    Natural Landscape Photography Awards

    Next, the Natural Landscape Photography Awards. Many here to choose from, as well, but a couple of faves:

    Nature Award 1
    Nature Award 2
    Landscape Photography Best of How-to

    So, we all ask ourselves, how to you get from the everyday stuff to the best-of-the-best? DPReview has answers, with Erez Marom: On Originality in Landscape Photography.

    It has been, and continues to be, a rough time for a nature photographer who makes a living shooting around the world. This kind of time period sometimes makes we artists think about our life missions and convictions, and delve deeper into our beliefs and the way we view our art and what makes it worthwhile. While some people don’t see photography as art, I definitely do, and for that reason I feel that a discussion is needed about what makes photography an art form rather than technical labor.

    Some examples:

    On Originality 1
    On Originality 2

    Read the whole essay. Excellent stuff.

    Route 66 Photography

    Lastly, some art from Dezeen: Hayley Eichenbaum captures the “punchy absurdity” of Route 66 roadside architecture:

    Dezeen 1
    Dezeen 2

    Enjoy all four — and enjoy the turkey weekend! Happy (Photography) Thanksgiving.

  • Beautifully Briefed, October 2021: Architecture Photography

    Beautifully Briefed, October 2021: Architecture Photography

    Two very different yet very impressive architectural photography items caught my eye this month.

    Hélène Binet’s Architecture Photography

    Let’s start with an article in the Guardian (UK) on Hélène Binet:

    “It’s like being a musician in front a big audience. You can’t get it wrong. In that instant, you have to be the best of yourself, you bring your mind to a place, not to lose that unique moment.” Hélène Binet is explaining her commitment to working with the venerable techniques of analogue, as opposed to digital, photography[…].”

    She manages to capture exactly the kind of thing I strive for — potentially abstract, detail-oriented, yet somehow . . . different:

    HB3740

    And:

    HB3k

    Beautiful. If you’re in the UK, check out Light Lines: The Architectural Photographs of Hélène Binet, at the Royal Academy, London W1, 23-October-23 January.

    Romain Veillon’s Architecture Photography

    Meanwhile, from France, we have another: award-winning photographer Romain Veillon with architectural “decay:”

    RV1

    Brilliant. More:

    RV5
    RV2
    RV4
    RV3

    He’s got a book out — Green Urbex: The World Without Us (French-language only, alas) — but the photographs don’t need translation. Learn more on ArchDaily.

  • Beautifully Briefed: September, 2021

    Beautifully Briefed: September, 2021

    Let’s get the shock news out of the way first:

    Hoefler and Monotype

    It’s been thirty-two years, four months, and fourteen days since I hung out a shingle to announce that The Hoefler Type Foundry was open for business. What started as a sole proprietorship grew into the Hoefler&Co of today, a diversified design and technology practice with an international reach, still dedicated to the invention of original, thoughtful, and hard-working typefaces.

    Meanwhile, “nothing will change,” Jonathan Hoefler (previously) says, except that he’ll be stepping down. That’s kind of a big change, IMHO — but after using typography to “help elect a president,” where do you go from there? Read more here.

    In happier news, the much-delayed new Bond movie, No Time to Die, is finally in theaters next week.

    The 007 logo

    Ever wonder who was responsible for the above (slightly brilliant) graphic? Read Stephen Heller’s The Daily Heller: The Most Prolific Designer You’ve Never Known. Informative and great. Bang!

    Corp State of America: GA

    Keith Fleck has gotten a good deal of press for his Corporate States of America, but in case you haven’t seen it, it’s absolutely worth a look. Maine’s L.L. Bean, Florida’s Publix, and, of course, Georgia’s Coca-Cola are all winners. 51 bonus points!

    Lastly for this month, some book design:

    On Myself

    Daily Nous asks their readers to nominate the best philosophy book covers — Judging Philosophy Books By Their Covers — and there are some winners, some absolute losers, and a few funny moments, too:

    Black Sabbath, except not

    “This always reminded me of a rejected Black Sabbath album cover or something,” says the poster. Nice. (And only 185 cents!)

  • Beautifully Briefed: Icons and Typography, Mid-June, 2021

    Beautifully Briefed: Icons and Typography, Mid-June, 2021

    Three items for you here, starting off with the 2021 Logo Trend Report, from the Logo Lounge. From the Asterisk to Electric Tape, Quads, Chains, and more:

    2021 Logo Trend Report

    Bill Gardner discusses all fifteen different trends, with logos to back ’em up (naturally).

    Next, “A Cabinet of Curiosities” from Hoefler & Co.

    Printers once used the colorful term ‘nut fractions’ to denote vertically stacked numerators and denominators that fit into an en-space. (Compare the em-width ‘mutton fraction.’)

    This is beautiful:

    Dutch Curio, H&Co

    A Dutch curio, representing the letters z-i-j.

    Read all of the rest.

    Lastly, these are amazing . . . and simple, the better form of “simply amazing.” Yeah:

    111 Shadow

    See the rest at This is Colossal.

    Happy June!

  • (More) Beautifully Briefed, Books and Design, May 2021

    (More) Beautifully Briefed, Books and Design, May 2021

    On David Hockney’s Piccadilly Circus logo:

    piccadilly-circus

    It’s been a minute since I’ve been in London — 2011, to be exact — and I’d love to go back. The food, the parks, the museums, the Thames, the short train rides to more interesting places (Hello, Cambridge?), and even the Tube. (We’ll leave the anti-Americanism aside for right now — we’re post-Trump and post-Covid, so traveling is at least an option!) Yet even the cultural masterpiece that is London is showing some cracks; from the New Statesman:

    Hockney’s Piccadilly Circus has also drawn criticism for its simplistic approach. Over on the cesspit of arts criticism that is Twitter, anonymous accounts that decry all art made post-1920 as an abomination have ridiculed Hockney’s scrawl as indicative of the death of art. Other critics have rightly argued that the work feels like a red flag to a bull: fuelling culture-war debates about the legitimacy of public art, rather than encouraging the public to get onside.

    I like it more every time I see it. Read more at It’s Nice That.

    On the NYC subway map:

    Speaking of It’s Nice That, an interesting new book from Gary Hustwit . . . on the debate over the New York City subway map. On the one side, the iconic Massimo Vignelli version, introduced in 1972, representing the less-is-more approach. On the other, the replacement version from John Tauranac, introduced in 1979, representing the more-accurate-is-more approach. (An updated version of the latter is still in use today.)

    But back in 1978, the two got up on stage at Cooper Union’s Great Hall — home to debates of, among others, Abraham Lincoln — and pitched their case:

    They Look Happy! (Subway debate 1978)

    Newly discovered photographs and audio lead to this new, smartly-designed, book. Read more at It’s Nice That; Dezeen has an interview with the author. Pre-order the book and get a limited-edition letterpress print at Oh You Pretty Things.

    Subway Map Debate Book

    On books and book design:

    Nice new cookbook chock full o’ seventies-era design, “Violaine et Jérémy returns with a cookbook for Molly Baz, featuring three of the studio’s much-loved typefaces,” at — wait for it — It’s Nice That:

    Nicoise Sandwich

    Sandwich Nicoice. Mmmmmmm.

    Lastly, just because, Kottke collects pencil photography to examine the typography. Nice.

    Kottke on Pencil Photography

  • Beautifully Briefed: Books, March 2021

    Beautifully Briefed: Books, March 2021

    Five book design items that caught my attention recently.

    First, from ArtNet News. Prior to basically everything, Andy Warhol did this:

    “The whimsical book was a collaboration with interior decorator Suzie Frankfurt, who wrote the ridiculous recipes, and the artist’s mother, Julia Warhola, who provided the calligraphy, replete with charming misspellings. [It] was the last of a number of books Warhol designed in the 1950s, before he shot to fame in 1962 with Pop art compositions featuring Campbell’s soup and Coca-Cola. Book design offered him a valuable creative outlet during the years he worked as a commercial illustrator.” See more.

    The rest are from the New Yorker‘s “Briefly Noted” reviews — which, I’ll admit, inspired the title of this post. They pick four titles weekly, and while I’m sure many are great, actually great book design is rare. So to have four in two weeks … well, just had to say, “noted.” (The New Yorker is, of course, subscription — but there is a free account with limited options if you’d like to read their review.)

    The first three are from the March 8th, 2021, issue, starting with In Memory of Memory:

    The simplicity of the concentric rectangles — and “destination” dot — is mesmerizing.

    Next, Cathedral:

    Not a simple illustration in this case, and still an attention-getter in the background. Nice.

    Next, my favorite of this set, The Weak Spot:

    A very brief (176 page!) debut novel with hits-above-its-weight cover design. (Content, too, presumably…;)

    Lastly, from the March 15th issue, Infinite Country:

    Color and composition unite into something … infinitely good.

    Enjoy.