Photography and design for print production

Tag: ai

Beautifully Briefed 26.6: New is Good. Old is Good.
“Welcome to the new,” he said, pointing to the old, now dressed in a new suit. You’re reading this because the words and ideas resonated — and it’s why only the style is newly tailored.

Sometimes, though, a new look can be enormously satisfying. Enjoy.

This month’s Spine

Beacon Press.

“Paperwork. Nice,” I said, while potentially allowing a smidgen of political speak through the door. (Not sorry.) Read the column here.

Design and type

Matt Dorfman’s many hats

Matt Dorfman’s book covers are a regular item here on Foreword, including several of my Favorite Book Covers of the Year posts. So it was a delight to see a new interview with It’s Nice That.

[B]usy days and late nights begin with, as Matt puts it, “churning out a generous amount of trash”. Much to his frustration he will be “working through what often feels like a landfill-sized hill of boring ideas”. Despite taking up quite a bit of time, it’s a necessity, as among this trash will be a shred of an idea worth expanding upon. “Usually it’s a minor detail from an earlier comp made in haste and far afield from anything that book is actually about,” he says, “but it typically has a quality of brokenness or something unfinished that just looks interesting.”
— Harry Bennett, It’s Nice That

“Do anything except what’s right in front of you,” he tells them, while mentioning that he often favors collage. “Collage has become one of my shorthands for pairing themes and ideas together that aren’t so readily represented in nature or culture.” As in:

VQR. Book design by Matt Dorfman. Image via It’s Nice That.

Did I mention that he’s also the art director The New York Times Book Review? Yeah:

One of Matt Dorfman’s covers for the NYT Book Review. Image via It’s Nice That.

And a quick preview of next year’s Favorites list, with this gem:

Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

If it looks familiar, that’s because…:

Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

Both previous Favorites here on Foreword. Awesome.

Read the whole interview at It’s Nice That.

“It’s All Greeked to Me”

Glenn Fleishman, writing at Six Colors, points us at a YouTube documentary on the history of Lorem Ipsum:

A screenshot of the YouTube video.

“I found it riveting and hilarious, and exactly the kind of Rabbit Hole (her channel name) that I fall down with printing and type history myself,” he writes. “[H]er dogged research has largely filled in the missing pieces of the story of where the run of seemingly Latin text used by designers to act as placeholder (or ‘Greeked’) text in mock-ups since the late 1960s came from.”

I agree: it’s well put-together and, more importantly, answers a question you might not have actually had — but now can’t resist. Enjoy.

Side note: Privacy where possible: I’ve switched to screenshots of YouTube videos rather than embedding them. That way folks who choose not follow the link aren’t stuck with the trackers embedding foists upon all.

Special bonus #1: Glenn is one of those people who wears many hats — 2019’s awesome Tiny Type Museum project is his, for instance — but it’s the comics connection that might be most appreciated. He’s got a book out about it, now in its second edition, which has just been nominated for Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards — the Eisners. Read more.

2026 logo trends

The Logo Lounge has posted its 2026 Report.

The quality of the Logo Trend Report has slipped over the past couple of years — there are suggestions that parts of it are generated rather of written — but I think the zoom-out is still useful for those of us in design.

If, for no other reason, to make sure our work is ahead of the curve.

Via Brand New, one of the only subscription sites I’ll link to. (Because it gives me an excuse to encourage you to subscribe, too: at $20/year, it’s sensibly priced and very much earns its keep.)

Best new fonts: a one-off

This month’s CreativeBoom post on new fonts was shorter than some — it’s summer! — with only one I’d like to highlight:

Sahlia, by Arcane Type Foundry.

But what a one it is. How often are we given an excuse get excited about stencil-style?

Close-up details (and more butterflies).

Sahlia is available from Arcane Type Foundry.

Font previews: not simple

Marcin Wichary, whose brilliant Unsung continues to impress, has a neat item that we’ve all seen at this point: font menus that preview the font name in the style of the typeface, sometimes poorly.

Turns out, that’s not at all easy.

Oopsie. Screenshot courtesy of Unsung.

“Font previews are fascinating because they are the perfect showcase of how tricky fonts can be at scale,” he writes. The question is: why?

It’s actually impossible to left align or center text. Ever. Not just because each font does whatever it wants – font size is a number that doesn’t really give you anything to hang a hat on, and the font can place itself in its box however it desires, too – and not just because fonts often lie (via bad metrics) about what they store inside, but also because aligning and centering are really in the eye of the license holder, and have more than one definition.

So, every time you align text to anything, in whatever way, it’s only an approximation. Most of the time that’s good enough. Here it is not.
— Marcin Wichary, Unsung

It takes a surprising amount of work to get this right. Screenshot courtesy of Unsung.

“There are icon fonts, color fonts, and non-Western fonts so rich in variety and tradition that this category itself is basically a fractal,” he says. “There’s a craft to getting it right.”

Read the rest.

Special bonus #2: Wichary also built something called Fontificator. “I thought it’d be fun to share this internal tool I made over a decade ago to aid with exploring options for Medium’s typographical redesign,” he says.

Fontificator. Screenshot courtesy of Unsung.

“The motivation for building Fontificator came from two observations:
- font previews on type foundry sites were generally too limited to get a real sense of how a certain typeface feels, and it was best to see a font in situ,
- often an extremely tiny nuance — like adding some letter spacing, or messing with line height — was what separated something that was promising from something that seemed very far from working.”
It’s both brilliant and fun. Check it out.

Adobe does AI

I know, I know, more Abode stuff. I’ll keep it quick(ish).

PetaPixel reminds us that, “the vast majority of working photographers are using AI to help save them time, handling tedious tasks that aren’t necessarily all that creative.” Adobe’s latest updates address that:

AI removal tools now have flavors, including on-device if needed.
- Lightroom’s AI Sharpen tool can now use Topaz Labs’ Noise-Aware Sharpen model directly in the app. This promises to recover fine details more effectively, per Adobe. (More on Topaz below.) 👍
- Lightroom’s Assisted Culling automatically stacks similar images into groups and automatically suggests the “strongest one.” 👎
- Lightroom has a new Photo to Video feature that uses Firefly and Google Veo to turn a still photo into “polished b-roll or reels with AI-generated motion.” 👎
- Photoshop’s reflection removals are now isolated on a separate layer, “giving users control over opacity for more natural-looking results,” according to PetaPixel. 👍
- Photoshop’s Remove Tool, which uses generative AI to erase a selected object and replace it with realistic-looking pixels, can now be used offline using an on-device AI model. 👍
Get the full story at PetaPixel.

The agentic AI “assistant” might — or might not — be good. (Subscribers pay $$ for it, so….)

Meanwhile, Adobe’s promised “creative agent” — ’cause agentic AI — has “fully arrived” in Creative Cloud, PetaPixel writes. “Inside Premiere, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, and Frame.io, users can tell Adobe’s Firefly-powered AI Assistant how to edit photos, videos, and other graphics.” It runs in a panel, like having Chat GPT or Claude right in the app.

“As a creative, you remain in control, choosing what to hand off, what to refine and how to apply your taste, expertise and judgment to shape every editable outcome. These tools are built for how you’ve told us you actually work,” Adobe explains.

I’m going to have to try this one. Maybe. Someday.

Several days after the above items were debuted, Adobe purchased Topaz outright. It’ll “fully integrate Topaz’s [AI scaling] models across apps like Photoshop, Lightroom, and its AI image generator Firefly” — which should be a good thing.

Special bonus #3: In case AI-all-the-things is getting to you, there’s this:

“A ‘centaur’ describes a human augmented with a technology, like machine learning, or even just driving a car or using autocomplete,” ArsTechnica writes as part of an interview with Doctorow. “A reverse centaur ‘is a machine head on a human body, a person who is serving as a squishy meat appendage for an uncaring machine.’”

“Being a centaur is generally viewed as a positive thing; few people relish being a reverse centaur. And yet the AI industry….” Read the rest.

People

Jason Snell

Amongst the tech names I’ve know for what seems forever, Jason Snell’s is up there. He was first at MacUser, then Macworld, then hung out his own banner at Six Colors.

From Macworld: Jason Snell (highlighted) at the introduction of the iPod, 2001.

My first day on the job at Macworld, Apple was perilously close to going out of business. It was the fall of 1997, and Steve Jobs had returned to Apple and engineered the ejection of Gil Amelio as CEO, but there was no iMac yet, no visible turnaround in terms of products at all. Beyond the release of the iconic “Think Different” ad campaign, there was nothing.

Apple’s survival hung by a thread. Steve Jobs asked everyone to trust him. At Macworld Expo, he had enlisted Bill Gates — Bill Gates, of all people! — to help him instill belief in the world that Apple would find a way to survive.

The world was skeptical, to say the least. My family asked what job I thought I’d get once Apple went out of business.
—Jason Snell

Ah, the good old days. (I jest.) Hard to believe, but that was almost 30 years ago. Sheesh.

So long, in fact, that another milestone has passed: Jason’s left Macworld. Read the column. I’m glad he’ll be continuing with Six Colors, and am looking forward to his new podcast on Apple’s history, Designed in California.

David Hockney

I was familiar more than a fan, but it’s undeniable that the world has lost a character — something very ably underscored by the tribute illustrations posted at CreativeBoom:

Illustration by Nia Gould.

“From Bradford to Beverly Hills, Hockney’s bold colours and irrepressible joy for living inspired a generation. Here’s what they created in response to his passing,” they write. See the rest.

Om Malik

Early this month, Om released an essay for the times — and the ages:

Most people remember Pinocchio as a story about lying. The nose grows. You get caught. Lesson learned. But that reading misses almost everything Collodi was actually doing. The book is a close study of a society where deception has gone ambient, woven into every institution, every transaction. Courts punish victims. Authority figures perform competence without exercising it. Experts are decorative. Society holds together through spectacle and habit rather than accountability. Into this environment, a naive creature is released, constitutionally unable to resist a good story about easy reward.

The nose is the least interesting lie in the book. The interesting lies are the ones that work.
— Om Malik, om.co (Via Daring FIreball.)

Okay, sure, it was social commentary cleverly disguised as an essay about a pen. This Mont Blanc, in fact:

The point is, it was as insightful as ever. (See also the previously-cited “Velocity is the New Authority.”) It was immediately deposited in the to-be-posted folder. Before I could could get to that, however, heart disease snatched him away. He was 59.

I first heard via Pixel Envy, which linked to Om’s excellent photographs posted to Glass (social media),¹ and, later, appreciated John Gruber’s thoughtful piece at Daring Fireball.

Both reminded me of Om’s love of Leica and preference for black-and-white:

“Sleepy in Seattle.” Photograph by Om Malik.

“Does This Qualify as Flora?” Photograph by Om Malik.

Or almost-black-and-white:

Untitled. Photograph by Om Malik.

See a few more, called “Selects,” at Om’s personal photography site.

Special bonus #4: The day after Om’s Pinocchio essay, above, Daring Fireball posted on Jason Zweig’ on’s three ways to get paid. I won’t spoil it — just go read.

Photography

2026 Beaker Street Science Photography finalists

“This is the 10th anniversary of the Australian Beaker Street Festival. Each year, the competition celebrates fantastic photos of rare and unusual scientific phenomena, endangered species, conservation missions, and much more,” PetaPixel writes.

Some of these are awesome:

“Southern Ocean Energy.” Photograph by Nick Green.

“Just Another Bioluminescent Tantrum.” Photograph by Deni Cupit.

26 finalists in all. See the rest (and, if you’d like, vote at the link).

2026 Australian Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year shortlist

This contest takes entries from the majestic Australasian Realm, including the ANZANG bioregion consisting of Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, and New Guinea, and to quote PetaPixel, “there are some real bangers on there.”

“Bin Turkey.” Photograph by Emma Perry.

“Penguin Poe.” Photograph by Matt Bell.

Nature in all its marvelously diverse glory. See the rest.

Burton’s America

I’m surprised I haven’t linked to Brendon Burton’s work before, ’cause it’s right up my alley:

Traces #10. Photograph by Brendon Burton.

Traces #6. Photograph by Brendon Burton.

His second book, Epitaph, “is a series that attempts to unravel the knot of mystery that exists within the dark corners of North America, shedding light on unseen histories and buried past lives.”

See more. (Via This is Colossal.)

Landscapes three-fer

• Travel and nature photographer Jake Guzman has spent the past two years creating Otherworldly America, his new 256-page photography book:

“Picture Lake Washington.” Photograph by Jake Guzman.

“Richardson Highway, Alaska.” Photograph by Jake Guzman.

• Arpan Das has fallen in love with the Kishtwar Himalaya in the Jammu and Kashmir region, part of the Indian Himalayas:

“Barnaj Rainbow.” Photograph by Arpan Das.

• Michael Shainblum photographs the volatile, weather-driven landscapes of New Zealand with “a body of work shaped less by fixed composition and more by responsiveness to constant change”:

“New Zealand #19.” Photograph by Michael Shainblum.

“New Zealand #40.” Photograph by Michael Shainblum.

All three are via PetaPixel: Jake Guzman, Apran Das, and a longer feature on Michael Shainblum.

Finally: soothing surf

“Venice Beach: Dreamy #3.” Photograph by Craig Hubbard.

Hubbard’s photos are ethereal and cinematic, with surfers and wave crests illuminated by the early morning sun or backdropped by the marine layer. Sometimes the intense spray, curl, shoulder, or lip become the sole subjects of the portraits. “The water is the muse and artist,” Hubbard recently told an interviewer. “I’m just a biased translator and documentarian. Lastly, my ego relaxes in the ocean; the need to peacock recedes. This is where my best work comes from — or favorite, I should say.”
— Kate Mothes, This is Colossal

“Venice Beach: Dreamy #9.” Photograph by Craig Hubbard.

See more at This is Colossal.

That’s it for this month. As always, thanks for visiting.

For folks in the US, have a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend as America turns 250. Let’s hope that we can make it a better place.

Also: Please don’t forget to let me know of any problems or concerns with the new site. I’ve got a list of items — going to work on them now — but always welcome feedback. Thanks.
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  Forgive the repetition, but just in case: I don’t participate in social media. While I’d heard of Glass, I didn’t know of Om’s posts there — and wouldn’t have followed in any case. Perusing those photos, and posting that link, are a one-off celebrating Om’s talent. ↩︎
June 30, 2026
Beautifully Briefed 26.1: Finding What’s Needed
We’re setting into our third snow of the season here in Georgia, an extraordinary event even in a world where “normal” doesn’t seem to happen all that often any more. Thankfully, there are still gems, waiting to be discovered. Hopefully you’ll find several in the links below.

Note: The site was offline for several hours mid-month due entirely to my mismanaging an update; the backups took a minute and didn’t restore the plug-ins, so it wound up being rough around the edges for a couple of days. If you visited — or tried to — during that time, apologies.

Favorite book covers of 2025, and more

If you’ve not seen, set aside a few minutes to enjoy:

Cover design by Jack Smyth.

More than a hundred examples of book design greatness, with commentary, for the fifth year in a row. Bring a beverage.

But wait, there’s more:

Cover design by Oliver Munday.

LitHub has posted a summary of the last decade of their favorites, too. Whew!

Cover design by Alicia Tatone.

Special bonus #1: Our Culture has a feature on seven book designers to watch in 2026. None will be a surprise to regular readers, although Alicia Tatone hasn’t been highlighted here as much as she deserves (she had three cover designs, including Dusk, in the runners-up folder for my ’25 favorites, but didn’t appear in the final list).

This month’s Spine

Meanwhile, over at Spine, my monthly column on University Press goodness has been posted, including this:

Cover design by Kat Lynch for the University Press of Kentucky.

Walker, FYI, was the first Black person to be named Kentucky Poet Laureate and coined the term, “Affrilachia.”

More from the design department

Heller on Roy Kuhlman

Steven Heller’s column in PRINT is always fantastic, but some introduce designers more of us should know by name — this time, Roy Kuhlman:

Cover design by Roy Kulhman.

“He designed almost exclusively for the edgy indie Grove Press, defining its list of literary, critical, philosophical and politically radical nonfiction titles,” Heller writes, discussing a new retrospective (that he wrote the introduction for):

Many of his abstractions tested the reader’s perception. His lexicon of kinetic, morphing shapes was usually rendered in flat colors with painterly and collage randomness. They could stand on their own. But usually, to make them functional, he used simple sans serif or elegant classic serif typefaces; fitting the abstract nature of his manner, he’d frequently draw or paint hand-scrawled titles and subsidiary texts. Much of his work employed two or three colors, as opposed to four-color process — and he was more than adept with limitations.

— Steven Heller, PRINT

Very cool. See the rest.

January typeface favorites

Speaking of CreativeBoom, their regular feature on new typefaces has several that I like. Let’s start with the elegant Appeal, by new foundry We Type:

Next up, the old-style, almost-evokes-needlepoint Bárur, by MNDT Type:

Another new foundry, Designomatt, brings us the neat and “unpretentiously functional” Stróc:

The last to highlight is probably my favorite of the bunch, this cool and well-executed script called Pennline, from The Northern Block. It’s a “meticulous resurrection of Bulletin — a script first cast in 1899 by Philadelphia’s Keystone Type Foundry — demonstrat[ing] how historical preservation and contemporary utility can coexist when approached with respect and imagination.”

See ’em all — type joke intended — at CreativeBoom.

Faber Editions: just my type

It’s Nice That has a great feature on the new — actually, newly-revisited — Faber Edition titles, with their primarily type-driven cover designs:

“In an industry that can often be focused on newness, Faber Editions is a great reminder of the groundbreaking literature that’s come before us, and a clear indicator of the importance of the artwork the words sit within,” writes Olivia Hingley.

Cover design by Bill Bragg.

Faber is a UK publisher, so while these covers could be excellent because they’re British — see several examples of the US vs. UK titles in the favorites post — I’m just going to call the style interesting, the “look” of the complete series compelling, and the resulting work excellent. Read on.

Special bonus #2: “The graphic trends you’ll want to bookmark for 2026,” also from It’s Nice That. In short: lo-fi, anti-trends continue:

© Maya Valencia & Sydney Maggin, Phase Zero NYC, via It’s Nice That.

In other words, if AI struggles with it — if it’s authentic — it could be a winner. See the specifics.

Special bonus #3: “AI isn’t the enemy. Our lack of nuance is,” Liz Seabrook writes at CreativeBoom. “The most powerful response is being more human.”

Life in ’26: DDOS? Or Just Velocity?

A few days apart, two new essays caught my attention and wound up feeling relevant enough — significant enough — that I wanted to share. They’re new takes on where we’re at, or, the specifics of “how.”

The first is from new-to-me author Joan Westenberg, discussing a computer term called the Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack:

[The] attack works by exhausting resources. It doesn’t need to be clever. It just needs to be overwhelming. The target’s defenses are simply overrun. The server can’t distinguish between legitimate requests and attack traffic because, in a sense, all the traffic is legitimate. The attack succeeds when the system has spent so much energy processing requests that it can no longer serve its actual function.

— Joan Westenberg, “The Discourse is a DDOS”

Does that sound like it might apply to life in the ’Twenties? Yeah.

The old media ecosystem had gatekeepers, and those gatekeepers were often stupid or corrupt, but at least the stupidity and corruption were bounded. There were only so many column inches in the New York Times, only so many minutes of evening news. A finite supply of attention-worthy items existed, and someone had to decide which ones made the cut. That selection process was biased and imperfect, but it performed an important function: it told you, implicitly, that you didn’t have to have an opinion about everything. Most things that happened in the world weren’t important enough to make it into your awareness at all. Local political disputes in New South Wales? Nobody in Washington DC gave a [crap], and vice-versa. This was as close to optimal as we’ve ever got.

But the gatekeeping function has now been distributed across millions of individual users, each of whom can boost any piece of content into viral prominence if it happens to resonate with the right combination of tribal anxieties and engagement incentives. The feed is infinite, and every slot in the feed is optimized to make you feel something strongly enough that you’ll engage with it. Outrage works, and so does fear. Disgust works, and righteousness really[…] works. Nuance and careful reasoning don’t work at all, because by the time you’ve finished a thought that begins with “Well, it’s complicated…” someone else has already posted a much simpler take that makes people feel validated, and the algorithm has moved on.

— Joan Westenberg, “The Discourse is a DDOS”

Om Malik, long-time in-the-trenches tech nerd (and fellow Leica enthusiast), completely agrees:

Authority used to be the organizing principle of information, and thus the media. You earned attention by being right, by being first in discovery, or by being big enough to be the default. That world is gone. The new and current organizing principle of information is velocity.

What matters now is how fast something moves through the network: how quickly it is clicked, shared, quoted, replied to, remixed, and replaced. In a system tuned for speed, authority is ornamental. The network rewards motion first and judgment later, if ever. Perhaps that’s why you feel you can’t discern between truths, half-truths, and lies.

— Om Malik, “Velocity Is the New Authority. Here’s Why.”

Westenberg has a suggestion I wholeheartedly recommend:

What I do know is that the feeling of being overwhelmed, of never being able to keep up, of having strong opinions about everything and confident understanding of nothing, is not a personal failing. It’s a predictable response to an impossible situation. Your brain is being DDoS’d, and the fact that you’re struggling to think clearly under that onslaught is evidence that your brain is working normally. The servers aren’t broken. They’re overloaded. And until we figure out how to reduce the load or increase the bandwidth, the best any of us can do is recognize what’s happening and try, when possible, to step away from the flood long enough to do some actual thinking.— Joan Westenberg, “The Discourse is a DDOS”

“Find one topic,” she says, and start there. Get with experts, get evidence, get uncomfortable, actually get into it … but just get into that one.

And stay true to the idea that it shouldn’t — can’t — get away from you.

I get some feedback for my lack of participation in social media. I don’t hate social media; if anything, the past few weeks of ~~mayhem~~ organized resistance in Minneapolis proves it has a place. But I long ago heeded advice to narrow my focus. Instead of burying my head in the sand — tempting though it may be at times — I choose to concentrate on those things that a) really hold interest and b) things I actually want to be part of my life.

Both of these essays summarize the situation well, and both offer insights on how we got here. Westenberg’s offers good advice. When you have a spare few minutes, read both.

(DDOS article via Doc Searls, whom I don’t link to often enough. Om’s article via Daring Fireball.)

Wikipedia turns 25

Let’s please turn to something that the Internet does right.

Whenever I worry about where the Internet is headed, I remember that this example of the collective generosity and goodness of people still exists. There are so many folks just working away, every day, to make something good and valuable for strangers out there, simply from the goodness of their hearts. They have no way of ever knowing who they’ve helped. But they believe in the simple power of doing a little bit of good using some of the most basic technologies of the internet.

— Anil Dash, “Wikipedia At 25: What The Web Can Be”

“When Wikipedia launched 25 years ago today, I heard about it almost immediately, because the Internet was small back then, and I thought ‘Well… good luck to those guys,’” Dash writes.¹ But it’s grown into something something amazing: the encyclopedia that’s free in every sense of the word.

One of the YouTube shorts published by Wikimedia Foundation.

Like countless others, I value being a contributor, in an incredibly small way, to the collective effort that is Wikipedia. Indeed, editors “span continents, professions and motivations,” a CreativeBoom article writes. “Together, their stories underline that, even in an age of AI, knowledge is still human and it still needs humans.”

“The site is still amongst the most popular sites on the web,” Dash agrees. “[B]igger than almost every commercial website or app that has ever existed. There’s never been a single ad promoting it. It has unlocked trillions of dollars in value for the business world, and unmeasurable educational value for multiple generations of children.”

Of course, all is not perfect. Like Universities, DEI, and whatever else, Wikipedia has become a target; Grokipedia, for instance, exists specifically to undermine Wiki’s centrality and success. (And, it’s important to note, Groki used Wiki as a basis … because it’s open and freely available. No hypocrisy.)

In fact, so many rely on Wikipedia that access has become a thing. Luckily, some large enterprise users of the site have recognized that the trillions they’ve earned as a result of having access to Wiki’s collective knowledge is worth paying for:

[T]he Wikimedia Foundation announced API access deals with Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, Perplexity, and Mistral AI, expanding its effort to get major tech companies to pay for high-volume API access to Wikipedia content, which these companies use to train AI models like Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT. […] In April 2025, the foundation reported that bandwidth used for downloading multimedia content had grown 50 percent since January 2024, with bots accounting for 65 percent of the most expensive requests to core infrastructure despite making up just 35 percent of total pageviews.

— Benj Edwards, Ars Technica (15 Jan 2026)

Anil Dash best finishes up: “Twenty-five years later, all of the evidence has shown that they really have changed the world.” I couldn’t agree more.

Happy 25 to Wikipedia. May there be countless more.

Special bonus #4: In an excellent article, Ars calls 2025 “the year AI came back down to Earth.” And while we’re on the subject of excellence, Cory Doctorow’s essay for The Guardian applies.

Cory Doctorow in The Guardian.

Follow-up: BMW Alpina and Honda formalize logos

Alpina, for formerly-independent tuner — re-manufacturer, really — of BMW cars (and SUVs), has, as of the first of this year, officially become a division of BMW, akin to MINI or Rolls-Royce. With it comes a new logo.

Well, at least, this:

Conservative, cool, collected. Definitely part of a bigger corporation now.

That’s slightly different that what I covered back in June of 2023; the “A” is less dramatic, probably for the better. BMW calls the new logo “calm and confident,” saying the upcoming models will “master performance and comfort.”

[Alpina] recently entered into an agreement to be purchased by BMW itself, not unlike AMG becoming part of Mercedes-Benz; starting in 2026, they 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.

— Beautifully Briefed, June 2023

Here’s the old logo, for reference:

Alpina’s now-old logo: exhaust and crankshaft, sir. Nuthin’ like it.

And: they’re going to update the wheels!

Photo via BMW Blog.

As someone who’s become much more familiar with Alpina in the ten years I’ve owned BMWs, these wheels are iconic. Here’s the existing version, on one of my favorite pieces of unobtainium:

Photo via BMW Blog.

That’s a 2016 Aplina B4 BiTurbo Coupé, by the way. Not quite my favorite B3 Touring, but in either case, “drool” doesn’t quite cover it. (Neither were available in the States.)

Curious to see whether this is successful. Expectations are high.

The “old” H logo, shown on a 1971 600. (See wiki for more info.)

Meanwhile, Honda initially said — and I reported, two years ago — that their new, slightly-retro “H” logo would be limited to electric cars. Of course, electric as a strategy has changed; they decided this month to make it official for all their cars.

Motorsports, too. Here’s their F1 engine with the new logo:

Photo via The Drive.

I love that both Honda and BMW are, at their heart, engineering companies.

Get the full story on BMW Alpina at Dezeen or BMW Blog (logo, wheels). Honda’s details are available at The Drive (logo, F1) or The Autopian, where you can enjoy some sharp commentary on Honda’s press release.

January photography round-up

2025 Architecture Master Prize

“Arbour House.” Photograph by Younes Bounhar (Interior Architecture).

I suppose it’s no surprise that an architectural photography selection tops this round-up, but the annual Architecture Photography MasterPrize highlights “compelling perspectives on buildings, cities, landscapes, and interior spaces, revealing the rich visual language of the built environment.”

In other words, “catnip.”

“Details (Series).” Photograph by Guanhong Chen (Other Architecture).

“Details (Series).” Photograph by Guanhong Chen (Other Architecture).

There’s a huge variety of winning photographs, from professionals, amateurs, and students alike — all excellent. (They have awards for designs, firms, and products, as well.)

“Mustras,” Sardinia. Photograph by Barbara Corsico (Exterior Architecture).

I can’t possibly cover them all, but can provide links: photography winners, honorable mentions, student winners, and winners by country. Both Archinect and PetaPixel have stories. Enjoy!

Two photographers, highlighted

Photography by Dennis Lehtonen.

Neither drone images nor folks who primarily post to social media usually get featured here, but these images of Greenland are both timely and excellent. This is Colossal has a great selection of items from photographer Dennis Lehtonen.

“From Alps to Andromeda.” Photograph by Tom Rae.

“My photography style is rooted in landscape and night photography, with an emphasis on atmosphere, scale, and a strong sense of place. I’m drawn to environments that feel raw, remote, and otherworldly,” Tom Rae relates to PetaPixel. Otherworldly feels just right: good stuff.

Society of Photographers’ Photographer of the Year 2025

Photograph by Terry Donnelly.

I also usually don’t cover documentary-style photography — see narrow focus, discussed above — but there were several documentary-style photographs in this set of award winners that were excellent, including this Medivac flight from the UK.

However — thankfully — there were more categories:

Photograph by Mark Scicluna.

It’s the winner in the “travel” category, because apparently they don’t have one called “dramatically soothing.” No matter the labelling, see the rest of the winners at PetaPixel or head over to the Society’s website for more.

Finally: some cats

Speaking of catnip, let’s close out with something that purrs — in soprano:

Let’s not go ’round and ’round: that deserves framing. Or at least publication. Thankfully, Phiadon has you covered:

A “whimsical visual survey of the house cat in art and popular culture, exploring humanity’s enduring connection to one of our most loved animal companions.” Awesome. (Via This is Colossal.)

Have a great February, everyone!
- 1
  I, too, remember those days of a small Internet — not a young person anymore. While I miss the community it felt like, the resources available today, of which Wiki might be at the fore, are without parallel. ↩︎
January 31, 2026
Beautifully Briefed 25.12: Old and New

To close out 2025, a bunch of disparate items for your edification and enjoyment: the usual categories plus some stuff imported from left-field. Get caffeinated, get comfy, and let’s get to it.

Please note that the photography trip planned for mid-December had to be cancelled at the last minute — circumstances beyond my control — and hasn’t yet been rescheduled. Apologies.

December’s Spine

Stanford University Press. Cover design by Jan Šabach; art director, Michele Wetherbee.

Fourteen great University Press book covers in December’s column, including the genre-bending example above. Check it out.

December 25th: designer holiday cards

Charles and Ray Eames, 1940s. (Image credit: © 2025 Eames Office, LLC. All rights reserved. Via Wallpaper*.)

“Long live the Christmas card — a ritual that feels increasingly endangered in our digital age. The simple act of putting pen to paper and sending wishes inked in black or blue is, in a word of instant messages, profoundly gratifying,” Wallpaper* writes. “In celebrating this venerable tradition, we found ourselves asking: what sort of Christmas card does an architect send?”

January 1st: Public Domain Day

Image courtesy of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain, Duke Law.

On January 1, 2026, thousands of copyrighted works from 1930 enter the US public domain, along with sound recordings from 1925. They will be free for all to copy, share, and build upon. The literary highlights range from William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying to Agatha Christie’s The Murder at the Vicarage and the first four Nancy Drew novels. From cartoons and comic strips, the characters Betty Boop, Pluto (originally named Rover), and Blondie and Dagwood made their first appearances. Films from the year featured Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, the Marx Brothers, and John Wayne in his first leading role. Among the public domain compositions are I Got Rhythm, Georgia on My Mind, and Dream a Little Dream of Me. We are also celebrating paintings from Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee. [In this post] you can find lists of some of the most notable books, characters, comics, and cartoons, films, songs, sound recordings, and art entering the public domain. After each of them, we have provided an analysis of their significance.
— Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle, Duke Law

The annual list is, in every manner of speaking, a gift to society. (Via Pluralistic.)

Has judging a book by its cover gone too far?

Cover design by David Pearson.

Excellent question from It’s Nice That, discussed in a post with book designers Na Kim and David Pearson. Book covers these days are driven by trends that are all-too-fleeting — what does that mean for what’s contained within? Is “salability” all that matters?

Perhaps the question should be, “Where are we as a society, and is this it, in microcosm?”

Special Bonus #1: 100 Notable Small Press Books of 2025, from LitHub:

A reminder that press size and cover quality do not necessarily correlate — as noted in the above item, small presses might be willing to bend the “rules” more readily than the big players.

“Our guiding principles were ‘read a lot, recommend a few’ and ‘seek out a diverse array of authors and publishers,’” they write. “We were especially interested in BIPOC and LGBTQ authors and publishers, who have an even steeper climb to mainstream recognition.” Enjoy.

Special Bonus #2: Bar codes as design objects:

This short piece from type foundry Pangram Pangram includes several book covers.

CreativeBoom: six surprising illustration trends for 2026

A linocut by Emily Robertson.

Contrary to popular belief, illustration — like photography — is not on its deathbed. Despite the temptation for some companies (or budgets) to reach for generative AI, the consensus is that in order to stand out, bringing something unique to the table will be worth the effort. CreativeBoom talked to seven illustration agencies to get an idea what will work in 2026.

Special Bonus #3: A repository of mid-20th-century illustration, for research or just enjoyment: “Illustrator Zara Picken has an incredible searchable archive of mid-century modern illustration from c.1950-1975. It’s a goldmine of graphic, type, color, and texture inspiration.”

Smokey the Bear stamps from 1967.

Zara’s illustrations are in a cut-paper style and awesome; link via SimpleBits Studio Notes #60. (The entire series of Notebook entries is cool when you have a few extra minutes.)

Creative Review‘s movie posters of 2025

Poster by Empire Design.

Begonia was mentioned in October. A couple are by Empire Design, including the above — which is a master class in nested photographs. (“Claustrophobic,” CR says.) Great stuff.

Typefaces, pt. 1: notes for December

Snowee

CreativeBoom‘s new font post for December includes Snowee, which is far and away my favorite: interesting, characterful (heh), and just fun — something lacking amongst the sea of Helvetica wannabes.

It’s caps-only and not great at small sizes, but given a headline or poster or … whatever, it could be a pleasant, different choice. (I love that the O looks like an olive.)

LEGO’s letterforms

Meanwhile, LEGO features in a new project called “A2Z,” an international effort to create letterforms highlighting strength found in limited systems:

LEGO “offered an ideal blend of fixed constraints and room for playful exploration. Each brick’s scale and form could not be altered, but the grid’s size could be individually defined,” This is Colossal writes of this hand-printed awesomeness.

Gotham

From Tobias Frere-Jones, the story of how Gotham came to be:

Tobias Frere-Jones‘ inspiration for Gotham.

“In 2021, Monotype bought Hoefler & Co, and with it several families that I designed. As these families are now further removed from their origin, I want to ensure that their stories are accurately recorded,” Frere-Jones says. (Part of a series, in fact.)

The Garamonds

Lastly (for now), John Gruber’s Daring Fireball is among many who point out that condensed serifs are back in vogue, including — naturally, given the source — Apple Garamond:

It’s TrueType, but now open source.

Gruber also reminds us that Apple’s gone through more processor types than typefaces.

Special Bonus #4: Gruber also has a quick item linking to a brilliant essay arguing that not all Garamonds are created equal — ITC’s version, especially. (Which Apple Garamond was based on, interestingly.)

Special Bonus #5: Who doesn’t love a Pilcrow?

Hoefler & Co’s brief item is worth it for the varied examples alone.

Fonts, pt. 2: the Calibri flame-out

Let’s face it: type rarely generates headlines. But these aren’t “normal” times. Headlines were definitely made when the US State Department decided that its house style rules ditch Calibri, a font chosen to be more readable — more inclusive — and revert to Times New Roman. Because … tradition? Politics? Readability?

Let’s stipulate for the moment that the memo’s drafters saw choices as limited to the defaults available in Microsoft Word. (Because … you saw that coming.)

John Gruber was all over it, and argued thus:

While neither is a good choice, between the two, Times New Roman is clearly better. […] I just think it’s stupid for an institution with the resources of the U.S. State Department to shrug its shoulders at the notion that they should license and install whatever fonts they want on all of their computers. Anyone making excuses that they “can’t” do that should be fired. […]

Calibri does convey a sense of casualness — and more so, modernity — that is not appropriate for the U.S. State Department. And I do not buy the argument that Calibri is somehow more accessible for those with low vision or reading disabilities. People with actual accessibility needs should be catered to, but they need more than a sans serif typeface, and their needs should not primarily motivate the choice for the default typeface.

— John Gruber, Daring Fireball

But he didn’t stop there. He somehow got his hands on the complete memo written by Secretary of State Rubio, and it’s … surprisingly sober. Gruber comments:

It drives me nuts when news sites in possession of a statement or original document do not make the full original text available, even if only in a link at the bottom, and choose only to quote short excerpts.

With regard to today’s news regarding Marco Rubio’s directive re-establishing Times New Roman as the default font for U.S. State Department documents (rescinding the Biden administration’s 2023 change to Calibri), I very much wanted to read the original. The New York Times broke the news, stated that they had obtained the memo, and quoted phrases and words from it, but they did not provide a copy of the original.

The State Department has not made this document publicly available, and to my knowledge, no one else has published it. I have obtained a copy from a source, and have made it available here in plain text format. The only change I’ve made is to replace non-breaking spaces (U+00A0) with regular spaces.

Please do read it yourself, and do so with an open mind.

It seems clear to me that The New York Times did Rubio dirty in their characterization of the directive. The Times story, credited to reporters Michael Crowley and Hamed Aleaziz, ran under the headline “At State Dept., a Typeface Falls Victim in the War Against Woke.”

— John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Engagement sells?

Wallpaper*, a UK publication I generally enjoy (and cite elsewhere in this post), is one of many examples where a chosen narrative framed the piece. However, they did one thing to help: they introduced us to Calibri’s designer:

Lucas de Groot, font designer.

His comments, directly quoted (from HackerNews — sorry — but also via DF):

The decision to abandon Calibri on the grounds of it being a so-called “wasteful diversity font” is both amusing and regrettable. Calibri was specifically designed to enhance readability on modern computer screens and was selected by Microsoft in 2007 to replace Times New Roman as the default font in the Office suite. There were sound reasons for moving away from Times: Calibri performs exceptionally well at small sizes and on standard office monitors, whereas serif fonts like Times New Roman tend to appear more distorted. While serif fonts are well-suited to high-resolution displays, such as those found on modern smartphones, on typical office screens the serifs introduce unnecessary visual noise and can be particularly problematic for users with impaired vision, such as older adults.

Professional typography can be achieved with both serif and sans-serif fonts. However, Times New Roman—a typeface older than the current president—presents unique challenges. Originally crafted in Great Britain for newspaper printing, Times was optimised for paper, with each letterform meticulously cut and tested for specific sizes. In the digital era, larger size drawings were repurposed as models, resulting in a typeface that appears too thin and sharp when printed at high quality.

Serif fonts are often perceived as more traditional, but they are also more demanding to use effectively. While a skilled typographer can, in theory, produce excellent results with Times, using it in its default digital form is not considered professional practice.

— Lucan de Groot, LucasFonts

I don’t know whether there’s much needed beyond that takedown. Okay, maybe this:

[Y]ou can still make good typography with system fonts. But choose wisely. And never choose Times New Roman or Arial, as those fonts are favored only by the apathetic and sloppy. Not by typographers. Not by you.

— Matthew Butterick, “Typography in Ten Minutes”

In case all you encountered were the headlines, now you know there was more to the story.

See also: The Scourge of Arial, A Brief History of Times New Roman, and Typefaces for Dyslexia, all from Daring Fireball, and The Guardian‘s fun Calibri: Is this Really the World’s Wokest Font?

While I’m at it: word of the year

Getty stock image, made awesome with brown.

Merriam-Webster announced that “slop” is its 2025 Word of the Year, reflecting how the term has become shorthand for the flood of low-quality AI-generated content that has spread across social media, search results, and the web at large. The dictionary defines slop as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.”

“It’s such an illustrative word,” Merriam-Webster President Greg Barlow told The Associated Press. “It’s part of a transformative technology, AI, and it’s something that people have found fascinating, annoying, and a little bit ridiculous.”

To select its Word of the Year, Merriam-Webster’s editors review data on which words rose in search volume and usage, then reach consensus on which term best captures the year.

— Benj Edwards, Ars Technica

I’d like to suggest an alternative: “brown.”

Brown is the color you don’t want to be in the U.S. right now, lest you face legalized discrimination, illegal arrest — or worse. Brown is the color of the FUD the “Health Department” employs to prevent use of lifesaving treatments and vaccines. Brown is the substance, or lack thereof, the United States exports worldwide in the place of aid, education, fairness, or leadership. Brown is the color of the ink the Supreme Court uses to write opinions stripping people of their rights. Brown is the color of the flag a supine Congress continues to wave, surrendering its authority. Brown is the color of everything that comes from the stool-sample spectacular otherwise known as the U.S. Executive. And, of course, brown is today’s engagement-driven social media, a fecosystem of algorithms and AI built to exploit people for profit.

Red Scare? Been there, done that. Welcome to the new.

The Brown Scare.

[/soapbox]

Briefly: Jaguar

On multiple occasions, I predicted that JLR might actually succeed at making something interesting out of Jaguar — in the face of, well, the Internet. They’re still working on it:

The actual new Jaguar previewed by the Type 00 concept.

Alas, the world has changed around them; EVs are no longer what they were, and basing a new, ultra-high-end product line exclusively around an EV platform might not work out quite the way they’d hoped.

“Are we seeing the back of Jaguar?” Wallpaper* asks.

Frankly, the pullback from EVs is beyond stupid — ask anyone who owns one — but then, “stupid” is something to be proud of these days. (I know: soapbox. Sorry.)

What’s important regarding Jaguar at this moment in time is, supposedly, the company has pulled so far back that it fired its chief designer, Gerry McGovern.

Or not. There are questions.

Professor Gerry McGovern, OBE, in 2021.

“It’s long been rumoured that McGovern was personally liked by Ratan Tata, who ran JRL’s parent company,” The Drive quotes. “Mr. Tata passed away last year, leaving Autocar India to speculate that ‘key support’ for Mr. McGovern may have waned in the corporate titan’s absence.”

That was on December 2nd. On the 15th, rumors started circulating that the news stories weren’t correct: Jaguar has reportedly stated it’s “untrue” that McGovern was “terminated.”

Time will tell.

Special Bonus #6: How ’bout a mash-up? Cars and type: Volvo has a new corporate font, Centum, designed “with safety in mind.” (Naturally.) Dezeen has the story.

December’s photography round-up

A royal competition

Runner-up, “Between Auroras and Dawn — A South Pole Sunrise After the Longest Night on Earth.” Photograph by Aman Chokshi.

See the winners of the Royal Society Publishing Photography Competition 2025, ten images that showcase “the best scientific photography worldwide across multiple categories, celebrating the overlap between compelling art and influential science.” (Via PetaPixel.)

Nature’s best science photos of 2025

“Rings of Fire,” lenticular clouds, Villarrica volcano, Chile. Photography by Francisco Negroni.

Nature’s annual picks for favorite science photography reflect a diverse range that’s always worth checking out. While it includes the skydiving image covered briefly last month without appropriate comment, the others delight (especially the sloth). Props, too, for the excellent web design on show here.

International Landscape Photographer of the Year 2025

Three examples among the twenty winning — and astonishing and inspiring — images:

“Morning in Dolomites,” Italy. Photography by Martin Morávek.

“Shiprock,” New Mexico. Photograph by Karol Nienartowicz.

“Starry Night.” Photograph by Joyce Bealer.

The rules of the competition state that all images must be taken by the photographer and AI-generated images of any kind are prohibited. Photographers are required to edit the images themselves as the competition “consider[s] this part of the art of landscape photography.” Nice.

The competition’s website is unfortunately offline as of this writing (Dec 31st), but see more at PetaPixel or This is Colossal.

Northern Lights Photographer of the Year 2025

“Arctic Rain,” Tromso, Norway. Photograph by Vincent Beudez.

“Capture the Atlas has unveiled the winners of its eighth annual Northern Lights Photographer of the Year contest, and the 15 award-winning photos […] are as beautiful as they are inspiring,” PetaPixel writes.

I remember lying on my back on the rocks by the Maine beach where I grew up, watching with wonder at the natural display. It’s a pleasure to revisit, however vicariously.

Otherworldly forest photos

Photograph by Michelle Blancke.

Photograph by Michelle Blancke.

“‘I’ve always been fascinated by the idea that our perceived reality is shaped by our minds and reflecting our inner world,’ says artist Michelle Blancke, whose ethereal photographs of trees, glens, and foliage invite us into a familiar yet uncanny world,” writes This is Colossal. Great stuff.

Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards 2025

“Now Which Direction Is My Nest,” United Kingdom. Photograph by Alison Tuck.

Have yourself a smile.

The “AI-inside” camera

At MacFilos, Andrew has a new piece of kit — an “unexpected trade deal benefit” — that’s capable of making all his images everything he’s ever dreamed of:

AI image generated by Andrew Owen-Price.

“May we all remain capable of laughing and smiling through these turbulent times,” he writes. Yes, please!

Wishing you a safe and happy New Year.

December 31, 2025
Beautifully Briefed 25.10: [Blank] of the Century
In this episode, design whims and wins, fontastic links, a Toyota Century, and the monthly round-up of great photography bracket some thoughts on — what else? — AI, especially as it relates to art. Grab a beverage, brush, or a comfy chair, and let’s dig in.

This Month’s Spine

New York University Press. Cover design by Devon Manney, art director, Rachel Perkins.

One could argue that this cover — and title — could work well even if the word “climate” was removed. See the whole list of University Press goodness.

And check back for a special, mid-month post in honor of University Press week, Nov. 10–14.

Good Movies as Old Books, Revisited

Let’s start with something great: Steven Heller highlights the “talent and imagination” of Matt Stevens (previously) as the paperback version of his book, Good Movies as Old Books, becomes available.

Cover design by Matt Stevens.

Cover design by Matt Stevens.

“My goal with the style was to try new things and create interesting combinations. Oftentimes, I was trying to do something that had not been done for a particular film,” Stevens says. Short and fun, the PRINT interview is worth a few minutes of your time.

Old-Fashioned Methods, Delightfully Off-Kilter Results

While we’re on the subject of movies, let’s slip closer to … well, what passes for reality these days: items “steeped in human anxieties and fever dreams.” It’s Nice That highlights poster and title design for films by Greek artist Vasilis Marmatakis.

Design by Vasilis Marmatakis.

With design, much like life itself, Vasilis says that his posters are his honest reactions to the films. The same approach runs like a red thread throughout his work, each poster leaning a little too heavily into one of the film’s themes. […] In Bugonia, Vasilis consciously restricts superfluous elements and allows the frames to breathe.
— Arman Kahn, It’s Nice That

Design by Vasilis Marmatakis.

Even the font — and how it’s used — is interesting: the freely-available Churchward Roundsquare, customized with brush and ink. That and much more is discussed in this great article.

New Vintage Classics Series

It’s unusual not to relish a new set of reissues from Vintage, and the new editions of Julio Cortázar are no exception:

Book design by Stephen Smith; art director, Suzanne Dean.

The always great — and not mentioned often enough — Casual Optimist has more.

Special Bonus #1: Via Kottke, Na Kim’s self-portrait:

Fascist Posters, Italian Style

Also via Kottke are these posters, which evoke a certain … something:

In a fascist movement inspired by art, how does the fascist government influence the artists living in its grasp? This exhibition explores how Benito Mussolini’s government created a broad-reaching culture that grew with and into the Futurist movement to claw into advertising, propaganda, and the very heart of the nation he commanded.
— Poster House exhibition The Future Was Then: The Changing Face of Fascist Italy.

The exhibit features “some of the best posters produced during the worst period in modern Italian history.” See more.

Special Bonus #2: While we’re perusing the poster department, Archinect‘s ongoing lecture series (previously) has another winner:

Fontastic Fall

New for October

CreativeBoom‘s monthly roundup is out, and while Grundtvig is retrotastic and the three-axis variable Pranzo is accompanied by some great illustrations, it’s Jovie that I’d love to use in print project:

“Jovie’s character emerges through its soft-serif approach, which tempers traditional serif authority with contemporary approachability. Playful italics, expressive alternates, swashes, and ligatures provide designers with a rich typographic palette, whilst maintaining coherent family relationships across all variations,” they note. (Another variable-width item, too.) Great stuff.

Custom Type is Everywhere, It Seems

Meanwhile, custom type for branding is becoming the norm. In another article, CreativeBoom explains why: “Bespoke letterforms are no longer a “nice-to-have” and they are increasingly seen as a strategic necessity[.] Type has become the glue that holds their voice together,” they write.

Those letters are your brand’s voice. They do the heavy lifting, they carry personality, and they create instant recognition – sometimes without the need for any other distinctive assets. […] Typography is everywhere in a brand system – packaging, products, campaigns, interfaces. When you build your own, you’re not at the mercy of someone else’s design choices, and you get a voice that’s tuned to your values, your audiences, and your long-term ambitions.
— Frankie Guzi, business director, Studio DRAMA.

Elizabeth Goodspeed (previously) agrees, mostly. “For most of the 20th century, branding treated typography as background, not backbone,” she writes. But now, brands are recognizing that, “[a]s a primary container for meaning, typography inevitably carries an enormous share of that emotional load.”

An exception to the rule: a type gem — with legs! — from 1971.

But, she cautions, “[s]peed also feeds a kind of conceptual shallowness. With so many studios drawing type, the market has been flooded with fonts that solve narrow visual problems but can’t stand up to long-term use. Too often, new brand fonts cling to a single gimmick while leaving the structure of the letters untouched.”

Read the rest at It’s Nice That.

AI All the things

The Oatmeal, penned by Matthew Inman, has some thoughts on AI.

The new-to-me FlowingData — via Kottke’s rolodex feature — first pointed me to this piece, and it’s gotten a ton of press. In summary, Inman suggests that AI art causes a certain discomfort; that, perhaps, AI art even deserves air quotes around the word art because it’s somehow less than “actual” art.

Indeed, much of that press has been approving: a pile-on of people (not that such things happen on the internet) saying, “yes, AI art deserves those air quotes. It is less.”

One of my favorite reactions was from Nick Heer:

A good question to ask when looking at an artwork is “who made this?”, and learning more about what motivated them and what influences they had. This is a vast opportunity for learning about art of all mediums, and it even applies to commercial projects. Sometimes I look up the portfolios of photographers I find on stock image sites; their non-stock work is often interesting and different. There is potential for asking both questions of A.I.-assisted works in the hands of interesting artists. But it is too often a tool used to circumvent the process entirely, producing work that has nothing to offer beyond its technical accomplishment.
— Nick Heer, Pixel Envy

“Who made this?” is the right question — to start. But let’s take that a step further.

John Gruber, at Daring Fireball, quotes the piece: “[When] I find out that it’s AI art[,] I feel deflated, grossed out, and maybe a little bit bored. This feeling isn’t a choice.” Then says that he fundamentally disagrees with that premise:

I think it very much is a choice. If your opinion about a work of art changes after you find out which tools were used to make it, or who the artist is or what they’ve done, you’re no longer judging the art. You’re making a choice not to form your opinion based on the work itself, but rather on something else. […] Stanley Kubrick said, “The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good.” If an image, a song, a poem, or video evokes affection in your heart, and then that affection dissipates when you learn what tools were used to create it, that’s not a test of the work of art itself. To me it’s no different than losing affection for a movie only upon learning that special effects were created digitally, not practically. Or whether a movie — or a photograph — was shot using a digital camera or on film. Or whether a novel was written using a computer or with pen and paper.
— John Gruber, Daring Fireball

“Good art is being made with AI tools, though, and more — much more — is coming,” he says. Over the next few days, he cited some examples, including David Hockney’s art made with a Xerox machine, and then this:

Jonathan Hoefler’s ongoing series, called Apocryphal Inventions.

The objects in the Apocryphal Inventions series are technical chimeras, intentional misdirections coaxed from the generative AI platform Midjourney. Instead of iterating on the system’s early drafts to create ever more accurate renderings of real-world objects, creator Jonathan Hoefler subverted the system to refine and intensify its most intriguing misunderstandings, pushing the software to create beguiling, aestheticized nonsense. Some images have been retouched to make them more plausible; others have been left intact, appearing exactly as generated by the software. The accompanying descriptions, written by the author, offer fictitious backstories rooted in historical fact, which suggest how each of these inventions might have come to be.

These images represent some of AI’s most intriguing answers to confounding questions — an inversion of the more urgent debate, in which it is humanity that must confront the difficult and existential questions posed by artificial intelligence.
— Jonathan Hoefler

“This is art,” Gruber says, with no other text. I don’t think any other is needed.

On a Related Note

This is AI.

“The top 200 photographers requested by Midjourney users have been exclusively revealed to PetaPixel — and it’s a world-famous, still active photographer that tops the list.” I bet you can guess who that is.

This is, in fact, the majority of what Inman was thinking — or at least, feeling — when he drew out an argument on why AI art can be such a let-down, both intellectually and emotionally. The above “photograph” is both awesome and hugely disappointing at the same time.

Further Reading

I’m not qualified to speak with any authority on the state or potential future of AI, AGI (artificial general intelligence), or the continuing convergence of AI with … well, all the things. I will say that, to me, there’s a palpable sense of bubble going on; whether financial, material, or resource requirements, it feels like something is going to need to give fairly soon.

Below are several articles on the intersection of AI with life, culture, or art that I found valuable. If you can set aside a few minutes, the information provided could be helpful in the quest to stay informed:
Side Note: I’ve dropped the punctuation in “AI.” Not unlike capitalizing “Internet,” I think we’ve crossed that bridge.

Special Bonus #3: AI apparently overuses em dashes, something that has, frankly, caused me to use them less. Which is a good thing — I overuse them. But then, I am a professional. [That’s only funny if you’ve read the link. —Ed.]

The Century Coupé Concept

Toyota (the company) has reorganized: there are now three levels. There’s Toyota (the car line), for the mass market; Lexus, Japan’s first answer to BMW et al from the late ’80s and also very much mass market (if targeted differently); and now, to compete in the ultra-high-end market, Century:

Long hood, imposing “grille” — trend, recycling, or cliché, depending on outlook.

The no-rear-window thing continues to grow in popularity. (For “cocooning.”) Hmph.

Powertrain is yet to be determined; the rumors suggest it’ll be available both with a combustion engine (possibly a V12) and electric drive. In the case of the latter, owners will, of course, be able to send their driver off to get the thing charged while they lunch or plot takeovers — no range anxiety here.

Century’s logo is a phoenix.

Car geeks will know that Toyota’s Century sedan model has been around forever. It’s always been badged as a Toyota, and is aimed at Japanese executives and members of state (and will, in fact, still be produced). It was joined a few years ago by a SUV that bears more than a passing resemblance to a Rolls-Royce Cullinan. Both existing Century models available only in Japan and China.

The 2025 Century SUV. That D-pillar absolutely “borrows” from the Cullinan.

Toyota has decided to make those three models into a new brand that’s just called, “Century.” It’s going to be set up with exclusive dealers, eventually be available worldwide, and compete with Bentley’s new EXP 15 (previously) and Rolls-Royce’s … everything.

And, of course, Jaguar. The elephant in the room get a mention here because it’s looking more and more like JLR made the right call in targeting one-percenters with out-there, vaguely coupe-like designs. Because if the Century SUV resembles a Cullinan, the new coupé concept looks like a cross between the Jaguar Type 00 concept and said Bentley:

The Bentley EXP15, top, with the Jaguar Type 00, bottom.

Very much unlike the Jag, which is low and could possibly be described as “sleek,” the Toyota has a higher stance; a coupé/sedan and SUV mix seems to be a new answer to the so-called “death of the sedan.” Volvo’s ES 90 might also apply here.

Bear in mind that I’m not talking about the coupé-style SUVs (BMW’s X6, for instance), which are a different animal — at least for now. It’s possible the whole class of “coupe-like things” might converge in the not-too-distant future.

That being said, a member of that new class of vehicle being aimed at the chauffeur-driven market is new.

The glass divider is to allow the chauffeured their privacy.

One more item: The old-school isn’t going quietly.

Did someone mention grille? (Lit, naturally.)

Leaving the hood long behind.

Mercedes is, arguably, the best (non-American manufacturer) at displaying “gangster” qualities. Oh, and check out the awesomely-retro interior:

Note the lack of screens amongst that vintage style. And yes, velour is “in.”

Read more about the Toyota (teaser or intro, both at The Drive) or Mercedes (The Drive, Wallpaper*).

Special Bonus #4: Audi poached the Type 00’s designer. His first showing is the Concept C, Audi’s return to form, called “radical simplicity.” It’s a cross between their sports-driven R8 and designer-driver TT:

Love the wheels. The grille less so (there have been dictator comparisons), and the lack of rear window not at all.

October’s Photography Round-Up

2x Film

Grays Fisheries, Bradford (UK), left standing during inner city slum clearance. Photograph by Ian Beesley, 1977.

From an interesting and moving feature at MacFilos, “Capturing the decline of industries and communities with a Leica M6”:

At my recent career retrospective exhibition “Life” at Salt’s Mill, Saltaire (a world heritage centre near Bradford, West Yorkshire, England), a man came to talk to me. He said, “You won’t remember me, but I remember you. I worked in a camera shop in Bradford, and you were always coming in to buy rolls of black and white film. It makes me so proud to think that the film I sold you created some of these wonderful photographs.”

I take this as a great compliment and a very moving one. It is one of the reasons why I decided to donate my entire archive of negatives, prints, notebooks (over 200,000 items) to Bradford City Art Galleries and Museums. I am hanging on to my Leica M6 for a bit longer, but at some point, it will be re-united with all the negatives it created.
— Ian Beesley, MacFilos

“Rocky Mountains On Wetplate Collodion,” Canada. Photograph by Bill Hao.

“The Analog Sparks 2025 International Film Photography Awards celebrate analog photography as a medium and elevate the best film photographers worldwide,” PetaPixel writes. Some excellent reminders that sometimes, the old ways are still the best ways.

Color and Pano

“Beholders No. 1.” Photograph by Li Sun.

“All About Photo Magazine unveiled the winners of its latest competition: Colors. The 25 prize-winning photographers demonstrate how powerful color can be in images, whether it’s vibrant, subtle, or minimal,” PetaPixel writes.

To be honest: at first, I thought this was a coin-operated binocular thing you see at attractions or overlooks, and laughed out loud. Alas, the laughter died away when I realized it was, in fact, CCTV — an overlook of an entirely different kind. I guess there’s a certain irony in the “face.”

The Mirror, Valencia, Spain. Photograph by Anto Camacho Villaneuva.

It is possible to recognize a Santiago Calatrava building immediately, with its soaring, often winged structures. (The World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York springs to mind, for instance.) This panoramic photograph captures two of them — nice.

A press release from Epson, the contest’s sponsor, notes that this year there was a “prevalence of ultra-wide panoramas and increasingly innovative perspectives, including very low angles, very close-up subjects, and aerial photography,” including the above. PetaPixel has more.

Birds and Wildlife

“Snowstorm,” Germany. Bronze Award, Best Portrait. Photograph by Luca Lorenz.

“The 2025 Bird Photographer of the Year gives a lesson in planning and patience,” This is Colossal writes about this year’s contest winners (specifically, regarding the photo seen at the right in the header image) — but getting the cold shot, above, wasn’t an easy thing either. (See also: PetaPixel‘s ~~plumage~~ article.)

“Ghost Town Visitor,” Kolmanskop, Namibia. Winner, Urban Wildlife and Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025. Photograph by Wim van den Heever.

From PetaPixel‘s coverage of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2025 contest: “Capturing the unusual intersection between nature and abandoned urban spaces, Wim’s photograph is a haunting yet captivating image of a brown hyena wandering through the skeletal remains of Kolmanskop, Namibia’s long-deserted diamond mining town. The shot was taken with a camera trap and is the result of a decade-long effort that began when Van den Heever first discovered the animal’s tracks at the site.” [Emphasis mine.] See This is Colossal‘s post, too.

Comedy and Dogs

To round out this month’s super-long post — thanks for bearing with me — something from the light-hearted department:

“It is tough being a duck.” Photograph by John Speirs.

“Bad Hair Day!” Photograph by Christy Grinton.

The Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, 2025 edition, brings us 40 … um, moments. Awesome. PetaPixel has all the winners.

“Suppertime,” winner of the Open category. Photograph by Katie Brockman.

“Good Boys and Girls,” PetaPixel barks, regarding the 2025 Dog Photographer of the Year. (In the name of equal-opportunity pet celebration, I chose one that includes cats.)

Have a great Halloween. If you’re in the US, be sure to vote, Tuesday, Nov. 4th. And, don’t forget to check back for the special Spine post, Nov. 10th. Thank you!
October 31, 2025
Beautifully Briefed 25.6: Spine

It’s hard to believe that 2025 is half over — but at the same time, the amount of water under the bridge in the first half of this year is quite astonishing. For those of us in the United States (indeed, worldwide), this year seems to rival the pandemic for necessary use of the word, “unprecedented.”

Therefore, your monthly dose of ~~sanity~~ great design and photography awaits. Enjoy.

University Presses Coverage on Spine

Spine is a regular stop for book designers everywhere. The site’s interviews with designers, authors and illustrators and especially their monthly book design faves are all items not to be missed; they do, in fact, live up to the tagline, “how books are put together.”

Unfortunately, their “Uni-Press Round Up” — Uni, of course, being English for University — has been MIA since the columnist left in 2021. So it was a great honor when Spine editor Vyki Hendy accepted my offer to republish my best of the Association of University Presses (AUPresses) Show 2025. (Indeed, Spine republished this year’s Foreword post in its entirety.) But that’s just the beginning: she asked me to take over the column, too.

I said “yes” without a second thought.

It’s important to me that I share a word or two about why: simply put, I believe that university presses worldwide deserve celebration. Part of it is the political atmosphere in the US recently, sure, but conservatives have been targeting higher education for a minute now. (See New College of Florida, “where education goes to die.”)

It’s more that I feel that university presses are the unsung hero of the publishing world. Titles are often complicated and difficult to visualize, and limited budgets often make it difficult to attract talent for great book design. An opportunity to highlight the best is not to be ignored.

Please head on over to Spine to enjoy the books I gathered for the first post, covering titles published in May and June of this year. But I’d like to call out a couple of favorites here:

University of Texas Press. Cover design by Lauren Michelle Smith, art director Derek George. Cover image, “Hybrid Paper Gods & Queens,” by Julius Poncelet Manapul.

Extraordinary artwork, handled extremely well. Also:

Yale University Press. Cover design and illustration by Sarah Schulte, art director, Dustin Kilgore.

A difficulty subject — and book design brief, surely — treated with classic style and an illustration showing an uncommon depth of meaning.

It’ll be an incredible pleasure to keep a closer eye on the university press publications with monthly round-ups of the best new work. I hope you’ll read the column regularly.

Special mention: Macon’s Mercer University Press:

It’s fulfilling to become more familiar with a great resource right here in town.

University Center stairs (2021), Mercer University campus, Macon, Georgia.

I’ve wandered around Mercer with a camera twice, and have just found an excuse to do it again. Stay tuned.

The Creative Independent: “On Developing a Solid Foundation,” with Creative Director Arsh Raziuddin

Book designer extraordinaire Arsh Raziuddin has been featured here before — this year’s Favorite Book Covers post, for instance — but it turns out she wears many hats indeed, as this interview at The Creative Independent proves.

An insightful highlight:

Book covers taught me how to pay attention to detail both in terms of the story and the design. What’s different between magazine work and book design is that with a book, you’re often condensing a 300-page story into a single cover; whereas editorial work might involve an 800- or 1,000-word essay that you need to visualize. It’s so difficult to capture the essence of an entire novel in one image — something really has to stand out. […] It feels a bit daunting to fit an entire novel in a 6×9-inch rectangle.
— Arsh Raziuddin, wearing her book design hat

Her cover design for Salman Rushdie’s Knife is discussed, an extraordinarily good example of, as she puts it, “not overcomplicating”:

Book design by Arsh Raziuddin.

It’s a treat to see some rough drafts:

Book design by Arsh Raziuddin.

“We’re [that is, book designers] all trying to make something sexy or loud without a solid foundation,” she says. “We all need to collectively focus on craft.” Perhaps like this fantastic book cover, this time for a Pulitzer prize-winning poet:

Book design by Arsh Raziuddin.

The entire interview is a gold mine. Read and enjoy.

More Great Design Items, Briefly

“The 2025 PRINT Awards Honorees in Advertising & Editorial Cut Through the Noise,” the headline reads. Yes.

It’s Nice That asks, “Are social media pile-ons stifling the creative industry?” Yes, I’d argue, and for more than just rebranding exercises. Read the article to see if you agree.

“Jon McNaught has created more than forty covers for the LRB as well as artwork for books, diaries, posters and campaigns.” Follow his process.

“Chris Ware, known for his New Yorker magazine covers, is hailed as a master of the comic art form.” Follow his process.

“Designers needed a book about their history that didn’t exist… so I wrote it myself,” Tom May says at CreativeBoom.

Archinect covers the best of the spring lecture series posters. (Previously.) Building an intersection of design and architecture: when getting a lecture is a good thing.

AI: Desctructive to Books — Literally

Photograph: Alexander Spatari via Google Images.

Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models, Ars Technica reports.

On Monday, court documents revealed that AI company Anthropic spent millions of dollars physically scanning print books to build Claude, an AI assistant similar to ChatGPT. In the process, the company cut millions of print books from their bindings, scanned them into digital files, and threw away the originals solely for the purpose of training AI[.]
— Benj Edwards, Ars Technica

“Buying used physical books sidestepped licensing entirely while providing the high-quality, professionally edited text that AI models need, and destructive scanning was simply the fastest way to digitize millions of volumes,” they continue.

Sigh.

Special Bonus #1: While the original reference has — annoyingly — disappeared, this Pixel Envy piece on AI Calvin and Hobbes still stands. Another example of link gold, including:

“The glove,” he said.

Special Bonus #2: Quentin Blake illustrates Animal Farm.

Not sure what made me think to include this.

Tech Corner: The Mac’s Finder Icon

Stephen Hackett, 512 Pixels: “Something jumped out at me in the macOS Tahoe segment of the WWDC keynote today: the Finder icon is reversed.”

Existing MacOS 15 (left), future MacOS 16/26 (right). Note also the change in title location.

“I know I am going to sound old and fussy, but Apple needs to roll this back,” he writes — but then, being who he is, gives us an illustrated history of the Finder icon. Natch.

Thankfully, Apple listened. Sort of.

The icon as of MacOS 16/26 Beta 2 (right). And the title, uh….

Calling it only “slightly better” — something I agree with — John Gruber’s Daring Fireball makes a strong case for something that sticks closer to tradition, with this specific example:

“Glasses it up but keeps it true to itself.” — Gruber. (Icon by Michael Flarup.)

I have a feeling that Apple is going to keep the outline; generally, when it does these redesigns, the rules tend to overrule, if that makes sense.

In other words: Liquid Glass > tradition.

Special Bonus #3: In a word, “glasslighting.” (Also via DF.)

Photographic Goodness

Theibault Trebles

This is Colossal: “Architectural Symmetry in Europe’s Subways,” Say no more.

Richard Wagner station, Berlin. Photograph by Theibault Drutel.

Brilliant on many levels, but it’s the dual trains-in-motion that takes it over the top. Another:

Solna Centrum station, Stockholm. Photograph by Theibault Drutel.

“Each city approaches underground architecture differently, mixing brutalism, futurism, minimalism, or sometimes unexpected touches of ornamentation,” the photographer says. Read the article or visit Theibault’s website.

Nat Geo Traveler Photo Contest 2025

PetaPixel covers the National Geographic Traveler (UK) contest, honoring the best travel images by photographers in the United Kingdom and Ireland. My favorite:

“Tree Tunnel,” Singapore. Photograph by Scott Antcliffe.

“I found this spot and was struck by the sheer density of the foliage — vines had completely enveloped the supporting walls, but the view of the Yellow Rain Tree at the top was simply stunning and utterly mesmerizing,” the photographer says.

See more. (NatGeo’s website has an article, but it requires you to enter your email to read. Boo.)

National Park Foundation Celebrates America the Beautiful

The National Park Foundation has announced the winners of its 2024 Share the Experience photo contest — the official competition of America’s national parks, for amateurs only. Still:

History & Heritage category winner, Cape Cod National Seashore. Photograph by Matt Ley.

See more at PetaPixel.

Toy Miniatures, Cinematic Worlds

Batman on a snowboard. Photograph by Alex Gusev.

Doesn’t really require too much explanation: brilliant stuff. It may be little more than a fluff piece, but the photography makes it worth visiting this PetaPixel post. (Reminds me, on some level, of the tongue-in-cheek mentality of the ’60s TV series.)

Full Circle: 2.1 Trillion

Humanity is overflowing with imagery, according to research from Photutorial:

162 billion photos are taken every month.
That’s 5.3 billion photos per day.
Or 221 million photos per hour.
3.7 million photos per minute.
61,400 photos per second.

94 percent of those are taken on smartphones — itself a shocking number — but there’s an important statistic in the data:

Source: Photutorial

It doesn’t take much to wonder why the US takes, on average, four times the number of photographs Europeans do.

Special Bonus #4: An Adobe two-fer: AI-powered culling tools for Lightroom — see last month’s Beautifully Briefed regarding AI and Adobe’s recent price increases — and, because I refuse to leave y’all on a down note, info regarding Project Indigo, Adobe’s promising new computational camera app.

June 30, 2025
Beautifully Briefed 24.12: New Year’s Eve Fireworks
Let’s continue a couple of discussions before closing out 2024, and send you into 2025 with some photographic and typographic goodness.

More AI Book Design

This was mentioned in another context in July, but is heading our way more aggressively as time goes by, with Microsoft and TikTok, among others, getting into the publishing arena.

Cover design: unknown. (Human or machine: unknown.)

While Microsoft’s new imprint, 8080 Books, plans “to test and experiment with the latest tech to accelerate and democratize book publishing.” They’re not entirely up-front about what that is — and might not know themselves yet, given the rapidly evolving tech and marketplace. That said, with the corporate giant’s name attached, we can be assured of some level of quality.

Yes, I just wrote a sentence suggesting that Microsoft is a guardian of quality. (“Books matter. In a deluge of data. In a bloat of blogs, a sea of social, and a maelstrom of email. Books will always matter,” they write.)

With others, the for-profit nature — TikTok’s engagement-before-all-else approach speaks volumes (or writes volumes, as the case might be) — assures that quality might come behind, say, slop. Publisher’s Weekly reports that 320 publishing startups have emerged just in the last two years, most in the AI space, adding to the 1,300 noted as of 2022. (PW also notes, “It is widely believed that each of the Big Five publishers has internal AI projects discreetly hidden from view.”)

And then there’s this: introducing ~~Spams~~ Spines, your AI book design and book completion service: “[f]rom manuscript to book in your readers’ hands – a single platform to help any author proofread, cover design, format, print, and distribute over global channels — zero tech know-how required.” Prices start at $1500 and promise a finished product in less than 30 days.

Their goal is to release 8,000 books per year. AI is heavily involved:

There’s a Sherlocked joke here somewhere….

Because, yes, you want a machine to suggest that Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle needed assistance regarding a turn of phrase. (Never mind his expensive editor.)

The first and third are really “only” bad. However, Dr. Seuss would like a word with Spines’ AI training dataset, please, and the cover for “Stay Humble” defies words.

But it’s the book design that got my attention: these are apparently the good ones, the cited examples to which someone says, “Yes! Take my money!”

The sad thing is that people will say that. Have already said that. And there’s much, much on the publishing industry’s horizon. Our horizon.

Read more at The Conversation, “The tech world is ‘disrupting’ book publishing. But do we want its effortless art?” Shout out to the AV Club and the aforementioned PW article.

The Cat Leaps

Last month, we left off Jaguar’s continuing road trip with a teaser. Let’s get right to it. The car’s called the Type 00:

Some details:

The interior:

The internet, predictably, has lost its collective … um, mind. However, amongst the melee, there are a few items worth mentioning.

Creative Boom: “If the new logo seemed divisive in isolation, seeing it brought to life with Type 00’s design has brought much clarity. The flush surfaces, panoramic roof, and glassless tailgate – all adorned with the new Jaguar device mark and reimagined leaper – create a cohesive vision of modern luxury. Rawdon Glover, managing director of Jaguar, emphasised the importance of this shift: ‘We have forged a fearlessly creative new character for Jaguar that is true to the DNA of the brand but future-facing, relevant and one that really stands out.’”

The quote there is something to pay attention to. Read those words again, and think about the actual choice of language; it’s this, exactly, that has struck some. Armin at Brand New, for instance: “[W]hat I dislike the most about the new Jaguar brand: its tone of voice is INSUFFERABLE. Everything from the platitudes in the campaign to the script of McGovern’s presentation to the press releases is obnoxiously over-confident and self-congratulatory.” (Brand New, while excellent, is subscription-only — alas without a sample article. Here’s a link anyway.)

Meanwhile, Dezeen provides us some real-world images from the Miami launch:

Wai Shin Li, via Dezeen

But it’s The Autotopian that stands out. They have not one but two excellent articles by Adrian Clarke, an ex-JLR¹ designer, who has several important points to contribute:

A couple of weeks ago, the cancelled X351 Jaguar XJ leaked onto the internet. During my time at Land Rover, I saw this car back in 2018 and can confirm this is indeed, or rather was the EV XJ. Back when Mr. Tata was still alive every six months or so there would be a big board level presentation for him on upcoming products. […] I was privy to all the future production Jaguars and concepts. There was a J-Pace SUV to sit above the F-Pace (no problem in revealing this as it’s common knowledge) and everything else was as you’d expect. These cars were then cancelled as part of the revamp and one absolutely incredibly beautiful and exceptional proposal aside, nothing of value was lost.

It’s the first time I’d seen the cancelled-just-before-release XJ EV, and despite the incomplete body panels and obviously-on-the-sly phone shot, it’s incredibly disappointing. They made the right call.

Compare it next to a Rolls Royce Spectre, a car the production Type 00 will be a competitor for, and see how successfully it hides its bulk in profile. [I]n the side view, particularly in the bottom half, I’m seeing some Range Rover. The crisp shoulder line, the kick-up of the tail behind the rear wheel, and the feature line along the bottom of the bodyside all scream Range Rover. This is exacerbated by the verticality of the front and rear of the car – the new full-size Range Rover and Sport have sharply docked tails. I heard that the initial sketch of this car was done by Massimo Frascella before he departed for Audi. Frascella was McGovern’s right-hand man at Land Rover for decades before Ian Callum retired and McGovern used the opportunity to bring both the Jaguar and Land Rover studios together. So maybe that’s where this Range Rover influence comes from.

The Jaguar Type 00, top, and Rolls-Royce Spectre, bottom, courtesy of The Autopian.

We must remember this is only a concept. The actual production car will be a four-door GT. This is only a preview of the visual style of future Jaguar models. It’s certainly striking, but you’d struggle to call it beautiful. It’s also monolithic and slabby.

Let’s hope this brutal revamp is […] successful, because there are a lot of jobs depending on it.
— Adrian Clarke, ex-JLR designer

There’s much more from those two articles, too much to quote here, so please go read them — the initial report is more on the design, while the second delves into the why: “Why Jaguar Had To Blow Up Its Brand In Order To Save It.“

Meanwhile, I’ll actually be rooting for JLR to pull this one off. I’m not in the target audience — at all — but Jaguar needed to do something radical and, by God, they did just that. The concept is interesting. Some of the details are fantastic. Here’s hoping, indeed.

Update, 15 Jan 2025: Turns out the Jaguar’s designers were a little worried about the outcome — or the outsourcing, in this case — and its effect on the brand. The Drive has the details.

Special Bonus #1: Motor1 has a feature on Ian Callum’s current whereabouts. There are too many hypercars these days, but the Skye looks cool:

The Callum Skye concept. (An island buggy?)

Some Extraordinary Items of “Normalcy”

To close out 2024, let’s take a break, pour a beverage, and enjoy some of what you read Foreword for: great photography, typography, and design.

Northern Lights

I didn’t know — or didn’t remember — that amongst the glut of photography contests is one dedicated to the phenomenon known as the Northern Lights.

Cosmic Explosion, Isteria, Croatia. Photograph by Uroš Fink.

PetaPixel reminds us that Capture the Atlas’ Northern Lights Photographer of the Year competition features some exceptional opportunities to make spectacular captures this year due to the solar maximum — the peak of its eleven-year cycle.

Celestial Reflection, Dartmoor National Park, UK. Photograph by Max Trafford.

The 2024 competition awards feature 25 winners, each with a narrative and each a striking example of the larger system we’re part of. Check it out. (Also via This is Colossal.)

Nature

PetaPixel is among several that point us to the Nature Photographer of the Year contest, with images both poignant and funny. Since it’s New Year, let’s go with the latter:

Besties, Washington State, US. Photograph by Marcia Walters.

Of course, there’s just “spectacular,” too:

Cross to Bear, Talek River, Kenya. Photograph by Paul Goldstein.

The contest’s winners page features many more, separated into categories; be sure to click on the individual photographs to get larger sizes and the story with each. Fantastic stuff.

Frozen Prairie Landscapes

Saskatchewan gets cold in the winter, but there’s a beauty to those temperatures, photographer Angela Boehm tells PetaPixel.

Image from Minus Thirty. Photograph by Angela Boehm.

“The frozen prairie landscapes, while a subject in their own right, serve as a powerful metaphor for the deeper themes the book explores: loss, memory, and resilience,” she says. […] “The loss is embodied in the emptiness and biting cold. The memory, or its gradual fading, is represented by the snow obscuring the horizon, softening and blurring the scenes. And the resilience is in the solitary tree — a steadfast survivor of countless storms in this unforgiving landscape.”
— Angela Boehm, Minus Thirty

Read more of PetaPixel‘s story of realization to publication or just check out the title.

Special Bonus #2: Another book on an interesting subject — Japan’s brutalist architecture, which somehow manages to bring an inherent quality to the cement:

Mixed-use complex, 1994, by Kuniyoshi Design. Photograph by Paul Tulett.

Dezeen has more.

Ukraine’s “Fight for Visual Identity”

This PRINT piece is excellent: “A cultural gap persists in how history is organized and interpreted. I left the library without my requested images but with a lingering realization that how we organize history, even within the hallowed walls of an institution like the New York Public Library, can reflect the biases and oversights of a collective cultural perspective,” writes El. Stern.

Home Soon, Dear. Image by Maria Kinovych, 2022.

“Today, Ukrainian graphic design is rooted in national identification, in search of future needs, and in understanding the cultural influence of a painful past on a, once again, painful present.”

Ukraine’s search for a future — and present, and past — in design. Great read.

“A must-have manual for hot metal enthusiasts and linotype lovers”

Type Archived, a new book whose fundraising campaign I didn’t see in time: a “stunning visual tour of traditional typefounding and offers a definitive account of London’s legendary Type Archive,” writes Wallpaper*.

Custom metal for the book project.

The book “traces the origins of typography through the physical tools, objects and machinery that made the printed word possible. Full of rich photography, [it’s] a visual journey through the punches, matrices, presses, type and paper which tell the story of the UK’s preeminent typefounding industry.”

Hopefully available at bookstores soon.

“The Arresting Typography of the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps”

Jason Kottke writes, “Several years ago, Brandon Silverman become obsessed with the lettering and typography on the fire insurance maps published by the Sanborn Map Company in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”

Silverman’s launched an archive of the maps, an absolutely fantastic way to pass a few ~~minutes~~ hours.

Special Bonus #3: Nick Heer, at the always-excellent Pixel Envy, has an essay on the essentials: “[E]fficiency and clarity are necessary elements, but are not the goal. There needs to be space for how things feel.” Delicious Wabi-Sabi is worth a few moments.

Wishing you and yours a very happy New Year!
- 1
  That’s Jaguar Land Rover, before it was, um, initialized by owner Tata. ↩︎
December 31, 2024
Beautifully Briefed 24.8: Picture This

A trio of miscellany, a trio of space photography, more than a trio of great black and white photography, and a single, very serious photography question for you this time — let’s get right into it.

Summer of ~~Fun~~ Miscellany

Intermezzo, Explained

The UK cover for Intermezzo. Book design by Kishan Rajani. (The US cover doesn’t compare.)

GQ UK has an interview with Kishan Rajani, a senior designer at Faber, and Pete Adlington, the publisher’s art director, “about how the Intermezzo design came together, the role of social media in modern book design, and how to make books ‘as pickupable as possible.’”

The endpapers for Intermezzo (UK). I really like that they’ve sweated the little details.

We can discuss “pickupable” as a word another time — your time is better spent, for now, reading the interview.

WeTransfer Sold

“Some of Bending Spoons’ most successful products are tools that serve creativity, therefore we are confident that this milestone will complement both businesses, supercharge our growth, and help us create even more value for creative industries at large,” says WeTransfer CEO Alexander Vassilev of the acquisition.

I like and appreciate WeTransfer — unlike the corporatespeak above (but hey, we’re inventing words today … right?) — and hope that despite being corporatized, nothing substantive will change.

PetaPixel: “The companies did not say whether or not all staff or leadership at WeTransfer would be maintained after the conclusion of the acquisition. That may come into question since Bending Spoons does have a track record of buying completed products, training its internal staff on their upkeep, and then releasing the original development team.”

Crap.

Update, 9 September, 2024: “Bending Spoons acquired file-sharing platform WeTransfer in July and has now laid off 75% of WeTransfer’s staff,” PetaPixel reports. “The Italian app company Bending Spoons has confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch, which comprise at least 260 people based on WeTransfer’s employee headcount of around 350 people.”

Adobe, Again

The Adobe “World Headquarters” buildings in San Jose, California. Image via PetaPixel.

Adobe (previously) recently sat down with PetaPixel to discuss ~~the shambles~~ where things stand — clearly, an attempt at damage control. PP published it … and got some feedback:

Adobe couldn’t explain why it let its once excellent relationship with photographers and media lapse, only that it is sorry that happened. I do believe [their explanation], at least when I hear it from the people responsible for making the software. There is a big divide between the folks who code Photoshop and the C-level executives who are so out of touch with the end users. The thing is, it doesn’t matter what those people down in the trenches of development say or even how good Adobe’s software happens to be, some photographers just don’t like the feeling of giving money to the company because of the people at the helm.
Jaron Schneider, PetaPixel

The thing is: it’s less photography, really, than design. If you’re a photographer, how you get to the point of printing or publishing the photographs offers options in software — whether iPhoto, Affinity, Photoshop, or the Pixel 9 Magic Editor — Instagram doesn’t care, Zenfolio takes multiple file formats, and so on.

But in design — that is, desktop publishing or especially book design — Adobe has a monopoly over the software used by the industry, full stop. I used to love working with their software. Today, not so much. (And for the record, it’s more than their fees, it’s the quality of the software.) It’s extremely frustrating and, at the moment, there is no alternative even on the horizon.

Crap. (Again.)

Extraordinary Astrophotography

So, how many can place Kyrgyzstan on a map? It’s a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia, and, clearly, a great place to do some astrophotography.

Star Trails Above Tash Rabat by Soumyadeep Mukherjee.

PetaPixel highlights the work of Soumyadeep Mukherjee, who traveled there specifically for the purpose — and succeeded wildly. It’s awesome to see a country I’m not familiar with served so well. (My favorite, of course, is the short depth-of-field portrait — if you can call it that — of Yuri Gargarin, seen in the header image above.)

Alternatively, This is Colossal points us at “Bisected by the Milky Way, a Stellar Image Captures the Perseid Meteor Shower Raining Down on Stonehenge“:

Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge by Josh Dury.

“Josh Dury, aka ‘Starman,’ is an award-winning landscape astrophotographer, presenter, speaker and writer from The Mendip Hills ‘Super National Nature Reserve’ in Somerset, United Kingdom,” his web site trumpets.

The thing is … despite looking like he’s about 25, he’s earned it. Great stuff.

Meanwhile, back at PetaPixel, “Photographer Aaron Watson, who goes by Skies Alive Photography, has seen many incredible things in the night sky. His latest sighting is a rare double ‘moonbow,’ a rainbow created by bright moonlight in precise conditions.”

Double Moonbow by Aaron Watson.

All three of these folks need special thanks for their patience. I have trouble standing still long enough to set up a tripod, let alone do long exposures under rarely-encountered combinations of time, weather, equipment and location — plus lots of good luck — in the middle of the night. Well done, all.

“Majesty of Monochrome”

The winners of the third annual Black and White Photo Awards have been unveiled, showcasing the best in monochrome photography across multiple categories.

Monochrome Majesty: Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, by Robert Fulop. Bronze Mention from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.

Naturally, I gravitate towards architecture — and the winners (of the nearly 5000 entrants) demonstrate serious talent.

Bench, by Colin Page. Finalist from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.

The Double Helix, by Md Tanveer Rohan. Finalist from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.

Windows by Manfred Gruber. Finalist from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.

See the winners — and especially, take in the finalists, many of which I’d personally judge to be winners in their own right — at the contest’s web site.

Special Bonus #1: It’s time once again for the annual iPhone Awards, “a powerful testament to the art of storytelling through photography.” I especially liked this one:

Bicycle Forest by James Kittendorf. 3rd place in the Cityscape category, 2024 IPPAwards.

It’s a great photograph, certainly, but it was taken by a now-quite-elderly iPhone X — proof, once again, that it’s the camera you have with you. See all the 2024 winning photographs, in multiple categories and taken worldwide, here. (Via PetaPixel.)

So … What’s Next for Photography?

The Verge: “Anyone who buys a Pixel 9 — the latest model of Google’s flagship phone, available starting this week — will have access to the easiest, breeziest user interface for top-tier lies, built right into their mobile device.”

A montage from The Verge, thankfully clearly labeled.

Life-changing moments have long been captured using photography, from Moonrise to George Floyd. But, generally, fakes were the exception, not the rule. We’re, unfortunately, arming the folks who cry foul.

Another montage from The Verge. Note the woods filled in behind the helicopter less convincingly than the accident, above — but how many are going to notice?

It does this article disrespect to summarize. Just go read: “No one’s ready for this.”

Special Bonus #2: Nick Heer, at Pixel Envy, articulates what needs to be said: “anyone can now radically and realistically alter an entire scene within minutes of taking a photo. [O]ur expectations need to change.”

August 31, 2024
Beautifully Briefed 24.7: Generated

This time, another automaker logo, some automotive and architecture photography, and the special bonuses that have all become a regular part of the Beautifully Briefed standard. But we’re going to start with some generated content.

AI Book “Design”

From the “We knew this was going to happen” category, we have the first — that I’ve seen, anyway — “let AI do the work” research paper suggesting that book design is something that can be automated.

We have presented a novel approach to computationally design books. The presented system implements a generative design process which takes advantage of the scripting capabilities of Adobe InDesign to procedurally typeset books from content provided by the user. We have shown the ability of the system to (i) create book designs that consistently comply with a series of typographic rules, styles and principles identified in the literature; (ii) produce visually diversified books from the same input content; and (iii) produce visually coherent books with different contents.

Design by “AI.”

Let’s please remember that “AI” as the term is currently used is actually “applied machine learning;” in this case, specific rules within specific containers in a specific application. It’s a first step towards something, as most “AI” is in 2024.

But it’s absolutely not the only step. It’s inevitable that the necessary subsequent steps will be taken, probably sooner than later.

As usual where someone is seriously discussing replacing a human worker with a computer, there’s a pitch for the upside:

The work presented in the paper may challenge the typical roles of both the tool and the designer. First, by automatically creating and suggesting design alternatives, the tool ends up playing a more active role in the design process. Then, by modifying and developing custom tools, the designer is no longer a mere tool user and becomes the author of tools tailored to specific needs. We believe this shift can be fruitful since it enables the exploration and discovery of new technical and creative possibilities.

In other words, the designer is now responsible for creatively writing the rules then policing the output — like so many things in the machine-learning, or “AI” space — rather than the actual drudgery of directly designing the output. “Design great rules, get great design.”

And there is room for this. Amazon, especially, is going to jump on book design generated this way; never mind those folks in China or India earning (a paltry few) dollars a day, the computer can do it better for less . . . . Poof! With no human interaction whatsoever, your book is ready to publish. Indeed, for some, the bar to publish has just been ~~lowered~~ made easier. Perhaps even Adobe, who trumpets “AI” at every turn these days, they may choose to take this up. (Probably for a surcharge to the already-high subscription pricing.)

Let’s not even speculate about the major publishing houses for now.

But like AI-generated anything, getting actual art requires hand-tuning the input by an artist. For what amounts to “slop” — see this fantastic PixelEnvy discussion — the generated approach to book design might even be appropriate. But for book design that’s artistic, cared-for, or even “just” thoughtful, you’re going to need a human for a long time yet to come.

The paper is available on Cornell University’s arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. (Via Hackernoon.)

The excellent Odd Apples, which I’m sure I’ve highlighted before — but in a very human way, can’t find.

Special Bonus #1: I had the occasion to recently flip through Pentagram’s book design section. Some seriously interesting, seriously artistic work. (See the Odd Apples listing specifically.)

It could probably be argued that computers took book design jobs away, but….

Special Bonus #2: CreativeBoom links to three free archives on Victorian illustration to inspire — or perhaps use creatively in a book.

Untitled (Fiddleheads), 1928. Photo by Karl Blossfeldt.

Special Bonus #3: The ever-great Kottke.org. points us at Public Work, “an image search engine that boasts 100,000 “copyright-free” images from institutions like the NYPL, the Met, etc. It’s fast with a relatively simple interface and uses AI to auto-categorize and suggest possibly related images (both visually and content-wise).” As Jason Kottke points out, not great in the attribution department, but good stuff nonetheless.

Mazda’s New Logo

Mazda’s logo as of 2023, seen on one of its cars.

From the automotive logo thread (previously), we have to note Mazda’s new look, reduced from the current 3D-style grayscale to flat and black and white. This one gets some criticism from me: it lacks grace, pace, or space. (Hmph. That might be someone else.)

Angry Bird, anyone? (Pardon the artifacts — this image is enlarged from a Japanese trademark post.)

Then again, Mazda has not always been successful with logos. Anyone remember the 1991–1997 version?

Mazda’s complete logo history.

The 1931–1934 version lays the name over Mitsubishi’s logo, which was responsible for sales. The 1975–1991 version is the one I remember best, but that’s likely a youth/rose-colored glasses sort of thing. See Wiki for more information.

Meanwhile, Mazda is trying to move upmarket right now, and the new “look” isn’t really in keeping with that. Curious to see where this goes. (Via The Autopian.)

Mazda’s new electric concept, the Errata, sporting an interim, flattened version of the current logo. Wait, might have gotten something wrong there, too….

Special Bonus #3: BrandNew points us at the 2024 Logo Trends report, the annual fun item from Logo Lounge that looks at what’s hot in this year’s crop of — you guessed it!

Freely (Smiley category) and Droplet (Elliptic category), left, and Olá and Backcountry Wanderer, right, from the Sticker category. (Olá could be in the Smiley category, too.)

Some of my favorites are above, but the whole report is worth a look. (Spoiler: more than flattening is on trend.)

Auto, Auto+Arch, Arch

Auto Photo Manual

Via Wallpaper*, we have Auto Photo Manual, a new monograph from Benedict Redgrove that “explores the art and science of photographing the world’s most striking cars:”

A very orange Lambo. Photo by Benedict Redgrove.

Always a sucker for a Saab, especially this concept:

The 2006 Saab Aero-X concept. Photo by Benedict Redgrove.

Auto Photo Manual is a Kickstarter item that could use some love — stop by if you can. Wallpaper* has the full story.

A Time • A Place (Vol. 1)

Also via Wallpaper*, we have a “celebration of the European Car of the Year and changing perceptions of modern design, pairing the best buildings of the age with their automotive contemporaries:”

London’s Camberwell Subamarine and the Mercedes W116. Photo by Daniel Hopkinson.

“Through the lens of time, both [cars and buildings] have become highly symbolic of their eras and hindsight will allow us to trace the roots of each design to determine how it is viewed from a 21st century perspective,” says Holroyd, noting that over this period architecture underwent a stylistic retreat, just as car design became emboldened and more avant-garde.

Great stuff in this new title, available now from The Modernist. Read more at Wallpaper*.

World Architecture Festival 2024 Shortlist

Via The Guardian, we have The World Architecture Festival’s 2024 shortlist, revealing projects from around the world spanning categories such as childcare, energy, transport and science. A couple of faves:

The Chodge by DCA Architects of Transformation — interesting name(s), surely — in Whakamaru, New Zealand. Photograph by Simon Devitt.

The live awards event will take place in Singapore from November 6-8. This year’s finalists represent 71 countries.

Woven Passage to Cloudy Peaks by line+ studio in Shaoxing, China. Photograph by line+studio.

See more at The Guardian, or the complete shortlist at The World Architect Festival.

Special Bonus #4: This is Colossal brings us the drone photography of Eric Waider, shot in Iceland:

As glaciers expand and recede, they have the capacity to grind rock so fine that geologists refer to the pulverized material as glacial flour. It slips down rivers and into lakes, carrying the otherworldly turquoise hue through a unique and resilient ecosystem. In Iceland, the blue-green color is complemented by rivers that flow yellow, thanks to sulfur from nearby volcanoes, or red from dissolved ferrous iron—also known as bog iron. Coursing over rock and black sand, the streams take on dazzling, rhythmic patterns.

Photograph by Erik Waider.

Brilliant. See his website (“Abstract Landscapes of the distant North”) and enjoy that series and more — including faves such as Ocean Blues and Glacial Macro.

July 31, 2024