Photography and design for print production

Tag: print

Beautifully Briefed 26.10: You’ll Want a Tall
Usually, I try to limit the Briefed posts to ~30 photographs. Today, you get fifty-four. So, unlike some months, where I encourage just any beverage….

Also, if you’ve not seen, I recently had a few-hour layover in beautiful Asheville, North Carolina. There was a camera involved.

This month’s Spine

Duke University Press. Cover design by Matthew Tauch with calligraphy by Md. Zahid Hasan; art director, Dave Rainey.

“According to Islamic tradition, God has at least ninety-nine names,” the description says. But it’s the flower on the cover — a mosaic of script, best described as a “calligraphic gift” — that catapults this to the fore. Combined with a simple and classic title treatment, only one characterization is needed: brilliant.

Read the rest.

Design

The PRINT Magazine Awards 2026

Now in its 46th year, the PRINT Awards “continue a legacy of recognizing creative excellence across the design industry,” recognizing “89 winners whose work represents some of the most exciting, innovative, and thoughtful design today.”

The award for best book package is not actually called, “The Mighty Paw PRINT.”

One defining quality stood out across this year’s winning work, reflecting a theme that continues to emerge throughout the history of the PRINT Awards: the power of design as a form of expression, activism, and reflection of the world around us.
— The PRINT Awards jury

The item above exemplifies this: The Mighty Paw is a “visually striking illustrated book that uses the story of a lone cat surviving an ‘Era of the Great Hate’ to explore themes of identity, displacement, war, and intolerance.”

See the rest of the awards at PRINT.

Special bonus #1: The Touch of Art: American Book Design 1880-1930 exhibition is on now through April 9, 2027, at the Wilson Library, UNC Chapel Hill.

Reelizer: Movie Art

Taxi Driver. Artwork by Roger Erik Tinch.

“Reelizer is a personal project by Roger Erik Tinch,” Jason Kottke writes, “that is a collection of movie art: prints, posters, illustrations, albums, books, covers, etc. Careful, you can lose hours here . . . Tinch has a great eye.”

Russian and Eastern European posters

An Aeroflot Tupolev TU-164 climbs into a stylized Soviet sky in this example.

Also from Kottke: “Princeton houses a large digital collection of posters from Russia and Eastern Europe, almost 5000 total items, spanning 101 years (1904-2004).”

Special bonus #2: Nathan Yau, at Flowing Data, writes: “OKpalette is a tool to grab a color palette from an image. Load the image in the browser, set the number of colors, and define a region in the image and you get a collection of shades. Images stay on your computer and the color picking is in-browser. Nifty.” Bonus movie poster content in their example images — awesome.

Yes, that’s The Motion Picture . . . in Japanese. Note the dots — and corresponding colors on the left.

Type

Creative Boom‘s post is also a honker this month, with 23 choices. My favorites:

Puerile Grotesque

Puerile Grotesque, from Applied Systems.

Social media isn’t a part of my life, but you can bet I heard about Instagram’s redesign; the Style Set 01 variant of a new typeface from Applied Systems feels like the same branch — just slightly farther out. Perhaps amongst the leaves.

“Alister Shapley at Applied Systems Design Studio has been thinking about what ‘play’ actually means in typography,” CreativeBoom writes. “Puerile Grotesque is his answer. While his earlier font, Puerile Display, explored ornament and expressive forms, Puerile Grotesque questions the underlying structure of letterforms. Together, they form a complementary, convention-busting family.”

Pen by DDOTT

What happens when a pen pauses on paper? “Those small drops of ink … form the core concept of Pen, a new typeface from DDOTT, developed in collaboration with Morula,” CreativeBoom writes.

Pen, by DDOTT in conjunction with Morula.

“Pen turns a pause into a mark,” DDOTT writes. “Inspired by the small accumulations of ink left when a pen pauses on paper, it turns these human moments of hesitation, correction, and decision into visible features of the letterform. What would normally be treated as an error becomes part of the design.”

“Pen’s roots lie in standardised lettering systems that accompanied industrialisation, when technical lettering became increasingly regulated and executed through mechanical and digital systems such as plotters and printers. Based on the tradition of round-pen lettering, Pen follows a monoline skeleton without stroke contrast or optical correction, drawing its underlying forms from neo-grotesque models.”

Hyperspace Cargo by Swell Type

Hyperspace Cargo, by Swell Type

“Hyperspace Cargo looks exactly like its name,” CreativeBoom writes (and I agree). “Derived from the earlier Hyperspace Race, it’s an all-caps, stencil typeface available in a range of weights from Light to Heavy.”

“Horizontal-line Stylistic Alternates add further variety, and it also supports Cyrillic, Greek and Vietnamese. The variable version offers Weight and Roundness axes for extra flexibility.”

Special bonus #3: “Bastardica is ‘a foundry for bastard web fonts. Mix, stretch and/or squish them.’ E.g. Nervous Sans: ‘Arial is stacked five times, pseudo-randomly twitching out of line.’” Kottke finds the best stuff.

Mix it up on the Web type platter.

Special bonus #4: On the starboard side of the space shuttle Discovery, the “s” is upside-down. See for yourself at The Autopian.

“Software is Over”

You’ve no doubt heard of utilizing various AI systems to create code, known as “vibe-coding.” The same systems can reverse-engineer, too, a software version of those sites that run new iPhones through X-ray machines to see what’s inside. Fair turnabout, I suppose.

But what happens when you do the same to, say, Adobe’s Creative Cloud? Microsoft Office?

ArtCraft’s new suite of apps.

For a while, those hoping to avoid the difficulty and expense of dealing with Adobe’s Creative Suite have been able to use several free and/or open source alternatives that replicate some or all of those capabilities. Now, one developer is using AI-powered reverse engineering to mimic the look, feel, and functionality of Adobe’s well-known software with what he hopes will soon be perfect fidelity.
— Kyle Orland, Ars Technica

That’s right: one guy.

It’s clean-sheet, which is to say using completely new code. It’s open-source. And, as of this writing, it’s three weeks old and Adobe hasn’t sued — yet. “That practice has generally been found legally acceptable,” Ars reminds us, but “the ArtCraft apps could still face legal trouble if their “trade dress” too closely mimics Adobe’s familiar appearance and interface.”

Here’s the interface for LightCraft, which is only superficially similar to Adobe’s.

AI lets us take back tech and set the clock back to the pre-shitty era. But now you can just create 1:1 functional equivalents, clean room, that are highly performant and cross-platform. Nothing is stopping you. We’ll replace Google Search; we’ll build our own smartphones; we’ll build better infra. We’ll remove all the ads and de-enshittify the entire tech world.

Big tech sowed the seeds of their own commodification with AI. It’s all going to come down to this now that we can rebuild everything without toiling for years to even get close to scaling software capability moats. The internet is going to reset to 1990-2004 (pre-Facebook / “Web 2.0” era). The indie web era. Everything is going to be reborn as open source. We’re going to own it all.
— Brandon Thomas, YCombinator

“The swagger is immense,” Tom May remarks at Creative Boom.. But the same article wonders whether software is facing a Napster moment — and they might be on to something.

As a profession, we’ve become used to the idea that developing creative software requires thousands of highly paid programmers and decades of work. That serves as a moat for a company like Adobe: few others can afford to build anything on the scale of the Creative Cloud. But will AI bring all that crashing down around them?
— Tom May, Creative Boom

“It’s one thing to make a huge promise like this and another thing entirely to actually deliver,” Jeremy Gray at PetaPixel comments. “An app is more than just its codebase; it is also its stability, performance, functionality, and ability to handle the extreme edge cases that make or break professional success.”

“If you’re worried this is just some one-off flash in the pan that will die, it isn’t,” Thomas promises.

Time will tell.

Special bonus #5: On the subject of AI: “Apple, Content Authenticity, and the War to Prove What’s Real,” from PetaPixel, details Apple’s new Reference Image technology. Different from other content authentication systems, for sure, taking advantage of Apple’s ownership of the entire pipeline from camera to output — but of course limited to Apple cameras.

PetaPixel’s header image for the article is awesome.

Special bonus #6: The ongoing Getty/Shutterstock saga/failed merger fallout continues — Getty’s declared bankruptcy. Looks like they’re clearing the road for ~~an equity grab~~ private ownership; together with the Getty family, the Koch bros are involved. Ug. MacFolis has an overview, or PetaPixel has more detail (3 links there).

Automotive

McLaren and Vauxhall

New branding from, shall we say, opposite ends of the automotive spectrum. Let’s start on the high end.

A detail — marketing image, really — of McLaren’s 2026 logo update, highlighting the underlined “c.”

The Internet, in its infinite wisdom, doesn’t like it, suggesting that the new wordmark is more upscale food item than sports car. I disagree — the swoosh/arrow is still very much there, it’s just that the name is styled differently; since it’ll be rolled out with redesigned models, it should serve them well into the next decade. The new look debuts on the M6 GT I ~~drooled on~~ covered last month.

The M6 GT, highlighted here on Foreword in August, wearing the new wordmark.

Creative Boom has an overview of the new branding, and a commentary post from someone on the inside.

Meanwhile, Vauxhall, part of the sprawling Stellantis empire, has redone the whole brand — griffin, wordmark, and stores:

Before, left; after, right.

This one I’m going to have to mark as less successful. With each change, the creature looks less like its namesake and more . . . well, they’ve got the “bird head” thing kinda right, but the wing, the talons, and the whole “lion thing” are tragically missing in action.

“In the latest update, [the] previous flat logo introduced in 2020 was further simplified,” Dezeen writes,¹ “with the griffin made more angular. In particular, the mythical creature’s neck hair was simplified while its beak was closed.”

Also, “for the first time in the logo’s 121-year history, the flag depicting the letter V no longer forms part of the logo.”

I mentioned it only in passing in 2020; this time, not so much. Take a look at the progression pictured above. Is this the best it’s ever been? Better than ’71 or ’89? I’m honestly surprised the corporate executives evaluated those, looked at the new proposal, and said, “yes.” (See their press release for some “reasons,” along with a few more images.)

The Jaguar Type 01

On the subject of the Internet’s wisdom, as you know, Jaguar’s Type 00 concept car landed with what could be best described as a “thud.”

But wait: that’s not the concept — that’s the production version.

It still lacks a rear window, and it’s still festooned with the new logo that may or may not do it any favors. The did, at least, more prominently feature the leaping cat.

But the rest hews remarkably close to the concept: it’s long, low, wide, and with 1015 horsepower and four cocooned seats, it seems like something that steamroll through traffic with ease. (Less sure about a back road.)

The “impossible panel,” named for its difficult manufacturing process.

I’m glad Jaguar stuck to its guns here. To say it has “presence” is an understatement.

Tons of coverage, unsurprisingly: Dezeen, CreativeBoom, even Daring Fireball — none car sites, which speaks volumes — along with Ars Technica, The Drive and The Autopian.

Update, 2 November: Jaguar has opened a new flagship store in Knightsbridge, London — and it’s, shall we say, non-traditional.

Jaguar’s Knightsbridge store/restaurant/hangout.

“Rather than a traditional showroom, we wanted to design a destination where architecture, culture, hospitality and craftsmanship come together — and London felt like a natural home for that vision,” says the senior design manager, a guy named Rolls. Dezeen has more.

Special bonus #7: The reviews for Ferrari’s 12Cilindri Manuale are out — none better than Jason Cammisa’s fabulous Icons series for Hagerty on YouTube:²

Ferrari “reinvented the transmission,” Jason Cammisa argues. (Note the pin striping — it’s relevant.)

When Foreword previewed this expensive delicacy in July, I said was convinced that this setup — or, at least, something like it — is the future of the manual transmission. Cammisa agrees, and lo and behold, so might Porsche. I hope BMW hears the call, too.

The Porsche Mission S

Porsche’s fortunes of late haven’t been spectacular: between too many EVs aimed at folks who aren’t convinced electric is “right” for a sports car brand — or, at least, for them — and being tied to Volkswagen’s many, many missteps have meant buyers’ interests have waned.

Fortunately, they decided to do something about it.

It’s called the Mission S. It’s a concept, with no production planned, but make no mistake: a production version, which will sit above the 911 in Porsche’s lineup, will be along.

It’s mid-engined. Rumors say it runs a flat-eight, although Porsche themselves are coy about the drivetrain. It’s an automatic in pictures, but:

And get this: the interior basically defines “minimalist.” The screen, pictured below, is your phone.

That’s right, Porsche has declared that “real sports cars” should not feature distractions. It even has a real tach. (“Digital detox is now a luxury item,” The Drive says. They may be right.)

But never mind that: equal parts nostalgia — 917, 959, many more — and future, the Mission S is the first Porsche I’ve insta-clicked in a minute. Well done.

Read more at Ars Technica, The Autopian, or The Drive.

The Paris Motor Show

Cornucopia of goodness — almost entirely unobtanium, but still.

“Alpine offered up one of the true show stars in the shape of the Alpine A310 Concept. Another exercise in retro design, this two-seater sports car is a contemporary update of the 1971 original.” — Wallpaper*

“The modern version doesn’t stray too far from the proportions and details of the striking four-seater 1970s version, one of the most futuristic production cars of the era. If it goes into production, the new A310 will be an electric supercar that … would only be built in very limited numbers.” — Wallpaper*

“The French hot hatch has always been celebrated for its excellence. In essence, it’s about combining a small, light car with a peppy engine, not a world removed from the core principle of a sports car, even if most French hatchbacks are front-wheel-drive. You still get the full usability and versatility of the hatchback on which the hot hatch in question is based, but it’s faster and drives even better. There have been a number of cars like that throughout the years, but the Peugeot 205 GTI is one of the best known. That’s why the 205’s rally variant, the 205 T16 Group B rally car, was such a beastly creation: it looks like a 205 that’s gone to the gym, a lot, and taken a few supplements.

“Peugeot’s new E-T16 electric concept manages two things: it’s a successful visual throwback to the 205, and it’s also the most powerful Peugeot anywhere, ever.” — The Autopian

“The Peugeot 205 GTi was a Gallic alternative to the late ’80s-era Golf GTIs that Americans will be familiar with, and it’s into this well that Peugeot dipped for Paris. Or rather, the wild 205 T16 Group B rally homologation special that the 205 GTi gave birth to, a car that won the world Rally Championships in 1985–86. The E-T16 Concept shows us that hatchbacks needn’t just be humble devices for running errands; they can excite, too.” — Ars Technica

“The original Renault Espace was very much loved and created the people-carrier segment out of thin air, at least in Europe. The familiar one-box shape remains for the new E-Space Concept … There is a criminal lack of electric minivans on the market today.” — Ars Technica

“I’ve been excited to hear that the car is intended to fit the spirit of the original 2CV (you can read that as affordable) and not just be a retro, nostalgia-flavored cash grab. Well, yesterday the full new 2CV concept was revealed at the Paris Motor Show, and I’m happy to say I think Citroën did a damn good job of translating the archaic 2CV into a modern design vocabulary.” — The Autopian

“The best-received concept … was the long-awaited revival of the legendary Citroën 2CV. Electric only, the concept is — we’re promised — apparently very close to the production reality.

“There’s a wealth of genuinely entertaining detailing here, all of which hasn’t just been carried out in homage to the original, but as a way of finding new methods to keep costs down. Citroën aims to get the production 2CV … to come in at the magic €15,000 mark. Nostalgists will have a field day, and it’s still a delightful sight for the rest of us.” — Wallpaper*

“Back in the day, the original 2CV wasn’t just a family car, it was the vehicle of choice for French business big and small. From La Poste to the local boulangerie, the box-backed 2CV van was everywhere.” — Wallpaper*

“Citroën is hoping that the new generation 2CV Fourgonnette will do similar business. Bringing the admirable simplicity of the passenger car concept to a small van, the focus here is on maximising load space and practicality, whilst not losing sight of the character that will give this tiny van its competitive edge — a serve as a lovable mobile advert for whichever businesses chose to adopt it.” — Wallpaper*

“The French carmaker Renault seems to be having a blast digging into the treasure trove that is its historic output. As Renault’s concept cars show, it’s not done digging.

“Between 1962 and 1976, Renault built a rear-engined family sedan called the 8. The company exported these cars to the United States, and despite being down on power, they were simply marketed as being faster than the previous cars! Yet, the R8 also provided the basis for one of Renault’s early sports sedans, the Renault 8 Gordini. The most recent concept car from Renault takes the visual identity of that late-1960s car and reinvents it for the future.” — The Autopian

“The interior is all 1960s-styled concept car aesthetic, with brushed metal on a very narrow center console. The interior looks great in both renders and photographs, with suede on the steering wheel and velour on the dash.” — The Autopian

“The rear is now swept up, with blocky taillights glowing through a pixelated texture, on a surface that’s completely blank with the lights switched off. To maintain a visual connection to the original, there’s no rear spoiler on the rear deck. Instead, the spoiler is up there at the rear edge of the roof, and the diffuser presumably deals with the rest of the airflow. A large GORDINI logo is proudly affixed to the wide C-pillars.

“It all looks like a school kid’s dream, which it will also remain: no production plans exist, even if some of the detailing and ethos are likely to trickle down to production versions.” — The Autopian

Literally all of these tickle my fancy in one way or another, but it’s the Gordini — naturally the one least likely to make production, let alone come to the US — that I’d have without question. (Well, the Ferrari . . . .)

But that only scratches the surface of the goodness introduced in Paris: from Alfa to Volkswagen, there were dozens of concepts and production cars to delight the eye. The best overview is at Wallpaper* (1, 2), but also see coverage at Ars Technica and The Autopian (1, 2, 3, and 4).

Special bonus #8: Inside GM’s Global Technical Center in Michigan. A long item from Wallpaper* featuring “ample opportunity to celebrate GM’s products, heritage and the all-important ‘surprise and delight.’”

Harley Earl beneath the “dome” back in the day.

“This was the ‘dream factory’, the birthplace of the stylish, status-driven mobility that convinced a nation of its place at the forefront of the industrialised world. To visit the campus today is to simultaneously step back in time to the auto industry’s heyday of boundless confidence, whilst also sampling the far future of manufacturing.” — Wallpaper*

The Center today. The exterior of the “dome” is visible amongst newer buildings and additions.

Photography

“Occasionally bizarre”

“This work does not propose conclusions. It documents a condition in which biological life and technological systems are no longer separable, yet remain unevenly aligned,” photographer Spencer Lowell says.

Aerial of Manhattan and Queens, 2016. Photograph by Spencer Lowell.

Lowell describes himself as a photographer of “science, technology, industry, environment, and people,” and all of that is shown throughout his debut monograph, Futures Past. PetaPixel has more.

2026 Epson Pano Awards

The 17th Epson International Pano Awards have announced its 2026 winners, which drew 4,084 entries from photographers in 93 countries.

‘Center of the Cosmos.’ Photograph by Xuecheng Liu. Winner of the Open Built Environment category.

Tons of great stuff here; according to their rules, by the way, “pano” is defined as a ratio of at least 2:1. See all of the winners and finalists at the Pano Awards website, check out Kottke’s favorites, or see PetaPixel‘s top 10.

2026 Astrophotography Prize

“Established in 2023,” PetaPixel writes, “the Astrophotography Prize is an international astrophotography competition run by astrophotographers, for astrophotographers.”

“Geminids Above Betlejemka,” Poland. Photograph by Lukasz Remkowicz..Finalist in the Astro Landscape category.

They continue: “the competition recognizes excellence across Astro Landscape, Aurora, Deep Space and Remote Imaging. Its emphasis on public live judging and constructive feedback gives entrants an opportunity to have their work assessed by experienced photographers while allowing a wider audience to learn about the craft.”

Some really spectacular stuff. See more.

Special bonus #9: See also this year’s Natural Landscape Photography Awards winners, “a collection of beautiful landscape and nature photos that emphasize realism and authenticity.” (Via PetaPixel.)

2026 Architecture Photography MasterPrize

“The Needle,” Qatar. Photograph by Ahmad Alnaji. Winner in the Hospitality Exterior category.

This contest is a little different, in that it’s winners from the photography program of the Architecture MasterPrize (AMP), “an international awards program now in its eleventh edition that also recognizes architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, and product design.”

“Fogo Island Inn,” Newfoundland. Photograph by Alex Fradkin. Winner in the Hospitality Exterior category.

Not at all described as “catnip,” this contest has some of the best architecture photography extant, year after year. The complete list of 2026 winners is on the AMP website. (Via PetaPixel.)

“Handcrafted images of memory and time”

Photographer Lara Porzak “works exclusively with analog techniques,” PetaPixel writes, “including tintypes and gelatin silver printing, using a slow, hands-on process to produce her photographs. She often develops images on site in a mobile darkroom, creating handcrafted prints that explore the relationship between photography, memory, and time.”

“Barn Owl.” Photograph by Lara Porzak.

As many of you know, I love tin- and old-style photography, and these are excellent. Better still, Los Angeles-based Porzak has brought “over 140 of her photographs together in her first monograph, The Chemistry of Memory.”

Have I mentioned that open-sewn bindings are hot right now?

2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

Finally, to close out October’s post, we have . . . a smile or two:

“Are you kidding me?” Photograph by Kevin Lohman.

I inadvertently selected three owl photographs in a row — but left it. Owls are awesome. (We have several that live on my block here in Macon; hearing them hoot and howl at each other — despite being on the urban-suburban boundary — is one of the reasons I treasure them.)

“Two little owls form one,” Al Qudra Desert, Dubai. Photograph by Lynn Emery.

“Each year the competition supports a sustainable conservation organization,” PetaPixel writes. “This year Comedy Wildlife is working with the Born Free Foundation, an international charity rescuing and protecting wild animals from exploitation and conserving threatened species.”

The People’s Choice Award is open now until March 1, 2027. Vote!

• • •

On that last subject: in the United States, Election Day is next Tuesday, November 3rd. Please make your vote heard.
- 1
  Dezeen, too, has “new” written all over it — while the logo is the same, the website has been refreshed, simultaneously making its homepage both less readable and more difficult to tell what’s new. Not all bad news, though: the posts themselves feel more modern and are still filled with interesting stuff. ↩︎
- 2
  Folks will notice that I’ve stopped embedding YouTube videos; my site is prominently labeled, “no information collected,” something embedded videos violate by requiring cookies. YouTube, along with any other sites requiring data collection, will be limited to links only. Thanks for understanding. ↩︎
October 31, 2026
Beautifully Briefed 26.3: The Ides of Equal Madness

This month, some optimism, some interesting books, some creative fonts, and some fantastic photos, and somepositivity — plus a smidgen of pessimism — in the form of Adobe.

On the whole, it’s mostly optimism, promise. And there’s butter. And a sleeping fox. And duck.

This month’s Spine

Rutgers University Press. Cover design by Ashley Muehlbauer; production editor, Vincent Nordhaus.

“Our initial direction for [the designer] was to create a clean, simple text design that conveyed crisis, dread, or the element of threat,” this title’s production editor said in response to my request for information.

“To say that someone lit a fire under those directions is an understatement,” I wrote in this title’s commentary. “In today’s American academic reality, where every day could indeed be … shall we say, fraught, this cover takes the brief and runs straight onto the dean’s list.”

See the rest of this month’s University Press Coverage at Spine.

Why she’s an optimist

Joan Westenberg (previously) has another great essay up about the AI doom loop — why it’s easy to believe that the downward spiral is tightening, to roughly paraphrase — and why she believes it just isn’t true:

In 1810, 81% of the American workforce was employed in agriculture. Two hundred years later, it’s about 1%. If you had shown someone in 1810 a chart of agricultural employment decline and asked them to model the economic consequences, the only rational projection would have been apocalypse. Where would 80% of the population find work? What would they do? How would anyone eat if the farmers were all displaced by machines?

The answer, of course, is that entirely new categories of work were created that no one in 1810 could have conceived of, and these new jobs paid dramatically more than subsistence farming. Factory work, office work, services, knowledge work, the entire apparatus of modernity: none of it was visible from the vantage point of the pre-industrial economy.

— Joan Westenberg, “Everything is Awesome”

“The transition was brutal and uneven. [People] suffered,” she writes. “But the trajectory was real, and the people projecting permanent immiseration […] were, in the fullest sense, catastrophically wrong.”

The essay isn’t perfect; it’s too long, and the editor failed to catch a few typos (he said, hypocritically). But … it scales. Zoomed out, it applies to more than AI.

“The doomers may have the best stories. I believe the optimists have the best evidence,” she concludes. I agree. Or, at least, I’d like to.

Go read it and see whether you do.

Great web moments, x2

Kottke.org

Kottke Turns 28. There are few websites I nod along with as often as this gem from the late ’90s, still going strong.

Kottke.org: 47,300 posts and counting.

Scripting.com

Dave Winer shoots for the stars:

We’re going to try to reboot the web.
Doing what the social networks do, but only using the web.
Every part replaceable.

— Dave Winer, scripting.com, “Mission Statement”

Scripting News has been around since ’94 and if you’re even a little interested in a free web, his site is a fine place to start learning how you can contribute to keeping it free.

Note: scripting.com is, famously, still non-https — which means that if you click on either of the above links you’re likely to get a warning that the site isn’t secure. It’s very much a safe link.

Book notes, x3

Oliver Munday, Head of Household

Somehow, I expected someone older. (Courtesy of Debutful.)

Nearly every one of his book cover designs could be called an instant favorite. He has a wry, brief expression that often delights.

So, when he wrote a book, did he do the cover? Well … no, as it turns out — and he preferred it that way.

Cover design by Chris Brand.

Munday’s collection of stories has an interesting cover by industry veteran Chris Brand, and I like it — although some of the alternatives seem to me like better fits for Munday’s take on life.

But, of course, that’s the point: it’s not about him, it’s about his book.

See the other book cover design drafts Brand designed for Head of Household at LitHub. (And a short Q&A.) Enjoy also this interview with the author/designer at Debutful.

The Butter Book

Book design by Lizzie Vaughan.

No, it doesn’t soften when left out — or spread any larger meaning. It’s just a great book cover (and jacket).

Chronicle gets a kick out of “things that look like other things.” We made a notepad called Pad of Butter that has been selling steadily since 2015. So, imaginations did not need to stretch when a butter-focused cookbook with a vellum jacket was proposed. It’s our “bread and butter,” so to speak.

— Q&A with author Anna Stockwell and designer Lizzie Vaughan, PRINT

“It’s important to find joy wherever you can these days and it’s hard to hate on butter,” the article says. Read the rest at PRINT.

“Naïve” design

Image courtesy of the LA Times.

The LA Times examines the latest book design trend: naïve design. (Yes, I pretentiously style that like the New Yorker does. The LA Times does not.) It’s where serious subjects wear … nostalgic cover designs, to use a phrase. Find out why.

Parenthetically, of the covers mentioned in that article, only one — by design legend Na Kim — has found its way into my 2026 Favorite Covers folder. It’ll be a minute, but stay tuned to find out which.

Special bonus #1: “You’ll need a magnifying glass to read these,” says This is Colossal:

Courtesy of the V&A Museum.

Special bonus #2: A favorite collectible (and slight tangent), these books “keep a lost design legacy alight,” says It’s Nice That:

A sample from The Matchbook Book by CentreCentre.

Update, 1 April: CreativeBoom has a nice feature on this title as well, with additional images. Check the slipcover:

Awesomeness courtesy of CreativeBoom.

Fonts March Foreword

CreativeBoom’s March faves

CreativeBoom‘s regular feature contains sixteen choices this month — awesome! — but I’d like to just highlight my three favorites:

Archibrazo by Rubén Fontana.

“Rubén Fontana is one of the most respected figures in Latin American type design, and Archibrazo, released through TypeTogether earlier this year, represents a characteristically considered piece of work. The typeface brings together two traditions that might seem at odds: the fluidity of calligraphic practice and the hardness of sculptural form. The result is a serif family that wears its sources with confidence, without collapsing into historicism or affectation.”

See more at TypeTogether.

Djaggety by Alessia Mazzaarella.

“Djaggety began in a classroom. Alessia Mazzarella of Typeland, who teaches type design to BA Graphic Design students, uses an 8×8 grid exercise as a standard introduction to letterform construction. The constraint, she explains, strips away the paralysis of infinite choice and forces students to focus on what makes a character recognisable within a tightly defined system. During one iteration of the exercise, she found herself drawn into the process rather than simply demonstrating it. […] Overall, it’s a good lesson in how constraint can generate, rather than foreclose, creative possibilities.”

See more at Typeland.

Musikal by Fred’s Fonts.

“After three years in development on Future Fonts, Fred Wiltshire’s Musikal has reached v1.0: a significant milestone for a typeface that began with a conscious act of divergence. Herman Ihlenburg’s Obelisk (1880s) served as the starting point: a high-contrast, ornamental display face of considerable geometric rigour and decorative confidence. Rather than reviving Obelisk directly, Wiltshire took its ‘playful nature’ as a conceptual springboard and built something clearly of the present.”

See more at Future Fonts.

Letterform Archives’ new celebration of hand-painted type

One example — I mean, who can argue with “Lettres Riches Fantaisie“?

“A new book published by Letterform Archive, Lettres Décoratives: A Century of French Sign Painters’ Alphabets, celebrates the vivacity and timelessness of French sign painting from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Compiled from lithograph portfolios, which range from 1875 to around 1932, the volume includes more than 150 full-color reproductions of these bold lettering samples. These portfolios once served as catalogue-like albums, providing inspiration for styles and motifs that could be translated onto large billboards and small signage alike.”

Read more about this great new book at This is Colossal or PRINT.

Cambridge’s old Baskerville ounches

Heavy metal for the type crowd:

Image courtesy of Cambridge University.

“John Baskerville was an influential 18th-century printer and type designer; you’ve probably used (or at least heard of) the Baskerville typeface. Cambridge University has the original punches used to create his signature typeface and has made high-res digital photos of them available online,” Kottke writes. “[S]eeing close-ups of the actual cut & shaped metal from 1757 is something else.”

In case you’re not familiar:

The typographic punch is the initial design for the letterform and one of the first of three stages in the manufacturing of metal type: short lengths of steel onto which his letters were cut in reverse and in relief. The punch was ‘tempered’ to increase its toughness and enable its use as a tool. Secondly, the punch was struck into the surface of a softer piece of metal (copper), leaving an impression of the ‘right-reading’ character to be cast. This was called the matrix. Finally, type was manufactured when the matrix was passed to the type-caster and inserted into a mould, into which molten lead-alloy was poured. This produced a cast of the type in relief and in reverse which were then arranged to create a text block and once inked, paper could be pressed against it.

Not just hi-res photos of punches for various sizes of type, either: some have 3D versions. Very cool.

Special bonus #3: The menu that never was:

World Class Female Singers.

Okay, okay, that’s not actually an unused menu from before Apple’s Macintosh was released in 1984, but how it came about isn’t something I’m going to quote. Instead, I’m just going to ask you to read it in full — it’s fantastic.

Courtesy of Unsung, Marcin Wichary’s awesome blog. (Yes, he of Shift Happens fame.)

Great graphic items, x2

The Tenth Muse

Screenshot of the Tenth Muse home page.

“The Tenth Muse is an art discovery engine. Over 120,000 artworks from museums and institutions — searchable by feeling, mood, atmosphere, era, and medium.”

(Via Kottke.)

AIGA NY: 50 years of posters

Just one example of the many posters now available for your persual.

“A 50-year goldmine of design: AIGA New York unveils its poster archive to the public,” It’s Nice That reports. “A newly opened window into its design archive, this unique visual library provides the public with an inside view of the design, art and activism that’s emerged from the city’s recent history. AIGA NY has ambitions for the collection to become physically accessible with an accompanying book that will showcase the posters in more depth.”

Adobe, yet again

DNG now standard

Let’s start with the positive:

“In March 2004, Australian photographer Robert Edwards asked a simple but meaningful question on Rob Galbraith’s now-defunct photography forums: ‘Could Adobe make a RAW format?’ The answer was very much ‘yes,’ and Adobe announced the DNG format, or Digital Negative, later that same year. Now, more than two decades later, DNG is now the official standard under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO),” PetaPixel writes.

From back in the day.

I remember lurking on Rob Galbraith site. Such were the importance of his forums — and, for that matter, the overall size and condition of the ’net in the early Aughties — that Thomas Knoll himself, one of the creators of Photoshop, would post there.

In case you’re not familiar, a camera’s RAW file is what the sensor sees at the moment of exposure, stored in a format for later editing. It’s completely different from a JPG file, which has all the camera’s choices baked in to the final image. Sports or journalism photographers usually shoot JPG, due to the need to post immediately; social media photography is, of course, its own animal.

Most fine photographers — that is, folks who shoot for art or pleasure, including your author — only shoot RAW, because it gives you maximum flexibility in “look.”

I’m honestly not sure how much of a difference this will make, but it’s nice to see DNG accepted as a standard — and it’s an example of Adobe meaningfully contributing to the bigger picture.

Train Adobe’s AI on your style

From the “mixed” department:

It’s not tin foil.

Adobe has launched Firefly Custom Models, “allowing artists to generate image variations that ‘more consistently reflect’ their own style, subject, or characters.

Adobe’s Deepa Subramaniam says, “Today, we’re expanding access to Firefly custom models, which let you turn your creative style into a reusable model trained on your own images. In this public beta release, custom models are optimized for ideation in character, illustration and photographic style.”

The goal of Custom Models, according to PetaPixel, is to “allow artists to train Adobe’s Firefly AI specifically to unique workflows so that when it generates content, it is more aligned with their specific style.”

Hmmm. How ’bout practical effects? Seriously, this might turn out to be useful. Time will tell. Helmet of ~~tin~~ flowers and all.

CEO retires. Stock … down?

Here’s where the attitude sneaks in: most of us, present company included, are sick of Adobe’s attitude towards its customers.

“Adobe’s longtime CEO, Shantanu Narayen, announced this week that he is stepping down after 18 years as CEO and nearly 30 years at the company. If you ask shareholders, Narayen was, for a long time, among the very best in the biz. If you ask Adobe’s core customers, the artists who were once indispensable to the company’s success, it’s a different story,” writes Jeremy Gray in an opinion piece for PetaPixel.

Adobe made more than $7 billion in net profit last year, a clear win for shareholders. This is due to their choice to treat creatives as a profit center. But their stock is down because their AI efforts have fallen flat — Firefly is way behind Midjourney or Gemini — and the planned additional profit center has failed to materialize.

And by “down,” I mean significantly. During Narayen’s tenure, Adobe’s share price increased from around $40 in late 2007 when he took over to an all-time high of $688.37 in 2021. But as of this writing, it’s $243. “Although Adobe and Narayen are painting his departure as entirely the outgoing CEO’s decision,” Gray continues, “it’s easy to wonder whether tumbling share prices had something to do with the transition, or at least sped up existing plans.

“I respect the sheer scale of what he achieved. I admire that he grew Adobe so that it could hire more great workers to build better software. But for me, Narayen’s legacy is ultimately one of treating [creatives] like an afterthought […] using our passion and love for art to boost his brand.”

I understand that Adobe has become one the Internet’s favorite punching bags of late, and I try to distance myself from that sport (no matter the subject). But I can’t help but agree with many of the things expressed in that piece.

Let’s hope that the future bring change, one way or another. For many professionals, Adobe essentially holds a monopoly.

But then, so did Microsoft.

Special bonus #4: Unsung asks, “Why wouldn’t everyone deserve the gift of focus?” He’s talking about the tragically-short-lived focus mode in Photoshop, wherein the user isn’t automatically shown pop-ups or blaring (bleating?) buttons regarding new features.

I mention this because I just uninstalled Acrobat, Adobe’s PDF management program, because I couldn’t turn off the pop-ups, sharing invitations, or requests to add comments. All I wanted was to proof documents, but what I was gifted with was frustration — even anger, on days where a deadline was involved.

Special bonus #5: “A slap on the wrist” is understatement writ large:

“Canceling a software subscription is supposed to be easy — that’s what US law dictates. Adobe, however, has played fast and loose with its Creative Cloud subscriptions in the past. The company was sued by the Department of Justice in 2024 due to its practice of hiding hefty termination fees when customers signed up. The case has now been settled, with Adobe agreeing to a $75 million fine and matching free services to users of its products,” Ars Technica writes.

The company doesn’t admit to violating the law. “While we disagree ⁠with the government’s claims and deny any wrongdoing, we are pleased to resolve this matter,” Adobe said in a statement.

March photo round-up

Okay, let’s switch gear and end with inspiration — even happiness.

International Garden Photographer of the Year 2026

Yes, you read that right: there’s an international contest for the best garden photograph. (If you want hard-hitting stuff, see Sony’s awards. There’s enough “news” in the world, so….)

Grange Fell Last Light. Overall Winner. Photograph by Mark Hetherington.

Soothing. The image also earned first place in the Breathing Spaces — more soothing —category, and was captured in Borrowdale in England’s Lake District; the “photograph shows heather, silver birch trees, and the warm light of sunset viewed from Grange Fell,” PetaPixel writes.

See all the winning photographs at the contest website.

British wildlife

Asleep at the Wheel. Winner, Urban Wildlife. Photograph by Simon Withyman.

It’s a shame these are still photographs. Hearing a red fox bark in a British accent would be a hoot.

Standing Tall. Winner, Animal Portrait. Photograph by Alastair Marsh.

Proof that excellence in photography extends to all parts of the realm. See all twenty-one winners at This is Colossal or PetaPixel.

London Camera Exchange Photographer of the Year 2026

Last of the items originating in the UK this month, although the excellent photographs within aren’t limited to just those countries. Some examples:

Crossing the Curves. Winner, Street. Photograph by Helen Trust.

“A lone cyclist moves through sweeping arcs of light and shadow at the City of Arts and Sciences. Reflections echo the architecture’s rhythm, momentarily aligning human motion with structure, symmetry, and space.”

Saving Lives at Sea. Winner, Action. Photograph by David Lyon.

“Captured from the shore, during a regular Newhaven training exercise.”

Magical Uphill Lincoln. Winner, People’s Choice. Photograph by Andrew Scott.

“This image was taken during golden hour in Lincoln. The image captures the historic streets and architecture of Lincoln as a golden sunset sets in. […] The golden glow of the sky, cobbles and light from the window add that extra dimension in terms of how the overall image works as a result.” (The description somehow missed “soothing.”)

See all the winners at the London Camera Exchange website. Via Macfilos.

Andrew Moore: Theater

“Known for his atmospheric photographs of landscapes, interiors, and urban centers that feel mysteriously locked in a not-so-distant past, Andrew Moore’s enigmatic images invite us into a slippage of time,” This is Colossal writes.

Grand Luncheonette, New York, 1996. Photograph by Andrew Moore.

Not only great, but ~~currently~~ on display: Moore has a solo show running at Atlanta’s Jackson Fine Art. (Update: The show ended March 21st, darned it. I’d have gone if I’d read that properly.)

Cinematic plastic

No, not current events — something better:

Jurassic Pit. Photograph by Chuck Eiler.

“Chicago-based photographer Chuck Eiler transforms action figures into cinematic, story-driven miniature worlds that blur the line between toy photography and film. Through meticulously crafted sets, practical effects, and careful lighting, he creates immersive scenes that bring nostalgia and storytelling to life,” PetaPixel writes.

Apex Predators. Photograph by Chuck Eiler.

Awesome. (And available as prints, in case you want for your ~~sandbox~~ walls.)

Finally: duck this

Last month saw the incredible fresh pasta camera. Well, in case you think I only recommend a vegetarian lifestyle, there’s…:

Four Minutes in London.

Martin Cheung’s Chinese roast duckcam.

Presumably, he throws a fresh camera into the oven every time he needs one: “I will continue making Duckcam while I travel, so next time when you see a person with a roasted duck on a tripod, please say hello to me.”

Enjoy your spring, everyone!

March 31, 2026
Beautifully Briefed 26.2: Authentic

This time: authenticity fake and real, practical photography, and lots more goodness — things you can connect with. Enjoy.

This month’s Spine

University of Kentucky Press. Cover design by Dominique Jones.

“[T]his collection of connected stories is about a Black family moving to and living in a very white New York town — begging the question that is the title. This is supported by an absolutely superb cover, whose painterly qualities and expert composition evoke emotions and make potential readers want to seek answers,” I said in this month’s University Press Coverage.

“There’s well-done, and then there’s next-level. This is definitely the latter.”

But Where’s Home is one of fifteen covers highlighted this month. Check it out.

Also in book design

While we’re on subject of Spine, Linnea Gradin posted an article — she’s usually a writer for Reedsy — about design trends for ’25 and predictions for this year.

A selection of titles the article calls, “The Serialized Standalone.”

I didn’t devote much time to book design trends in my annual Favorite Book Covers post, so if you’re not familiar with what’s hot in book design at the moment, this article could be worth a moment of your time.

That’s not to say trends aren’t important. I completely (begrudgingly?) acknowledge trends exist and definitely drive design, from book design to logos; however, like so many things these days, trends ~~seem to be~~ are about chasing social media — and I’m not going to celebrate popular opinion when I can celebrate excellence.

A selection of 1960s Penguin crime novels.

Meanwhile, Jason Kottke posted a link to The Case of the Green Covers, a risograph-printed zine that documents the history of the “Green Penguins”, “a series of hundreds of crime novels published with green covers by the UK publisher Penguin in the 1960s.”

After years and years of doggedly collecting what are commonly called “Green Penguins,” a series of hundreds of crime novels published with green covers by the UK publisher Penguin in the 1960s, I’ve both mounted an exhibition of the collection, and created a zine that documents the history of the books, their design, and the designers that made them. The content in the zine is an expansion and re-crafting of the writing I did about these books here, on the Justseeds blog, for my old Judging Books By Their Covers series (you can read those HERE).

— Josh MacPhee, Justseeds

Great stuff. If you’re in Philly, go see the exhibit — “held at Tomorrow Today, a very cool art & politics bookshop that recently opened,” Josh writes — but if not, the zine might very well be fun.

As is Justseeds, now bookmarked.

Projecting British Design,by Thomas Steeles

Special bonus #1: It’s Nice That highlights a new title from the British Design Council:

Tucked away in a Manchester Metropolitan University archive lies 22,000 photographic slides of iconic British post-war design, ranging from the grand (a high-speed passenger train, for example) to the seemingly inconspicuous (plush bean bags and stackable ashtrays). These 35mm slides were made between 1948-1994 by the UK’s Design Council […] as a means of cataloging and preserving the UK’s design history, alongside a select handful of items from abroad. Now, Projecting British Design, a book published by the modernist, documents a selection of 100 of those slides — in the process demonstrating the vast array of objects that have changed the way we live.

— Olivia Hingley, It’s Nice That

I do wish the collection were online, but the post is cool — there are a bunch of examples — and the book will be fun for aficionados of British design, no matter the era.

Faking analog

Elizabeth Goodspeed, by now a regular here on Foreword, has a new column up at It’s Nice That, in which she posits on imperfection as a design strategy: “Faking ‘realness’ on a computer doesn’t get us anywhere new.”

By now, the central point — “[f]or every person declaring that analogue is back, there’s someone offering the same explanation why: AI and other digital tools have made perfection cheap, fast, and easy, so imperfection now signals authenticity” — is generally accepted in design circles. (See comments regarding trends, above.) But she asks a better question: “But if analogue only matters as a foil to the digital, why are analogue aesthetics being embraced without analogue tools?”

She provides a lovely — and classic — graphic.

“[T]his suggests that what’s being described as an “analogue revival” is less a material shift than a semiotic one. Terms like “handcrafted” no longer reliably describe how something was produced, but how an image wants to be read. Whether something was made with ink, a brush, or film often seems secondary, if it matters at all. What’s actually taken on weight is the idea of analogue, and the set of values now projected onto it.

As ever, the blame doesn’t fall on artists (or even the people selling texture packs). The practical reality is that most people no longer have the time, tools, or support to make fully analogue work, even if they want to. The creative infrastructure that would make it viable – materials access, slower timelines, financial stability – isn’t widely available. Designers and illustrators are stuck in a bind: analogue signals value, but digital is what’s feasible.”

— Elizabeth Goodspeed, It’s Nice That

It’s another case of I-could-quote-the-whole-thing-but-should’t, of course — so please just go read it. Because she’s right: it’s a trend, it’s a response, and it’s something that needs to be recognized. (Additional teasers for the article: a stack o’ pancakes and pre-stained Prada. No mention of who’s wearing it.)

Actual analog

A three-fer for you:

Cover design by Samantha Hahn.

• From Spine, a book cover where analog — that is, actual composition of items, arranged and photographed, won the day. See the other options presented.

A lovely additive-printed stamp from Poland.

• From It’s Nice That, via Kottke: lovely collection of stamps. If you’re into great examples of “graphic design in miniature,” “from the recurring Olympics theme to the colourful modernist designs” — and you can stomach Instagram — you can enjoy daily goodness. If not, there are plenty of still to choose from at the links.

Flyer design by Cat Duncan.

• An identity for Athene Club, a women-centred run and hike club in the UK, designed by Cat Duncan. Done in a style that’s awesomely analog — okay, okay, there might be a computer involved — and started before it became a trend. (Also via It’s Nice That.)

Architecture poster favorites, again

Archinect‘s ongoing series of architecture school lecture posters (previously) highlights examples that continue serve an informational purpose with fantastic design:

Washington University.

UTexas at Austin.

Yale University.

Although their contest for readers to vote for their favorite closed yesterday, it’s not the winner — it’s that they all pretty much win. See the whole list. (And get a head start with the Spring ’26 posters with one from Pratt.)

February fonts

CreativeBoom‘s usually-monthly roundup of new fonts includes some I’d like to mention — and hopefully use. (Is typeface addiction a thing?)

WG Buttered Crumpet by Jamie Clark Type

Yes, absolutely, the name has everything to do with Wallace and Gromit.

“The finished typeface – Buttered Crumpet – gives Aardman [Studios] a timeless, familiar tone of voice with bundles of charm. It includes over 200 characters, covering all Western European languages, and was designed in a single, carefully crafted weight with room for future expansion,” Clark writes. “As a Bristol-based designer, it was a joy to create a lasting connection with my home city and one of its most renowned creative studios.”

Veloce by Rob Andrews

Yes, absolutely named after an Alfa Romeo.

“Veloce began as a single-weight studio font and grew into something with real range. Clear and neutral, with enough personality to avoid feeling anonymous, it’s a strong choice for both body text and signage,” CreativeBoom writes. “What really sets it apart, though, is the language coverage. […] It’s an unusually thoughtful decision for a debut, reflecting serious long-term thinking about global communication.”

The website is admittedly not great. (You can cheat: see the specimen PDF here.)

YJC Volt Swing by Yenty Jap Creative

No, absolutely not what CreativeBoom said it was:

“[A] font born from a spark of energy and a little nudge of mischief. It started as a scribble with attitude, leaning forward like it had somewhere important to be — and honestly, it still does,” Yenty Jap writes on her site. “YJC Volt Swing carries that charged-up spirit into every letter, giving your words a bold voice that feels alive, confident, and just a tiny bit rebellious (in the good, hug-you-after kind of way).”

(CreativeBoom had listed — and spoke well of — YJ Knotted Ink, something completely different, while using pictures from YJC Volt Swing. Oops.)

Special bonus #2: PRINT says, “From DSType Foundry [and] designed by Dino dos Santos in 2025, Ensaio feels like a modular system for book design.” The caption flavor is my favorite — but they’re all awesome.

“Rather than having one set of forms stretch across every application, it’s built into four purpose-built variants: Text, Cover, Caption, and Capitals — acknowledging that the typographic needs of a novel’s body copy are fundamentally different from those of a cover or a footnote,” PRINT says.

“Yes,” this book designer agrees.

BMW Alpina, again

Last month’s Beautifully Briefed mentioned the new BMW-Alpina wordmark. (I incorrectly used the word logo, ’cause someone did in something I read and I repeated it without thinking — sorry). The actual logo, which is to say, the badge you’ll see on the vehicles, the website, and some marketing materials, has now been made public:

Still an exhaust and crankshaft, but in the “flat” style also used by BMW (and countless others — see trends, above).

Parenthetically, BMW has suggested that at some point their logo will be etched into the paint rather than a chrome add-on (as on the concept, below), or possibly used as a backlight on the grille (much more ~~trendy~~ likely, I believe):

From the Vision Neue Classe X concept.

In any case, here’s a before-and-after, courtesy of The Autopian:

The old logo is at the left, new at the right.

Read the excellent article at The Autopian, or two different, quicker posts at BMW Blog.

January photography faves

The art of emptiness

MacFilos‘ title for their profile of Italian photographer Marco Ronconi suggests a certain negativity — which, in a way, is true. But in the positive sense.

Face to Face (Arctic Hare). Photograph by Marco Ronconi.

He “masters the art of reducing his images to what is essential. By omitting everything he believes to be unnecessary, even colour, he creates unusual wildlife images.”

An image from the Chiaro | Scuro Project. Photograph by Marco Ronconi.

Very satisfying landscapes, too. See more.

Special bonus #3: “Berlin-based Italian photographer Paride Ambrogi recently combined two of his loves, photography and pasta, in a brilliant, possibly tasty way,” PetaPixel writes. “Ambrogi made the Ravihole Camera, a working pinhole camera made entirely from fresh pasta dough.”

Al Dente Photography.

SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year 2025

Bird photography is an incredibly specialized skill. So contest winners are usually pretty amazing photographs. These absolutely don’t disappoint:

Photograph by Liam McBride.

“With over 2,200 photographs submitted from around the globe, the SINWP Bird Photographer of the Year 2025 competition has revealed a stunning celebration of avian beauty, from kingfishers and bald eagles to owls, flamingos, and countless species beyond. The diversity and quality of the entries have been truly breathtaking,” a press release reads. The contest benefits the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, or RSPB.

Photograph by Emma Brooke.

That’s Society of International Nature and Wildlife Photographers, by the way. See more at PetaPixel.

Sony World Photography Awards Open Competition winners 2025

Sony has announced the “10 category winners and the 120 shortlisted photographs from its Open competition, which recognizes the best single images captured by photographers worldwide in the past year.”

Winner, Architecture. Photograph by Markus Naarttijarvi.

Photographers do not need Sony cameras or lenses, only talent — of which there’s plenty.

Shortlisted, Motion. Photograph by Christoph Oberschneider.

As is often the case, I prefer some of the shortlisted photographs to the winners. Like the skier above, or this dystopian, almost science fiction shot from Asia:

Shortlisted, Architecture. Photograph by Utshaho Gupta.

A couple of celebrities, lots of great portraits, and many of nature. That latter category has what’s probably my favorite:

Winner, Natural World and Wildlife. Photograph by Klaus Hellmich.

See all 130 photographs at PetaPixel, or selected favorites at This Is Colossal.

World Nature Photography Awards 2026

“The World Nature Photography Awards were founded in 2020 with the goal of not only promoting the world’s best nature photos but also inspiring people to connect deeper with nature,” PetaPixel writes. “WNPA partners with Ecologi to plant a tree every time someone enters the competition as well.”

“Shy but Still Majestic.” Silver, Black and White. Photograph by Ross Wheeler.

“This year’s winning images are a powerful reminder of both the wonder of our planet and the importance of protecting it,” a press release perhaps understates.

“Stoicism in a Sandstorm.” Gold, Behavior — Amphibians and Reptiles. Photograph by Dewalkd Tromp.

See all 42 winning images at PetaPixel.

Special bonus #4: “My photography boomed when I stopped looking at social media,” Ivor Rackham writes at PetaPixel, with tips and ideas for successful business alternatives aplenty.

Cold and wet — but happy. Photograph by Ivor Rackham.

Interesting comparison to soap operas — or is that soapboxing? You decide, but I’d argue that his photos prove some talent.

The flowers are just starting to come out here in Georgia. May spring bloom for all of you, too. See you soon.

February 28, 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
My Favorite Book Covers of 2025
When it comes to describing 2025, “tumultuous” is probably an understatement.

So it’s probably not a surprise that, when looking at the hundred covers that make up this list, there’s a definite direction: favoring quality over quantity. Which is to say, consciously or not, I’ve tended to prefer designs where more is said with less.

Perhaps I’m striving for calm in a world that just … isn’t. Perhaps it’s my choice not to participate in social media and its race for likes, loves, and “latests.”¹ Perhaps it’s my advancing age — closing in on 60 now — and thus “old-fashioned” standards.

In fact, it could be said that I value not keeping up: I don’t want to highlight the trendy. I want to celebrate great talent, design that’s standout in its day but will still be great as time passes.

However, it’s appropriate to emphasize that these are my favorites. Others might say “best,” but I’ve been in this business long enough to know that there’s always another title you haven’t seen or read about, and I don’t want to disrespect any of the talented book designers whose work I didn’t see, and consequently didn’t feature. I’ve tried to include design credit where I could — many thanks to the folks who answered requests for that information — and wish to stress that any mistakes in the list below are mine.

Note: By request, titles starting with “The” are alphabetized correctly. Also, if you’re on Foreword’s main page, please click on the post title, above, to read this list. You’ll get larger covers for your viewing pleasure.

• • •

My favorite book cover of 2025

Cover design by Jack Smyth.

There was no question which of these hundred titles would take the title: this heavyweight, brought to us by Dublin-based Jack Smyth. Fellow cover designer Jaya Nicely, in LitHub‘s 2025 list, called it “tactile,” but it’s more than that — it’s downright visceral.

In fact, and indeed in direct contradiction to what I said in the intro, I’m celebrating something trendy: silhouettes are “in” — even overused — but I love this cover because I don’t recall ever seeing one more effectively implemented. Simultaneously hiding around the edge and using it to an advantage, our boxer (presumably the book’s subject, Nathaniel) looks poised to strike.

When combined with type and lines slightly off kilter, use of a fantastic orange, and aging and grain that ice the cake, this cover has it down.

2025 runners-up

Cover design by Paul Sahre, with illustration by David Plunkert.

A triumph of less-is-more illustration, with color and a title treatment that knows how compliment. The pressed or sprayed, aged-but-not, white and black are magnificent, while the rings stand out as the only use of “gold.” I love that the arm above the glove is just an outline.

Cover design by Kris Potter; photography by Laurent Tixador.

Photography seems almost passé these days, so its use requires something extra — here served up in spades. On the one hand, I want the boats on the horizon to have been removed, but on the other, it highlights the fraud within in a subtle, realize-after-the-fact way that’s awesome.

I have to say, too: this is about fifteen light years beyond the woman-folded-into-the-chair edition, one of those trends that needs to just stop.

Cover design by Arsh Raziuddin.

While it compliments Free, from 2022’s list, it’s more: more sophisticated, more of a story, and leaves you with more questions — and more likely that you’ll pick it up to get those answers.

Bonus points for the folded papers, the Albanian coat of arms, and planes “outside” the collage.

• • •

Other 2025 favorites, in alphabetical order

Cover design by David Fassett.

Christian titles so often reach for stereotype — something easily pigeonholed, almost like romance (for instance, unless of course I’m the one stereotyping). It’s often to the detriment of the subject: prematurely dooming the worthy, as it were.

This one very much rises above: the mountain/clouds, the spiral, the mixed and colored illustrations, and titles stacked at an angle (with slight em- or debossing?) are all exceptionally well done.

Riverhead/Penguin didn’t return a request for cover design info. Apologies.

The opposite of sinking beneath the waves: a beautiful pen-and-ink illustration, a color block of sea — or sky — heeling over at just the right angle, with the wonderful knock outs. Then there’s the hint-of-blue tail, the design equivalent of a spinnaker, standing out at the fore of a crowded race. Unmistakably awesome.

Cover design by Beth Steidle.

Simple without being simplistic, quiet while not quite, this one deserves that satisfying “thunk” that goes with a stamp of approval. (No cancellations allowed.)

Cover design by Tom Etherington.

Eye-catching is a cliché too far — but it’s definitely more than just a collection of shapes artfully arranged. Bonus points for the edge between red and star, the color choices, and title spacing.

Special bonus: continues the family look:

Cover design by Tom Etherington.

Fantastic.

Cover design by Arsh Raziuddin.

Neither a zig nor zag: the combo of pink, alligator skin, and “tears” is nigh-on perfect.

Algonquin Books didn’t return an inquiry for the cover design info — sorry. (If you know….)

The part-human-part-animal design tool is another of those overused items — except when it’s handled as well as it is here. The eyes are brilliant, the title treatment fun, and the colors standout. The subject, superficially, is not dissimilar to Alligator Tears, above, but the details, the design — and most certainly the text within — celebrate being different.

Cover design by Beth Steidle.

The cover-in-two-parts is another of those items potentially overused, but the repetition and title treatment — the r-l tie-up is fab — take this one to the next level. Bonus points for “a novel,” both less and so much more.

Cover design by Elena Giavaldi.

Another where the pressed/stamped ink works well — but the black on top of the almost-overstyled photo is the winner here, a photo that doesn’t say “South Dakota” in all the right ways.

Cover design and illustration by Elizabeth Story.

Never mind the awesome type, layout, and color — that illustration, or perhaps just the expression, does everything. A winner at first sight.

Cover design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.

Sometimes, it’s possible to be ~~knocked askew~~ awed by a simple idea.

Cover design by Linda Huang.

“My aye!”

(Yeah, yeah, the paper pattern and color, aged red and great brown outlines, type choices, and inclusion of Asian name seal, not to mention the geese, are all awesome too.)

Cover design by Monograph.

One is more — one-color, that is, with a perfect combination of blur and line, “shadow” and light, simplicity and complexity.

Not the only one-color item on this list, I’m happy to see.

Cover design by Luisa Dias.

From texture to type, photo to illustration, this is a cover that keeps giving the more the viewer keeps looking.

Cover design by Stephanie Ross, with art by Maria Guimaraes.

Cool illustration, cool idea — but it’s the use of color that earns this cover a spot here. The bright pink and various greens delight, as does the unusual-but-perfect background box for the title.

Cover design by Robin Bilardello.

“Guaranteed to augment your … life,” Vi thought.

Cover design by Rodrigo Corral Studio.

This is based on the Korean edition; the art came with the title. That said, this version uses that ah-ha moment that is title’s holding area, combined with infinitely better type — and gets serious compliments as a result.

Bonus points to the original designer for a painting that’s anything but postmodern.

Cover design and art by Na Kim.

Speaking of paintings, Na Kim’s often take center stage in her cover designs. Here, however, it’s everything. Fantastic!

Cover design by Thoman Colligan.

The two-pane cover gets overdone, no question, but like others on this list that rise above a trend, this cover triumphs in complimentary colors, type treatments, and spacing. Somehow soothing and attention-getting — an accomplishment.

Cover art by Scott Mescudi.

Every time one zoomed out to look at the collected — every single time — this persevered. Survived. Stayed. And then became incredibly successful.

(The cover, too.)

Cover design by Josh Durham.

Pictures running in time, complimented by the vertical title. (Rare and attention-demanding use of duotone here, too — nice.) Bonus points for the title and other text being subtly different colors.

Cover design by Adriana Tonello and Frances Digiovanni, Rodrigo Corral Studio. Illustration by Sophy Hollington.

Letterpress or inkblot? When it’s as much eye candy as this, do you care?

Cover design by Na Kim.

The contrast to Na’s Brother Brontë cover, above, couldn’t be more stark — yet this one, in its … well, stark simplicity, is no less accomplished.

Work that stands out, from one of the standouts.

Cover design by Chris Bentham.

Retro-tastic burst of style that takes something ostensibly text-only to another level.

Parenthetically, the author argues that we’re in the third “information crisis,” the first being invention of writing and the second the invention of the printing press. We survived those, maybe we can survive this…. A UK title I wish were readily available in the States. (The Brit Amazon wants you to buy it together with Cory Doctorow’s Enshittification, by the way. There‘s an afternoon’s reading.)

Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

Old-fashioned illustration, type arranged in a way that’s anything but old-fashioned, and great color choices: successful in a way that suggests simple in one of those “effortless ease” ways. (“Yo-Yo Ma just saws on a big fiddle” kind of thing.)

Cover design by Eli Mock.

“Missile Command meets The New York Times,” you say, in an effort to describe this design to someone who hasn’t seen it — something guaranteed to get a laugh. But here it is, in all its glory.

Cover design by Jaya Miceli, with art by Anna Brones.

Cookbooks are such a well-trod genre that it’s nearly impossible to break out of the pack and generate something not only truly original but truly excellent: a feast indeed.

Cover design by Jared Oriel.

Burnt matches have never made such sweet music.

Cover design by Darren Haggar; illustration by Cecilia Caristedt.

Poppy? Or a view into something deeper?

Cover design by June Park.

“What happens when your world goes sideways?” this cover — and book — ask. From illustration to style, basically … perfect.

Cover design by Janet Hansen.

Simple, practical, awesome. (“Chef’s kiss” is probably tacky, so I’ll avoid saying that.)

The author’s previous title, Lucky Dogs, was in my 2023 Favorites.

Cover design by Rodrigo Corral and Adriana Tonello.

At first glance, something we see all the time, from image to typestyle.

But then it goes on to ring the bell.

Cover design by Frances Digiovanni, Rodrigo Corral Studios.

The case where something like “a two-color triumph” feels not only cliché but a genuine undersell. The illustration, the color choices, the exquisitely shaky hand lettering — all beyond perfect, and that’s before we start talking about those strings. And the power that’s pulling on them.

Cover design by Jared Bartman.

The bear feels like something generated by bad AI, or even a suit; as it turns out, we don’t care. Bright, funny, and fun in just the right way. (I do wish they’d kept the single quotes proper English uses.)

Cover design by Adriana Tonello.

On the one hand, the opposite of “bright, funny and fun” — and yet, one the other, somehow, not.

Cover design by Maddy Angstreich.

I swore, possibly in public, that cropped classical paintings is something we should move on from in book design.

Clearly, I was wrong.

Cover design and illustration by Micaela Alcaino.

One of the few times in recent memory that something so original was so funny, so satisfying, and such a standout design … on any shelf.

(One of those covers that would work well as a print, I think.)

Cover design by Anna Morrison.

The triumph of the simple.

Cover design by Keith Kayes, with art by Jose David Morales.

“Sometimes a new author will sidle up and whisper in your ear, and sometimes she’ll grab you by the neck,” one of this book’s blurbs reads. The design of Immemorial, above, is the former. This design is very much the latter — completely and delightfully.

Ballantine’s contact page is a 404 error — I kid you not — so the designer remains anonymous.

Power, grace, and color — and, of course, the title treatment. A cover that was never in danger of losing its groove. (Bonus points for the pink “earring.”)

Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

Simplicity can mask ~~death~~ depth.

Special bonus: related brilliance, from 2022:

Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

Cover design by Nick Misani.

Illustration and lettering triumph for this classic title, slightly reminiscent of the Farmer’s Almanac I remember from my youth (in the most complimentary way), with appropriately-English “characters” for the UK edition.

Cover design by Katy Homans.

I mentioned above that for photographs to work today, they have to have that something that grabs and won’t let go. This one does.

Cover design by Arsh Raziuddin.

Next-level collection of long views both together with and simultaneously separated by brilliant use color. Bonus points for the repetition in author and subtitle.

Cover design by La Boca.

Gets the award for “most zany,” in the best possible way: “a scream,” indeed.

Cover design by Stephen Brayda.

Speaking of awards, let’s have one for “soothing.” The dotted path is brilliant and colors awesome. (And while it’s not part of the design, it’s impossible not to appreciate that subtitle.)

Cover design and art by Alex Merto.

Colorful, original, retro-yet-not — with that tiger. I want to make jokes about how this cover so very well illuminates, but really, I just want to go read it. Awesome.

Cover design by Beth Steidle, with art by Uzo Njoku.

I’m not a fan of the text-around-the-edge trend — I get it, it’s a framing device, but, suddenly it was everywhere, too much, all at once.

Once in a while, however, it’s done so well that greatness must be acknowledged. Weaving the title text into the pattern helps, as does, of course, the fantastic art.

Cover design by Tyler Comrie.

I had the UK version of this in last year’s list — but the paperback, out this year, gives me an excuse to not only highlight the US version, but the associated redesigned back titles:

Cover designs by Tyler Comrie.

I do not believe “brilliant” is resorting to cliché.

Cover design by Grace Han.

The second one-color cover on this list, whose simplicity belies the story within. (Lauren Peters-Collaer, on LitHub‘s “best of” list, describes it as “fractured,” which I love — along with the “minor Black artist” being named Wyeth.)

Cover design by Jaya Miceli.

“I forgot the ~~blueprints~~ parsley!”

Awesome stuff: the lips being the only thing on her face, the dog’s expression, the rough sketch style, the way the title stands out, um … okay, everything.

Cover design by Matt Broughton, with art by Katrien de Blauwer.

As mentioned, the two-pane cover has become a thing; this one breaks out not only with the black-and-white photos (possibly a subtle duotone) and a bright title in a great typeface (Herbus, by OTT) but cropping on the bottom photo that causes a double-take, and that hint — just a hint — of just-sank in the top photo. Good stuff.

Much stronger without the quotes fouling the water, by the way. The tug-of-war between design and marketing sometimes ~~gets~~ makes ugly.

Cover design by Jenny Volvovski.

Brilliantly simple stand-out: nest and enjoy.

Cover design by Arsh Raziuddin.

A fantastic example of a photograph plus — that illustration, those lines, that green, those stars. (And, of course, the eyes.)

Cover design by Chris Bentham.

This UK cover expresses the arrogance — the cockiness — while bringing forth all of the disjointedness and even kleptocracy. Timely and compelling.

Cover design by Matt Dorfman.

I like the design of this series — the title holding area (literally) is unusual enough to catch attention on today’s ~~shelves~~ socials — but the colors and treatment on this title, specifically, are the most pleasing.

Cover design by Erik Carter.

A brilliant idea, perfectly fulfilling the idea of communicating everything needed with one simple concept. (Alas, since putting this aside — the candidates for this list are gathered throughout the year — it’s gained splashy “ketchup” and what can only be described as “cheese.” Boo.)

Special bonus: the UK version:

Cover design by Jack Smyth.

No less brilliant — yet, as covers from the “right” side of the pond often are, more sophisticated.

Cover design by Janet Hansen, with art by Ahmad Sabbagh.

Okay, let’s revisit the text describing the previous title.

To quote Jason Kottke: “The US cover, like many American things, is somewhat less subtle & elegant.” In this specific instance, however, I have to disagree: sometimes, more is more.

Here, the US version brings a power to the table that US versions often struggle with; a “a few strokes of the pen” can wield enormous strength — often too much — and thought, talent, and consideration are appreciated. This is all of those.

Cover design by Claire Sullivan, with art by Alex Eckman Lawn.

“Not for the faint of heart,” one of the blurbs for this title reads — and applies equally well to the cover, which communicates “lovely” and “grotesque” in equal measure. (The UK version trendily plays up the lighter approach.)

Cover design by Jaya Nicely, with art by Rokas Aleliunas.

A “brilliant, funny, unsettling” illustration, too. (Love the green, by the way.)

Cover design by Devon Manney.

“From screening to aging, suggestion to content, color to style, this one, put simply, gets everything right,” I said on Spine in October’s University Press Coverage column — but when it was highlighted in October’s Beautifully Briefed, here on Foreword, I added, “One could argue that this cover — and title — could work well even if the word “climate” was removed.”

Cover design by David Eckersall.

“Tatreez, meaning ‘embroidery’ in Arabic, is used to refer to the traditional style of embroidery practiced in Palestine and Palestinian diaspora communities. The contemporary form of tatreez is often dated back to the 19th century. The style of cross-stitch embroidery called fallaḥi has been practiced amongst Arab communities in the Mediterranean for centuries,” Wikipedia notes. (NY’s Met Museum has more.)

Beautifully applied.

Special bonus: see also:

Cover design by Chantal Jahchan.

Yeah.

Cover design by Janet Hansen.

Pan, panic, or just surprise? No matter the expression, a delightful way to break all of the rules. (Bonus points for the knee to the nose.)

With apologies, I don’t know the designer for this cover.

A disgraced comedian-turned-politician is recruited by the CIA — a grainy prospect that you wouldn’t expect to look like this.

Um, yes.

(“This title is absolutely about Bolrovia,” he added.)

Cover design by Emily Mahon.

Less chess and more Cold War, another where a powerful, simple idea triumphs. The orange and the hand-lettering deserve special praise, as well.

Cover design by Luke Bird.

From expression to ears, brings new delight to deer-in-the … highlights.

Rutgers University Press did not return a request for cover design information.

“From the woodcut hall of fame, we have this,” I wrote in Spine‘s November column.

(I’m sad Rutgers never returns emails, because this artist deserves named credit. If you know….)

Cover design by Ella Laytham.

That “Essays” is printed in little tiny pink stamps is merely the kicker: awesomeness, defined.

Cover design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.

Might I have mentioned that silhouettes are overused, even trendy? And that photographs are passé? Not here.

Like The Slip, this title goes out of its way to do something different, something appreciated, with the cutout. Combined with a great photo and grainy sky, it steps out of line and requires your attention.

Cover design by Lauren Peters-Collaer.

“Deadpan wit” could be used to describe more than the contents: simultaneously simple and simply brilliant.

A cheat here: the green version is the hardcover from 2024; the paperback, from November ’25, is orange with a pink chair — and not quite as good.

Cover design by Sarah Schulte.

“A controversial Swahili classic — banned on publication — translated into English, published by Yale, and represented with a cover best described as a gift. A design that belongs in every ‘best of’ list,” I said in the inaugural column for Spine.

So added.

Cover design by Josh Durham.

Close-ups of women’s lips is another trend I’ve been avoiding — except when it positively drips with photographic brilliance: millennial pink, taken to the next level. (Once again, a cover measurably better without the detritus rytuałły added by the publicity department.)

Cover design by Beth Steidle.

I don’t know whether Beth did the art for this — presumably — but that art, together with the title treatment, add up to one of those “wow” covers instantly added to the list of year’s best.

Cover design by Holly Battle.

A “doting grandmother and vicious crime matriarch”: raven mad. This UK cover gets points for illustration style, type style, and, of course, just the right dose of splatter.

Cover design by Jared Bartman.

“The bull’s expression,” he said.

“The no bulls*** expression of nature,” she retorted.

Cover design by Jamie Keener.

Never mind the huge negative space: it’s the eyes. (Okay, it’s also the unlikely collection — collision? — of leopard and printer. Plus the loose page/quote. Plus the background color. But still.)

Cover design by Rodrigo Corral.

Heroin addiction, AIDS, French doctors, family drama: how do you weave that together into a compelling cover? Well, this.

Cover design by Gabriele Wilson; collage by Arsh Raziuddin.

“Fragmented colonialism in Africa, illustrated incredibly well,” I said in October’s Spine column — then went on to do both designers a disservice by failing to include the appropriate credit. Sheesh. (Apologies.)

Cover design by Farina Yasmin.

The US vs. UK “style” has been mentioned, well, possibly too much. Sorry.

But.

Here’s a great example of two great covers — both where all eyes are very much on the performer’s … uh, performance — yet in remarkably different ways.

Cover design by Julia Connolly; photograph by Sandra Casado.

Even though this kicks serious a**, in this case (and to continue the back-and-forth), I don’t think the US version is any less sophisticated.

Cover design by Nicole Caputo.

Beautiful illustration, beautiful type treatment; it’s something that could almost be described as “soothing.”

(With the possible exception of the text within.)

Cover design by Steve Attardo.

An awesome illustration against one of the year’s creamiest backgrounds, yes, but absolutely one of the year’s best title type treatments.

Cover design by Jaya Miceli.

From Spine‘s University Press Week special coverage, November 10–14, brought to you in honor of the event help by the Association of University Presses:

“‘Ebullient’ is used in the description of this title, and quite frankly I can’t think of a better word to describe this text-only treatment: superlative work.

“(In Miceli’s library, this would be shelved with Milk Fed and Joy of Consent instead of Big Swiss and Victorian Psycho — but it’s telling that she’s great at both styles.)”

Special bonus: another from that post:

Cover design by Issac Morris.

“The ayes have it,” I quipped. “Also, both the title type and color choices are out of this world. (Not sorry.)”

Cover design by Jack Smyth.

The word “acerbic” is used several times to describe this tile, but the UK cover just isn’t — the type and treatment are wonderful, and the surrogate egg is perfect.

Special bonus: the US version, which received a good deal of praise:

Cover design by Tyler Comrie.

Cover design by Dana Li.

As mentioned on And I’ll Take Out Your Eyes, the part-human, part animal thing could possibly be described as “overdone.”

Here, though, it’s a home run wrapped in a night out: from colors to drips, pose to poise. Awesome.

Cover design by Michel Vrana.

A “decades-long earthquake,” indeed: layered, hopeful, wonderful.

Cover design by Sarah Schulte.

Another text-in-a-square exception to the rule: framing rarely works so well. (Besides, there’s that illustration.)

Cover design by Daisy Bates; photograph by Vanessa McKeown.

Cover photograph of the year, ~~foot~~ hands down.

Cover design and illustration by Kimberly Glyder.

“A risqué cross-dressing interpretation of a Shakespeare classic”: I can’t decide if it’s a crown, horns, or teeth. (“Yes,” someone said.)

But it’s the red overprint that steals the show. Fantastic.

Parenthetically, the author is “a founding artistic director of The Semitic Root, a collective that supports innovative theatre co-created by Arab and Jewish Americans.” How awesome is that?

Cover design by Kelly Hill.

“Canadian text soothes,” some belligerent American said.

(Another one of those illustrations I’d happily hang on my office wall, by the way.)

Cover design by Kimberly Glyder.

Never mind anything else: it’s the scribble. (The title font’s beautiful, too, honestly.)

I try to reserve “perfect” for occasions that warrant it — this does.

Cover design by Luke Bird.

A geometric, simple triumph of illustration: I suppose if anyone can do a bird well….

(Sorry.)

As an aside, this title is not to be confused with Under the Eye of Big Bird, which is in a whole ’nuther category.

Cover design by Jamie Keenan.

Entangled in wonder. (Also, the background color is super, and the font — Celtic Hand by Dieter Steffmann — is proof that freebies sometimes work beautifully.)

2023’s Sublunar was a interesting design, too.

Cover design by Grace Han.

Open the window to yeokmasal: awesomeness awaits.

Cover design by Thomas Colligan.

A book about a professional weeper, [whose] “services are sorely needed these days, as the town, the region, the country as a whole has become more or less numb.”

Ummmm….

(The cover’s fantastic, too.)

Cover design by Maddy Angstreich; photograph by Bobby Doherty.

Dang, that’s not raw meat being squeezed there. (Nor a fruit, for that matter.)

Cover design by Pablo Delcan.

From June’s Spine column: “19th-century hair styles: the absolutely fantastic world of university press cover design briefs … absolutely nailed here, with pen-and-ink illustrations and aged type handled perfectly. (Great title, too.)”

Cover design by Na Kim.

To close out, another painting by Na Kim, as visually arresting as Brother Brontë, above, but 180 degrees in the other direction. (Bonus points for the pointillist lettering.)

Come to think of it, it’s 180 degrees from Dominion, too. Is it possible to have a 540-degree compass? Na apparently does — awesome.

• • •

2025’s favorites folder contained more than four hundred examples by the end of the year — a hundred more than 2024 — and represented a huge variety of titles, publishers, and design styles. (Significantly different from last year, too — interesting.)

It was a huge task to whittle the selections down; 400 to 300 was relatively easy, 300 to 200 more difficult, and those last hundred involved making hard choices between covers I really liked.

One thing helped: as mentioned in the intro, I worried less this year about highlighting every style, every designer, in every category — given the drama that was 2025, there was, in fact, a smidgen of comfort food involved.

But oh, that comfort food. Michelin starred.

Another help: my column at Spine.² While I enjoyed casually perusing University Press designs in the past, they didn’t live under the same microscope that they did starting last June (and will continue to). Adding more University titles is an ongoing bonus, and several of those titles made it into this list; perhaps egotistically, I’d like to think that the exposure those titles received allowed them to make others’ lists, as well, a benefit for all. Nice.

Thank you for taking the time to spend a few minutes here today. I wish you a wonderful, successful, and above all, peaceful 2026. See you soon.

How this list was compiled

There were fewer sources for titles in 2025 than in years past; the BBC disappeared behind a paywall, the quality of mainstream publishers continues to decline, and those articles I did read seemed to stress trends and “what’s hot” rather than actual quality. Thankfully, there’s still PRINT, Spine, LitHub, The Casual Optimist, and NPR’s Books We Love. There’s also The Guardian, which does pretty well with books; the New Yorker‘s book reviews are outstanding (although rarely centered on their design); and, of course, there’s the New York Times Book Review (likewise, although Matt Dorfman’s best designs article deserves note). If you haven’t already, when you have a moment, please enjoy some of those links — a great many more outstanding examples of book cover creativity await.
- 1
  Publishers need to remember that not all of their customers select what to read based on influencers, what they see on Facebook, or by doomscrolling Instagram. Some of us are lifelong learners, have hundred or thousands of books, and discover by … reading. Real articles, by real people, on websites with those people’s real names on them. (Or even, occasionally, this thing called paper.) ↩︎
- 2
  Vyki Hendy, Spine‘s publisher, deserves a special thank you for that opportunity. It’s reminded me of the gems that exist in an area that doesn’t get enough attention — outstanding, often great, book covers I’m more than happy to find the time to celebrate. ↩︎
January 12, 2026
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
50 Books | 50 Covers, 2023 Edition

AIGA’s annual deep dive into great book design is out — later this year, for some reason — and brings deep satisfaction with a huge variety of titles, foreign and domestic.

“One hundred years into this competition, the book seems to be as protean and chimeric as ever. At times confounded and delighted, we asked ourselves [during the judging process], Is this a course packet or a manifesto? A sculpture or a monograph? A glossary or a guidebook? Is this book contemporary or retro? Gauche or chic? We debated books that blended the grotesque with the goofy alongside books that were delicate, subtle, and difficult to emotionally classify. In the end, we felt we found some of the best of this year’s offerings, books that in every case seem to show what design can do to bring the experience of reading to riskier-yet-more-rewarding places.”
— Rob Giampietro, AIGA 50 Books | 50 Covers Chair

As pointed out above, it’s the 100th year of the competition, this time with 542 book and cover designs entered from 28 countries. In order to be eligible, submitted designs had to have been published and used in the marketplace in 2023.

Some of my favorites, in alphabetical order:

A Long Long Time Ago. Book design by You Kwok Ho.

Great texture, great graphics — on the theme of “observer.” Indeed.

A Long Long Time Ago (glow-in-the-dark detail). Book design by You Kwok Ho.

But wait: there’s more. This one observes more dramatically than it might seem, uh, at first glance.

A Long Long Time Ago (shelf detail). Book design by You Kwok Ho.

I want to get a copy just so one of my bookshelves will have this moment. Fantastic.

Alex Yudzon: A Room for the Night. Book design by David Chickey and Mat Patalano.

“Yudzon stacks, leans, and balances furniture [in the hotel rooms where he’s a guest] in configurations that transform these generic interiors into hallucinatory worlds where the laws of physics are suspended and dormant emotions released.” (After the installations are documented, crime-scene style, they are dismantled and the rooms returned to their original condition.) Really: who could resist? The compelling design isn’t even the icing on that cake — we’re well past that — it’s a fancy fork, ready to dig in.

Final Words: 578 Men and Women Executed on Texas Death Row. Book design by Michel Vrana.

I’m glad we have the whole cover here; the spine definitely adds to the overall, and the illustrations on the front add so much.

Good Men. Book design by Anna Jordan.

“I cut the letters of the title out of paper and arranged them in a way that is reminiscent of a fire – as if the words “GOOD MEN” are going up in flames. The letters rise up in a smoke-like form. Blue and red is used to emphasize the visual association with fire. The result is a visual metaphor for “GOOD MEN” blazing into entropic chaos,” designer Anna Jordan says of this novel about a firefighter, “an ordinary, sympathetic guy lost in a turbulent existence.”

Good Men (lettering detail). Book design by Anna Jordan.

Nice.

The Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design: 2020–21 Prospectus. Book design by Renata Graw and Lucas Reif.

This prospectus for the University of Houston has a special bonus:

The Hines College 2020–21 Prospectus, with its jacket casually tossed over its shoulder. Book design by Renata Graw and Lucas Reif.

Design-driven impact, the dean says. Yep.

Irregular Heartbeats at the Park West. Book design by Brad Norr.

“Rural gothic,” they say. “Goodness,” I append.

Iwan Baan: Moments in Architecture. Book design by Haller Brun.

Each year, 50 Books seems to latch onto a particular theme. Last year, it was irregular page sizes (often multiple sizes in the same book); this year, it’s irregular, often hand-sewn bindings, seen here with a slip jacket starring the other recurring theme this year: translucency.

Nairy Baghramian: Modèle vivant. Book design by Green Dragon Office with Nairy Baghramian.

Speaking of translucency, this jacket is that … and something more, shall we say, eye-catching. Compelling, but does it make you want to pick it up?

Night Watch. Book design by Kelly Blair.

This title was in my folder of finalists for Foreword‘s Favorite Book Covers of 2023 but ultimately not selected. Glad to see it get some recognition. (Note that The Guest Lecture and The Nursery, two other 50 Covers winners, did make my list.)

The Last Summer. Book design by Gabriela Castro, Gustavo Marchetti and Paulo Chagas.

The translucency is back, this time covering — well, jacketing — a newly-republished 1910 detective novel set in pre-revolutionary Russia.

The Last Summer (jacket detail). Book design by Gabriela Castro, Gustavo Marchetti and Paulo Chagas.

Only on Saturday. Book design by Chuck Byrne.

“Printing legend Jack Stauffacher’s experimental make-ready sheets informed both the cover and the jacket for the regular edition,” 50 Books says, in another red-and-white triumph.

Overlap/Dissolve. Book design by Nancy Skolos and Thomas Wedell.

Great three-dimensionality on this cover, with an equally compelling interior:

Overlap/Dissolve interior spread. Book design by Nancy Skolos.

“We set up compositional frameworks to express harmony, conflict, resolution, or both,” the designers write. “For us there is never one perfect design solution, but the process generates one idea that overlaps and dissolves into the next.”

Sketches on Everlasting Plastics. Book design by Renata Graw and Lucas Reif.

Sketches on Everlasting Plastics, which “explores the infinite ways in which plastic permeates our bodies and our world,” accompanied the exhibition Everlasting Plastics at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. (Note the binding.)

Steel Like Paper. Book design by Wolfe Hall.

Debossed type, linen spine, great photographs. Nice.

And, last but certainly not least:

The Adult (full jacket). Book design by Kate Sinclair.

Simple at first glance, yet brings more on multiple levels. Great.

Each of the 2023 winners can be viewed through AIGA’s online gallery, and will become part of the AIGA collection at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University’s Butler Library in New York.

Via, as is often the case, PRINT Magazine.

October 14, 2024
Beautifully Briefed 24.3: Bloomin’ Breadth
The end of March here in Middle Georgia means flowers aplenty, and usually with that, some photography — but I’ve not yet had a chance. (Stay tuned.) I have, however, been saving up links o’ interest: fonts, books, photography, and new(ish) car logos. Let’s go!

Kottke Meets 2024

Starting with one of the very few places that is still around from Foreword’s old days, the always-interesting Jason Kottke:

2024 marks Kottke.org’s 26th year on the ’net.

Great new looks for great content, with better Quick Links — the previews are ace — and incredibly-appreciated gift links to places like The New York Times and The Atlantic. If you haven’t been in a while, click and enjoy.

Fab Spring Type

With “a plethora of captivating new typefaces,” CreativeBoom celebrates spring with 11 new faces to tempt, inspire, and bring joy:

Arillatype.Studio brings us a thousand glyphs of greatness.

Zanco, with its bell-bottom style; Seabirds, inspired by 1930s book covers; Module, a “fluke side hustle;” and Graffeur, improvised from gaffer tape and glimpsed in this post’s header image, are all great. My far-and-away favorite, though, is At Briega, “inspired by the concept of hybridisation” and shown above.

See ’em all here.

Literary Three-Fer

M.C. Escher’s Lesser-Known Works

“The Drowned Cathedral,” a 1929 woodcut.

“Unique perspective” never does justice to someone whose name defines the term. See some never-before-seen images alongside old favorites in a new Escher book highlighted at Hyperallergic.

Multidimensional Libri

“Experimental books are flourishing, [a]nd the evidence is seen” in this Daily Heller from PRINT: a traveling exhibition on three-dimensional books, all published titles.

Oh, those Italians. Read on.

Book Design Snobbery

Hoover vs. Atwood — no joke.

“Don’t get held back from the simple pleasures of reading,” argues Natalie Fear at CreativeBloq, “not everything needs to be minimalist.” Justification for commercialism or a common-sense explanation for the bookshelves’ current look? You decide.

Photography Three-Fer

Winners of Monochromatic Minimalism

“Black Pearl” by Sascha Kohne. An honorable mention for the magazine, but a winner for me.

Some incredibly good stuff here — but perhaps more importantly, did you know of Black & White Minimalism Magazine? There’s no end to today’s continued diversification, methinks.

“Traveling through Costa da Morte, Galicia. 600m above sea level where the mountains separate the Cantabria sea from the Atlantic Ocean,” explains third-place winner Alexandre Caetano.

Aging Facades of France

“Shuttered blinds, peeling paint, and aging doors don’t usually indicate an invitation, but for French photographer Thibaut Derien, the fading facades of long-closed shops are well worth a stop,” This is Colossal says.

Sony Photography Awards: Architecture

The Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences) in Valencia, Spain: “Hemispheric,” by Eng Tong Tan, Malaysia.

ArchDaily‘s coverage of the annual Sony awards shortlist announcement was an insta-click.

New Bull: Now Flat. (And a BMW.)

Lamborghini practically defines flamboyant. So it’s worth a link when their logo gets less interesting:

Old logo, left, new, right.

Late at following the industry trend of flat-is-better, because, well, Volkswagen. (Okay, I undersell. Perhaps.) Read the lack of news at Motor1¹ or The Drive, where they manage to convey the brand’s use of the phrase “digital touchpoints.”

I don’t know whether this will make any more sense in a few or even many months — which is relevant because of BMW. Four years ago, one of the industry’s design leaders expressed strong this new style, and I didn’t get it. But it’s worn better than most, and superlatively on occasion — check out the logo’s use on the Vision Neue Klasse X:

Rather than a standalone, plastic part sitting on the paint, it’s etched into the finish. Man, I hope that makes it into production.

Neue Klasse: do like. Bull? No so much.

Update, 2 April: BrandNew, itself sporting a new look, has weighed in on the new Lambo style, calling it “not good.” (FYI, BrandNew is a subscription, quite possibly the best $20/year someone interested in design can spend.)
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  Motor1 also has a decent roundup of new car logos, from 2016-present, which underscores the “flatness” trend. ↩︎
March 29, 2024