Giles Hoover

Photography and design for print production

Tag: this is colossal

  • Beautifully Briefed 23.6: Welcome to Summer

    Beautifully Briefed 23.6: Welcome to Summer

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

    Book Four-For
    AI book covers? Here, now.

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

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

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

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

    — Daniel Piper, Creative Bloq

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

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

    B&N’s Market Repositioning
    Image: NYTimes (modified)

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

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

    Temples of Books

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

    Cuypersbibliotheek, Amsterdam, Netherlands

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

    Phillips Exeter Academy Library, Exeter, New Hampshire

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

    — Grace Ebert, This is Colossal

    Instant wishlist item!

    Take Action for Libraries
    Image: everylibrary.org

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

    Carmaker Logo Updates: Porsche and JLR
    Jaguar Land Rover > JLR
    No, that’s really it.

    Formerly Jaguar Land Rover, but generally known in the industry as JLR, the British company1Technically, it’s an Indian company, as JLR is a subsidiary of the TATA conglomerate. decided to have a FedEx moment and rebranded. Alas, Paul Rand was unavailable, so there’s no brilliance in the execution. (We’ll absolutely leave whether walking away from Land Rover as a brand is a smart move for another, longer discussion.) Motor1 has the details.

    Porsche > Almost all other mainstream car brands

    There’s a new Porsche logo!

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

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

    All five Porsche badges. (Image: Porsche)

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

    Not-at-all-staged photograph by Porsche.

    Wallpaper* has the best coverage I’ve seen.

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

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

    PRINT‘s Best of 2023

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

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

    — PRINT Magazine

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

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

    The Every as photographed by PRINT.

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

    Italian foundry Zetafonts brings us Bake Mono.

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

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

  • Beautifully Briefed 23.1: Winter Potpourri

    Beautifully Briefed 23.1: Winter Potpourri

    From book design and minimalist photography to … well, book design and what absolutely isn’t minimalist photography, plus some street signs and another warning about Adobe. Let’s dig in.

    Book Design #1: People Really Do Judge a Book by its Cover

    From University College Cork — that’s Ireland, folks — we have something that, on the surface, seems obvious: a book cover “is the most likely factor to convince a person to read a book if they are unfamiliar with the work or its author.” Maria Butler, a PhD candidate in the School of English and Digital Humanities at UCC, reminds us why.

    Design by Kimberly Glyder.

    You’re reading Foreword, so you likely agree — and shown above is one of those worth-a-thousand-words images: the first of the 2023 titles I’ve set aside for my favorites of the year, and absolutely something good enough to make me pluck it off the shelf without knowing anything about either the title or author.

    Bonus: See 70 (!) more of my Favorite Book Covers of 2022.

    Book Design #2: Shift Happens

    A fantastic website has clicked our way: Shift Happens, for a book about keyboards.

    A screenshot from the Shift Happens website. Great stuff.

    This project not only scores with great web design — check the interactive version of the book, pictured above — but what also seems like great book design. It’s a Kickstarter project (or will be, next month), so the usual cautions apply, but I might just go ahead and take the leap.

    Couple of interesting book design items, by the way: the TOC is at the back, the endpapers are awesome, and the macro photography is tops. The book design reminds me of The Playmakers, still my favorite book design project ever.

    Bonus: Tim Walsh, author of The Playmakers, is still going strong. Nice.

    Photography #1: Minimalism

    The winners of the Minimalist Photography of 2022 awards are in, some are fantastic. Here are a couple of favorites, from the architecture category:

    “Prince Claus Bridge in the Netherlands,” by Arthur van Orden
    “Blue Window,” by Andrea Richey

    The Minimalist Photography Award is the only foundation that deals extensively and professionally with minimalist photography as a branch of photography in which the photographic artistic vision takes the lead.

    Milad Safabakhsh, President of Minimalist Photography Awards
    Photography #2: Wonders of Street View

    This is Colossal brings us another gem from Neal.Fun: the Wonders of Street View.

    “Wall Driver,” indeed.

    Direct quote, just because: “A man with three legs, a vintage car scaling a building, and an unsettling formation of people donning bird masks are a few of the scenarios highlighted in the terrifically bizarre Wonders of Street View.”

    I didn’t know it was a thing to dress up and pose for the Google cameras. Perfect.

    Street Sign Style Guide

    Speaking of street views, did you know there’s a style guide for highway signs? Would you believe that I’m a fan?

    Interestingly, there is an I-42/I-17 interchange in Phoenix, but this ain’t it: these signs are representational.

    As with most things government, there’s confusion, too many regulations, and yet it’s based around good ideas. Beautiful Public Data has a guide to the guide.

    Adobe Steps in it, Again

    From DPReview: “If you’re an Adobe Creative Cloud subscriber, you might want to go and turn off a new setting immediately. It’s been discovered that Adobe has automatically opted users into a ‘Content analysis’ program that allows Adobe to analyze your media files […] for use in its machine learning training programs.”

    It’s important to note that Adobe only uses the files saved in the “Creative Cloud,” something I don’t do as a matter of course, but even still, this is yet another example of Adobe using its monopoly position in the creative field to take advantage of its paying customers.

    Adobe, unsurprisingly, didn’t return DPReview’s request for a comment/clarification.

  • Beautifully Briefed, Thanksgiving Edition (November 2022): Book Sculpture, Architectural Arcades, and Artists Sunday

    Beautifully Briefed, Thanksgiving Edition (November 2022): Book Sculpture, Architectural Arcades, and Artists Sunday

    This time, art from old encyclopedias, architectural art, and an appeal to add art to your post-holiday shopping and giving plans.

    Books as Art — In a Different Way

    Cara Barer says, “Books, physical objects and repositories of information, are being displaced by zeros and ones in a digital universe with no physicality.  Through my art, I document this and raise questions about the fragile and ephemeral nature of books and their future.”

    It’s more than that, though:

    As This is Colossal puts it: “With cracked spins and crinkled pages, the manipulated objects reference the relationship between the natural and human-made as they evoke flowers at peak bloom.”

    As a book designer, I’m glad that the titles used aren’t something a designers labored over but rather mostly instruction manuals and old encyclopedias. Either way, they’re a beautiful way to make commentary.

    See more at her website.

    “Photographic escapades in arcades and colonnades”
    Liberty Station, San Diego by Keith James

    Few scenes set my photographic heart aflutter as does the view down a long covered walkway towards a distant, barely visible vanishing point. As a self-confessed symmetry addict drawn to architectural images in black and white, photographing these vistas scratches a deep creative itch.

    Keith James, MacFolios

    His article is well-illustrated, informative, and speaks to my heart: I love a good arcade — although, in some cases, I feel like an entry or exit makes the point:

    Vassar College Chapel Arcade, September 2021

    This is not the first time I’ve admired Keith’s work. His “Architecture Meets Sculpture in Black and White: the Interplay of Light and Form” was great work. Both articles are highly recommended.

    Artist Sunday

    For those of you in the United States, this weekend is the Thanksgiving holiday. It’s also that most American of traditions: a shopping weekend. I have spent recent years boycotting Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and am encouraged by the emergence of Giving Tuesday. Here’s something to add to that list:

    Photographer Chris Sherman developed the concept of “Artists Sunday” in 2019, after noticing a bump in sales on that day in November. “The idea struck,” Sherman told Hyperallergic. “What a great time to patronize artists — during the busiest shopping weekend of the year.” 

    In 2020, Sherman launched the project alongside Cynthia Freese, a fellow artist who has also spent extensive time on the boards of arts nonprofits. On a dedicated website, Sherman and Freese provide artists and arts organizations with free marketing materials to promote the event. Now in its third year, over 4,000 artists and more than 600 towns and cities across the country have signed onto the initiative, which takes advantage of special events and partnerships (with nonprofits, individual artists, and businesses) to spread the message.

    Happy Thanksgiving.