I love these “Thanks for Nothing” cards by Luke Williams for Gilah Press.

If you can’t read the detail on the card above, various things you might “thank” someone for include: (more…)

Obviously, I’m on a book-kick these days. If you’ve been at all enamored with the book world, especially at the end of 2007, you’ll know that The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz is getting some hardcore attention from book-lovers. I have a little Diaz-love myself, partially because the man got his MFA at my alma mater and I read a chunk of his work in the happy days I spent there.

There are two things I want to mention about this book besides it being fabulous to read:

1. It won the 2008 Tournament of Books (yeah, who cares about that Pulitzer it won), an awesome contest I discovered through the Penguin Book Blog. Approximately twenty books are paired off. Judges (usually established writers) read the pair and deem a winner, and then pairs are made of the winners, and so on, until a final winner is decided. For me, this is much better than sports.
2. You’ve gotta love that cover. First of all, splats amuse me to no end (especially when they look like they were really, accidentally spilled over the actual cover/page/label/whatever). Splatters are supposed to be spread randomly, but can look really awful if you really do just spread them randomly, and that’s what makes them somewhat difficult to create. Second of all, splats that look like something else (or two other things, as it may be) amuse me even more. In summary, splats are one of those things that are hard to pull off, but when they look cool, they look cool (see above).

I love books. I love reading them. I love looking at them. I love stacking them. Sometimes, I love them without ever even reading them (*gasp* weren’t you an English major in college?!).

“Even when reading is impossible, the presence of books acquired[...] produces such an ecstasy that the buying of more books than one can[...] read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity[…] we cherish books even if unread, their mere presence exudes comfort, their ready access, reassurance.” —Alfred Edward Newton (1863 - 1940)

Books can be pretty, and to enjoy the aesthetic pleasure of cover art, page layout, typography — that I do not think is a sin. Here are a few other people who agree with me, and some of my favorite places to travel for my aesthetic love of books.

1.
Book By Its Cover

Above: From a post about What it Is by Lynda Barry

This is my favorite book blog and I recommend an immediate RSS subscription. The author, an amazing illustrator in her own right, and provides scans from sketchbooks, children’s books, comic books, craft books, and any other kind of page turning instrument with pictures or gadgets.

I love this site because it reveals (1) the artistic innards of books, (2) books not on best seller’s lists. She clearly spends time selecting pretty pages to preview, proving that the title of her site should be something more like Book By Its Cover and Great Examples of Inside Pages Too (can you tell I’m a writer? I thought so.)

2.
Covers
I love this site most because the main page’s grid layout gets me all excited about book covers every time I see it. You can click on each cover to see a larger version and commentary. They update every week, and it’s another book blog I wouldn’t hesitate to subscribe to.

3.
Flickr Sets

Above: Image from the Old-Timey Paperback Book Covers group pool on Flickr.

Veer recently posted about a flickr collection featuring scans from mid-20th century books. This got me scouting around for more flickr sets. Here are some of my favorite finds from group pools: Mother Goose Illustrations, The Retro Kid Pool, and Old-Timey Paperback Book Covers.

4.
McSweeney’s

Above: Image from NY Magazine

According to me, McSweeney’s consistently publishes some of the best-looking books on the planet. You’ve already seen my review of Maps & Legends, printed by McSweeney’s, and you can browse around for even more on the McSweeny’s site, either in the Books section or in the McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern section (the McS’s lit mag). These books are all better in 3-D, though, a lot of them have secret openings, layered covers, or some other graphical gimmick that I can’t get enough of.

5.
The Book Design Review

Above: Image from The Book Design Review

Ironically, you should not judge this page by its header because it’s full of cool book covers and book cover discussions (ironically my friend Marmalade pointed me to this at almost the exact same time I was posting it, and now I’m trying to think of a pun about being “on the same page” but it isn’t going well).

In summary, you should judge book covers by their book covers. In order to do so, you should visit the following places (right click, open in new window):

(more…)

MOO.com | Business Cards

We all know and love moo.com for its mini-cards (which, incidentally, lots of people were using as business cards at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn this year), but I just found out (from Etsy’s blog The Storque) that Moo.com now prints full-sized business cards.

Like the mini-cards, the full-sized cards can contain a different image or different text on each card. The images can be pulled directly from sites where you might already have them uploaded (like facebook, flickr, and etsy). You can use moo.com templates or upload the front and back of your card from a file you’ve already made. If you order 50 cards ($22), you also get a cute little free holder for them.

I love this sample of business cards from Spreadshirt (top of page). There are also a bunch of other examples of crafty business cards on moo.com. And, as always, I wouldn’t recommend only using them for business. I’m sure there are tons of crafty things to do with 50 rectangular cards (I smell scrapbooking, mini-christmas cards, mini-photo albums, etc)!

Threadless T-Shirts - Spoilt Print by Oliver Moss

I have always loved this T-shirt print from threadless, which spoils the ending of about every movie and book with a surprise finish.

I’m super-excited because today Threadless made the T-shirt availible as a large poster/print! This is a pretty amazing graphic, and a great example of typographic success. The artist uses each film’s special font, yet all of the different fonts come together to form a cohesive whole.

Out of all of the things I post and covet, I might actually purcahse this one!

I love these advice posters, designed by older college students for new college students. There is a whole gallery of them over at Life Lounge.

Some example advice:

“Be adventurous. Don’t use helvetica for absolutely everything.”
“Take Time.”
“Use your library… you’ll miss it when you leave.”

True, true, and true.

So, a summer-fun post to end the week. As usual, I’m going to attempt a blogging break over the weekend. So, until Monday, enjoy the heat (especially you East Coasters like me)! Also, a reminder to subscribe to the Stickers & Donuts feed if you want (it’ll be fun, I promise)!

Subscribe in a reader

We (royal? blogosphere?) were all very excited when Veer created its Very Secret Order of Creative Understanding which included secret booklets, secret widgets, and secret handshake wallpapers. Those of us who got pretty booklets in the mail were extra-excited.

This summer Veer has a new treat for creatives: the annual Veer Summer Fun Activity Book (with extra online goodies!). Though the book can be downloaded in pdf, it would definitely be more fun to get your hands on a hard copy.

And, if you can’t get a hard copy, there are enough free web-goodies, no printing required, to go around. These include wallpapers (very cute!), games, and the ability to create a doodled world full of doodled creatures (this is actually very cool). Look above to see the world I’m working on.

One of the funniest parts about the Veer’s summer fun extravaganza is the printable Kernie monster and the accompanying contest encouraging you to take pictures of the Kernie doing all kinds of human things — or just standing next to badly kerned signs. How adorably dorky!

This re-printed T-shirt and hoodie design from threadless tickles my funny bone again and again. I hope they make it in poster form (which are on sale for $25 this week)!

Smashing Magazine just rounded-up dozens of creative table of contents(es?).

I love the one above, the last one on the web-page with the windshield wipers, and many, many in between. Go check them out!

Stickers and Donuts is taking a little break for Fourth of July, but I’ll be back full-force at the end of the next week with delightful and lovely things. Thought I can’t promise I won’t post from the road.

So, happy fourth! Check out Urban Outfitter’s campaign blog, which is stocked full of beautiful election & political graphics like the one above from Scott Hansen at ISO50. All proceeds from the purchase of the above print go to Obama’s campaign.

So, I just got the newest issue of PRINT magazine in my mailbox (which is totally dedicated to typography, yay), and on page 14 I found TypeIsArt.com. (You know, so if I’m tired of Bembo’s Zoo, making fonts free online, and creating word clouds, then I have something else to do.) Type is Art states that:

“All letterforms are composed of 21 distinct parts. Most commonly these parts combine to form the characters of our alphabet. Type is Art allows for the experimentation of forms beyond this typical character set.”

You can see these “distinct parts” on the above poster from the Type is Art web-page.

Anyway, the best part of Type is Art is that you can create your own art online, for free! You can twist and turn letters and make them bigger and smaller. Most importantly, you can waste hours of what should be “work time.” And, really, that’s what the internet is for, isn’t it?

Click more to see my own Type is Art creation!

(more…)

Since I’m having a typographically-oriented day, I’ll just add that the August edition of PRINT Magazine is dedicated to type and form.

I especially like this article, availible online, called “Good Type Gone Bad” about typography meant for one thing being used (unsuccessfully) for something totally different.

I cannot stop playing on Wordle, a site that lets you use delicious tags or text to create an artsy word cloud like one above made with my delicious tags (in fact, you can put in anyone’s delicious user name to create a word cloud). The more times a word appears, the bigger it is (look how big the word “design” is!). You can change the font, colors, orientation of text, etc.

The site is free, and you don’t even need to sign up!

Technorati Tags: wordle, words, text, typography, graphics, fonts, delicious, tag cloud, design, beautiful, fun, art

Roar! Check out Bembo’s Zoo for an ABC’s worth of animals made out of the letters that spell their name! I guess I’m on a typography kick today.

(A lion above and a turtle after the jump, but visit the web-site for the full effect of the letters moving around to create the animal!) (more…)

Check out this article from the New York Times about designing your own font online! The best part? The service, run by font giant FontShop, is FREE (to create and use as an actual font on your Mac or PC) and you can look at tons of cool, new creations in the gallery. As soon as I use it, I’ll be sure to post a comprehensive review!

Not ready to make your own font? Download free fonts at one of my favorite font web-pages, or brush up (ie learns lots of things you never knew) on your typography skills with these fun, detail-oriented lessons on quite a pretty little web-site. If you are a typography nut like me, you can also check out all of the Stickers & Donuts posts related to typography.

Technorati Tags: new york times, article, font, online, web-page, web-site, creative, free, typography

WORDCOUNT.org ranks words based on frequence of use. For example, “stickers” is the 18,703th most used word. You can look up words by word or by rank or you can just scroll around. (This is especially fun if you enjoy Word of the Day and want to know if the random word you’re given is ever actually used.)

You can also visit QUERYCOUNT.org (Number one? Sex.) which is formated the same way, but ranks the most searched words on WORDCOUNT.

Mostly, this site is web-design at its best (the site even won an award from AIGA)!

David Fincher’s (director of Fight Club, Seven, etc) newest film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is coming out this Christmas, and I’m already getting excited. The film is based on a story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that’s now in the public domain. Which means you can legally read ugly versions of it on your very own computer.

Lucky for us, Jonathan McNicol at Never Mind That, Never Mind That Now is making a pretty, typeset pdf for all of us lovers of good literature and good typography! So far, he’s got the first two chapters out. Thanks Kitsune Noir for alerting me to this!

Today I’m reporting back on just some of the prints I enjoyed at the Renegade Craft Fair in Brooklyn this past weekend (for all kinds of other Renegade Fun, click here and don’t stop scrolling!)

There were way too many lovely & wonderful prints for me to collect them all here, so don’t think this is a comprehensive collection of the creme de la creme. Although these guys are pretty, er, creamy.

***

How adorable are these old school silkscreened prints (below) from animalsleep? If you want to go straight to buying a print, click here. They’re about $20-30. Very affordable for such lovely things. (**Oh, and can you not buy this one? Because it’s my favorite.**) They also make shirts and other whatnots, if you’d rather wear your art.

Above: Prints from animalsleep, hung up @ the Renegade Craft Fair.

Sycamore Street Press is a letterpress studio that makes lovely, lovely letterpress cards (featured on all kinds of blogs these days, too!) — very delicate, a lot of pastel colors — so why is it that I gravitate towards the print below (available here)? It’s only $20 and I think it’s so funny!

Above: Wonderful print, image from the Sycamore Street Press Etsy Shop.

I have a little place in my heart for linoleum printing (though I’m kind of/a lot jealous of these!), so I got pretty excited when I saw Tugboat Print Shop sitting right before my very eyes with their linoleum blocks out for show. (”These are the linoleum blocks you print from?” I ask stupidly, artstruck.) They range from about $20-80. (I happen to like this dragon and this house.)

Above: Tugboat table @ Renegade.

And I can’t forget these Renegade Craft Fair screenprinted posters. They are like the posters you get  at band concerts. Except better. And for a craft fair.

Above: Hung prings @ Renegade.

And I love the screenprinted posters from Strawberry Luna!

Above: Tegan & Sarah Poster, image from artist’s web-site.

My (albeit limited, perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow!) quest to find the business card of the printmakers below has failed (hmm, why can’t I find that business card?). If you know who they are, please comment below!

Above: Prints from ________ hung up at Renegade!

I am so in love with the new Kitsune Noir desktop backgrounds by Kristina Collantes that even though I already posted about the KN Wallpaper Project this morning, I just had to post again. (PS I have a thing for cute skulls. Also, this is a coordinating pair of backgrounds, which is great if you work with dual screens!) (more…)

The blog Kitsune Noir is currently hosting The Desktop Wallpaper Project where you can get fabulous, artsy computer wallpapers like the ones above and below. What’s even better is  that the wallpapers come in all different sizing, including ones for the iphone and PSP. (more…)

The awesomely designed T-shirts over at Threadless are on super-sale until Sunday. Get ‘em while they’re hot (er, $10). Those Threadless Prints I was writing about are also on sale — $5 off — and there are new ones, too!

The other day SwissMiss had a post referencing a grass-text photoshop tutorial at psdtuts.com. That had me inescapably obsessed with all of the text tutorials, one in particular, that helped me create the Stickers & Donuts design above. (Perhaps I should turn that one into a desktop background? I’ll let you know if I do!)

Pictures of the tutorial design below! (more…)

NYC-based 24 Hour Plays writes, directs, and acts six 10 minute plays in 24 hours. This is not only amazingly cool, but their web-site is also amazingly cool. It has little flying birds. And please click on the “SHOP” button.

The Publisher
There are few artistically inclined publishers as McSweeney’s who not only have a fabulous literary magazine, but also a magazine-magazine, a DVD “magazine”, a very simple but funny online magazine, and tons of cool books (some of which you can get automatically every month in the McSweeney’s Book Release Club) under its wide, artsy umbrella. Oh, they also run non-profit writing centers for kids. And raise consciousness about the crisis in Sudan. (more…)

Exciting news! Threadless, the ultimate web-site for T-shirt lovers & graphic design extraordinares, is moving up in the world. Select T-shirt designs are now available not just as T-shirts, but wall art. These prints land somewhere between the elusive world of “real art” and the ever-present world of “poster art.” I’d say that’s perfect for medium grown-ups like myself. These prints are screenprinted on paper from the French Paper Company and currently come in limited runs of 250. And, they’re releasing new prints every Monday, so you better get ‘em while they’re hot. With all of those little special bells & whistles, $35 seems like a steal. (Click for more pics…) (more…)