I love reading, but I also adore books as physical objects. This is why I am in love with Penguin. Especially today. In fact, I can barely contain the love I feel for these bright, beautifully designed book sets & their matching posters (HINT: Scroll down for some Shepard Fairey). SWOON!!!
I was reading The Penguin Blog, which is UK-based, and found out about these awesome Penguin Sets. There are 13 sets of books which contain a bunch of novels of a similar theme or by the same author, and each set has covers designed by a single artist.
What’s more, FIVE of the sets also have an accompanying poster (or two). The BEST of which is the George Orwell set because it includes TWO posters (1984 and Animal Farm) designed by Shepard Fairey (of Obama Poster fame).
Each Penguin set includes 2 to 16 books (and 0 to 2 posters) and run from $40 to $380 (the priciest collections aren’t necessarily the ones with the most books).
Click to see the rest of the posters and details of the most expensive “luxury” books. (Also, more of my rambling.) Or, check out the UK Penguin Sets page (I can’t find a US Sets page, but you can order to the US)! (more…)
A couple of weeks ago, my friend and I tip-toed (him, metaphorically; me, literally) across the Gehry bridge to see the Chicago International Poster Biennial exhibition. My favorite poster was by Tomasz Boguslawski, a Polish artist and master of assemblage art.
Delicious.
In addition to being one of my favorite bands, Titus Andronicus is an often overlooked Shakespeare play. With this fantastically grotesque composition, Tomasz supremely captures the play’s gruesomeness. I love how he expertly molds the head based on the natural strata and contortions of the meat. The bone at the base of the neck suggests a spinal cord, and the strands of adipose tissue add further facial definition. The marginally sanguineous laurel serves as an integral component, and perfectly complements this piece. Complementary like sprinkles and icing. Or barnacles and whales.
This print is available at the Polish Posters Shop
It’s almost election time, and that means lots of cool, free, printable posters by professional designers!
AIGA (the professional organization for designers) sponsored an awesome contest where members created and submitted VOTE posters. While the organization picked 24 winners, I had tons of fun going through all the posters to find which ones I liked best.
The one above is a winner in my heart. So funny, and true. So true, that when I posted it in my cubicle a coworker became so obsessed that she printed out about 10 tabloid sized AIGA posters, envisioning specific ones being plastered everywhere from the kitchen to the men’s bathroom. Success!
Anyway, the poster was created by Rob Alexander, who works at visitoffice.com, a design agency which I’ve just come to discovered does work for the McSweeney’s-related Pirate Supply Store (you know, the store that supports those kids’ writing centers).
Who wouldn’t want a bottle of Captain Blackbeard’s Dye and Scurvy BeGone Capsules? (I am actually totally in love with this stuff. You can shop for it here.)
I digress.
Back to the vote posters. (All of the ones below are free except for VOTE! by Obey. We don’t blame them, it’s a high-quality print!)
So, go to AIGA, checkout the posters, and download your favorites. Print them at work on tabloid paper. Post them everywhere. A BONUS Palin-related poster, after the jump! (more…)
Tricia’s poster party is over. The end. Archives. History. Gone with the wind.
Are you hungover? I am.
In case you want to re-live the past (I do), Click here & scroll to take a trip down poster-party-memory-lane, or just use this post as a kind of poster party table of contents!
Tricia & I thought it would be fun to bring the poster party to a close with a summary which embraces and connects all of our wonderful poster party artists. In Tricia’s brilliance, she came up with the following:
Pete Cardoso recently acquired some notable Elvis recipe magnets, and a wall of Kevin Mercer’s home features a velvet Elvis. Kevin Mercer loves Robert Rauschenberg, whom Tad Carpenter strongly supports. Tad Carpenter happens to be inspired by Golden Books, which Mike Laughead cites to describe his design aesthetic. Perhaps as wee tots, Mike Laughead could have compared Ninja Turtle sketches with Leia Bell (and Sean of the Bubble Process). Leia Bell and Mike Klay cosmically both own a few Jay Ryan prints, which (if the stars were super aligned) might be the same prints. Mike Klay is inspired by the Pacific Northwest, which Sean might also enjoy since he is currently obsessed with the woods. Sadly, Sean does not get to see his teammate, Rez, very often (Rez described this unfortunate situation as QUOTE “SAD< CRYING RIGHT NOW>”) because he lives in Brooklyn, New York. This great state happens to be where Jason Munn made his best recent purchase: Japanese design books. Whew.
To recap:
That’s it! Stickers & Donuts may be slightly hibernated (I know, that’s grammatically & scientifically incorrect) for a week or two, as our editors (all two of us!) have to take (1) GRE and (1) LSAT. But we do have some fun things planned (ie Tricia’s first currently obsessed! How to dress like a poet!). Yay!
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.
Check out these incredibly cool visual interpretations of punctuation from Punc’t: Putting Punctuation in its Place. (Above: Slash, Semi-Colin, Colin)
Every year during this joyous season (National Poetry Month, of course), poets.org offers a free poetry poster designed by a graphic artist. I am particularly in love with the 2006 poster (above), but I order my free poster every year no matter the design.
“April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of dead land.” -TS Eliot
(Old posters can be purchased for $5 unless they are sold out, but they can always be clicked on and printed, so at least you can have a postcard or paper-sized rendition.) PS: If you want free printable posters with complete poems, click here.
DELARGE offers printable stickers (made to print on specific Avery paper sizes, a very convenient feature), downloadable posters, fonts, and wallpaper all for free. It’s a more urban feel than I usually go for in my graphic selections, but it’s well done and I don’t know about you, but I once spent two days trying to track down some classic “HELLO my name is” stickers from places like Staples, but it was DELARGE who offered up the goods in the end. (more…)
The Poetry Foundation, on its well-designed, graphically lovely little web-site, has a handful of free poem posters (”For the Fridge”) that you can download as pdfs and then print and stick anywhere. You will instantly look well-read and graphically astute. (Or, you know, just bookish and weird.) (more…)
