Having trouble locating a holiday gift worthy of your hip designer friend’s attention? Toil no longer, Typographical Conundrums has arrived. The book contains over 170 visual wordplays by Harry Pearce, set in AG Old Face, in just two colors. While you’re at it, treat yourself to a copy, you deserve it.
When studying graphic design, you’ll eventually cross paths with the Swiss. Considered the archetype of modern graphic design, Swiss Style is to designers like Dark Side of the Moon is to Hippies. Something completely necessary once exposed to it’s awesomeness. Using strict typographical standards, Swiss Style focused on creating at the micro level, enabling greater functionality and readability. Published in 1965, Graphic Design Manual by Armin Hofmann is considered required reading for any designer serious about their craft.
So why am I telling you this? Because the above book was a dollar away from the dustbin and I couldn’t standby and let that happen. So like Bill sitting on the steps of Capitol Hill, this book needed to see better days. With the help of longtime ASWS friend David Kim, The Graphic Design Manual went on a trip home. Packing the book on their Honeymoon to Europe, Dave (and wife Dede) stopped in Switzerland where he had previously attended the Basel School of Design, where Armin Hofmann was his instructor. Still in contact with the Hofmanns, Dave pulled off the farthest book return evar. [Continue...]
I’ve been reading a number of excellent books recently on crowdsourcing, new marketing trends, and the value of brands in the digital age. I’ve begun to actively read, underlining passages for reference, noting sources for future reading, and blabbing on about my findings to anyone who will listen. I’ve realized that the blabbing part is perhaps the most valuable, since it forces me to summarize and defend my findings, which inherently strengthens my understanding of them. So why not find some other interested parties, and we can get together and blab all at once?
This is an open invitation to anyone who is interested. I’m setting a date and time of Thursday, September 17th, 6:00 p.m. at our office in Kaimuki. The book is Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price. Here’s how it’s done: (1) Read the book. (2) Show up on the 17th and we’ll talk about it. (3) Leave with a renewed appreciation for your ability to read.
If you’re so inclined, you can RSVP by posting a comment to this post, otherwise just show up. I figure two things may happen. Either (A) we’ll run out of chairs and it will be quite embarrassing or (B) I’ll be blabbing to myself.
