obsessions & anything inbetween
The “In’ tray on my desk is full of stuff. Means I should be pretty stress up by now with all that work that’s coming in. But the stuff below made me pretty excited:
Taken from one of the six amazing stories on We tell stories by Penguin. (Theres a PDF download to it!) Read more about these elsewhere here & here.
Last two weeks, a shipment of really cool books came into the office. I wonder why I didn’t spend a single cent on any of the books… But I feel a little guilty though. Always had that hidden motive/desire to collect as many design books as possible but I lost that interest lately. Perhaps, I put it on hold for a while to keep my other options wider.
Those days, I would grab any Phaidon design books almost without even looking at the price tag. Books by Princeton Architectural Press become instant classics on my shelf. Most of my design heros monographs come from Booth Clibborn while Hyphen Press feeds me with really serious heavy reading. Books published by Laurence King have also been among the prominent ones on the bookshelf.
As a student, I’ve always refer to these books as a guide on what design is and about. Also used them as visual references at times. Definitely allowed them to inspire me a lot during that time. They also played a very important role in shaping all my current design thoughts.
The only two books that I might purchase for now is Things I have learned in my life so far & Jonathan Barnbrooks new design monograph. I have also considered Micheal Bierut’s book, Maira Kalman’s, Rick Poynor’s Designing Pornotopia and anything by Jessica Helford.
But most of my money for the books went to the below:
The thing is I have no regrets on any of the above. In fact, I feel even much more inspired by these things compared to looking at design books. Or reading Emigre magazines from cover to cover. I find myself refreshed after that crazy trip to Phuket with three amigos (will try to post pictures later, I didn’t bring a camera with me).
I learned to look at things in a more global way. Absorb in foreign culture, knowledge and lifestyle in a much faster phrase compared to staring at a book. I find things like this educating as well. By just pushing yourself a little to the edge, you see the much wider horizon. Plus, its really an enjoying thing to do; traveling. I guess my next trip might be maybe even sooner than I think it will be.
So I guess that proves that trying to fill up your environment with design is not really a fun thing to do at times.
Other than enjoy doing what I do for a living, I have do enjoy playing the guitar. And I do love a great guitar setup with all sorts of effects to create a really sweet & nice guitar tone. Like how Tom Morella making his guitar sound like a harmonica out of his setup or Steve Vai’s crazy laughing guitar stunts via his setup.
Over the years, the following is my setup:
Things come and go but I have added the following since:
In looking for pedals, I always consider the following:
To get the stuff you want, you got to know the trick of the trade. Some stores will give a better price, some through blogs, some forums, contacts, junk shops, etc. For starters, here are some cool sites to check:
Some really cool boutique pedals can be seen as below:
The all new Steve Vai signature series pedal, The Jemini!
The value of these things not only depend on their tone but also the country of origin, the year of which it was made, the brand and finally looks. You can check out some setups on guitargeek.com. Plus plenty other support forums for guitar effects pedals.
Yay! Stefan Sagmeister came up with a new book. To be released on March 1, 2008. 248 pages of what Stefan has learned so far. That’s a lot lessons you know.
Have been working late lately. Leaving the studio at about 3.45am is certainly not a very healthy thing to do often. Waking up after about 4 hours of sleep adds salt to it. What more a long hectic day of picking up phone calls and coordination.
When I was a student, I was told to grab this book, How to be a Graphic Designer without loosing your soul before entering the industry. Hoping that it will help. For some strange unidentifiable reason, I never did bought the book. Why? Maybe I haven’t lost my soul (I guess).
Other than that, since using the word passion is a little bit of a cliché in this context, lets just say there are more interesting things that constitutes over graphic design. I find these things absolutely interesting. Example: Just take a look at the faces of people when you tell them you’re a graphic designer.
Also, it’s just kind of cool to be a designer.
* This books has a glorious display of typography!
Over the past few years, we see Penguin Books coming up with covers that create significance in the world of design. One example is the cover design for Meditations, taken from the Great Ideas Series 1, designed by Phil Baines that swept neat a D&AD award. From the Great Ideas Series 1 & 2, down to the newly released Penguin Celebrations.
As shown below, stunningly beautiful, dressed up with Jan Tschichold’s legendary 3 stripes design. Orange for fiction, Pink for distant lands, Purple for viewpoints, Dark Blue for real lives, Light blue for great ideas and green for mystery. This amazing collection features some of the best books of that kind such as The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski for adventure & travel, How to be Good by Nick Hornby for fiction together with Sue Townsend’s Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, etc. Check out their beautiful website here.
Another highlight thats worth to be displayed on the book shelf is definitely the Great Ideas Series 1 & Series 2 that has actually created a lot of attention in the design and type industry. I am a proud owner of about 22 copies out of the 40 copies of the entire series, just to share. Below are some take outs from series 2:
Moving on, we witness the Great Journeys series (which will trigger the ‘Marco Polo’ & ‘Christopher Columbus’ in us!). We here observe the beauty of duplication & repetition:
Then, the really beautiful & delicate touch on the front covers of the Great Loves series. Very elegant use of color and typeface. Using natural elements of mother nature with David Person’s traditional approach in creating the abstraction of the covers (scroll down here for the interview). I spotted this series in MPH at Mid Valley, amazingly stunning when viewed physically.
We also see the really interesting covers for Penguin Epics. This time, displaying mythical cliques and taking them to the next level by adding abstraction via modern approaches of graphic elements in the designs. Pay a little attention and you might realize that these designs are actually influenced by interpretations of each respective culture which concerns about the stories. I enjoyed the expressive type treatment.
All the books above are gloriously sized at 111 x 181mm, the ultimate.
(Also the ultimate 700 Penguins book covers for devoted Penguin cover hunters)
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