Reading List

Lots of exciting reading to do after my big pile of similarly shaped Christmas presents. New year's resolution number 1: actually read all of these. Even the ones with lots of pictures. I will let you know how they are (if I'm not the last person in the entire world to have read the 79 essays that is).

79 Short Essays on Design - Michael Beirut
The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford
The Olivetti Chronicles - John Peel
Print Liberation: The Screen Printing Primer - Nick Paparone & Jamie Dillon
Reasons to be Cheerful: The Life and Work of Barney Bubbles - Paul Gorman
The Invisible Man - HG Wells (Invisible: apparently I have to wait til the boyfriend's finished it before I can borrow it.)

Polaroid Pogo Printer

My new toy. Nice prints, not fantastic quality but then that's never what Polaroid things are for really. You can peel the back off them and they're sticky so I think they'll be good for sketchbooks and things too. The prints are 3x5" to give you an idea of scale.

The printer would be so much better if it came with some kind of very short cable, or even better, some card readers built in. As neither of my cameras have bluetooth I have to rely on this cable, which kind of ruins the gadget-prettiness.

colour theme test

colour theme test, originally uploaded by toxi.

A screenshot of something I don't entirely understand. I think it's quite beautiful though...

Frosty Patterns

IMG_5441.JPG, originally uploaded by hello.vickibrown.

I've been neglecting my blogging a bit lately due to my job going COMPLETELY MENTAL but I'm back now.

Noticed these lovely ice patterns on my way to work this morning.

If You Could 2008

Print Series Catalogue 2008, originally uploaded by ifyoucouldflickr.

The full print series - available here for a bargainous £10.

Poladroid

IMG_5212b-pola01, originally uploaded by hello.vickibrown.

An easy polaroid faker app available at poladroid.net. Pretty good I think!

Mibo Downloadable Calendar

A beautifully illustrated calendar is available to download for all subscribers to Mibo's mailing list right now. Check out the rest of their website for some lovely prints and gift ideas all featuring the distinctive Mibo illustrations.

Apak

Some psychedelic cuteness from Apak. Available to buy on Etsy. They're also featured on the, erm, charming, Charming Wall gallery.

Good Shape Design

Some nice posters available at Good Shape Design, the work of Wayne Pate. At $30 a pop for silkscreen prints I think they're pretty good value, even though they don't appear to be limited edition.

Via Design*Sponge.

Gocco for Sale

I'm selling my trusty gocco, if you're interested...

Callie Shell: Obama

© Callie Shell / Aurora for Time

Callie Shell first encountered Barack Obama when she was producing what turned out to be an award winning photo essay about John Kerry's presidential campaign. According to digitaljournalist.org, she ended up turning in more photographs of Obama than Kerry, saying "I just have a feeling about him. I think he will be important down the road."

The full photo essay.

Time Magazine's selection for Barack Obama: Portrait of a Candidate.

Today's The Day

Celebrate Change limited edition print by AngeliArndt


I'm not going to say a lot about the whole design + Obama thing, as plenty of other people have already posted much more eloquent points than I think I could squeeze into the last bit of my lunch hour (see below). But it has really struck me how everyone seems to be getting involved. Maybe it's more of an indicator of the design trends in general and the surge of designer/makers and craftspeople facilitated by things like etsy, folksy, dawanda. Whatever it is, it has to be good in terms of people actually getting out and voting, whoever they decide to vote for.



Hand printed lino cut by Jason Krekel at HandcrankedUSA
Wooden inlay pin at Obamastuff



Hope silkscreen by mmsuperstuff
Photograph © Marisa Allegra Williams



American Presidential Wrestling letterpress poster from YeeHaw


Just a couple of many more eloquent posts I mentioned;
Michael Johnson's Design Week/Thought For The Week article
Steven Heller