i posted about taylor holland a while back and he got in touch again this week to mention a new project of his: a wonderful collection of detail images from those really kitsch european touring buses

i have often been fascinated by these as we have a lot of them in amsterdam as well, it’s amazing to think that someone actually ‘designs’ these… thanks for sharing taylor, he has also released a book of the ‘eurobus’ project via matmos press

a new book (with the rather odd title) ‘art in book’ on special book design projects arrived in the post this week from chinese publisher ‘send points’

it features several of our own book projects and the overall quality of the lanscape format book itself was a pleasant surprise for me…

at times amusing is this collection of world ‘bigotry’ maps, seen from the point of view of one nation or categorised in for example, penis sizes
see the whole set here

(tip via mr ‘uwe’)

back in 2008-2009 photographer ‘eric klein wolterink’ made a series of clinical images of kitchens of amsterdam residents, the panorama-like images are composites made of separate images, in each case enough as were necessary to capture the entire plane of cupboards and drawers

closer inspection reveals a plethora of vanishing points & odd disjointed perspectives within each image, the series can also be viewed in (zoomable) detail here and the collection was also published in a book designed in 2011 by hans gremmen

a clever, interactive smartphone manual/packaging combination from ‘samsung’ (via fontanel)

i am currently making a book for my father (mr. pyper senior) about the history of the small village in france where he lives: paris l’hopital… shown above is his house now and 120 years ago…

the material consists of a fascinating and very broad range of written and photographed documentation of the lives of the villagers from 1850 up to the 1950′s, including diaries and many personal accounts and artefacts

the train station is still standing although the tracks disappeared years ago…

the village blacksmith was the owner of a high quality technical camera which means that there is a huge series of postcard images of every aspect of village life, a fairly unusual occurence for such a small rural village at that time

i recently visited dad in france to scan all of the available material, the images are of such an amazing high quality that it is possible to zoom in endlessely to see details hidden in the background, here are a few examples i wanted to share…

advertising, might be interested in the book about advertising and people who don’t like it, due to be released soon from local agency ‘kessels kramer’

some of my favourites from a list of smart cover redesigns

the set below based on old movie titles is particularly nice…

i was willing but sadly unable to help talented illustrator martijn f. overweel make the booklet for his current exhibition due to a crazy deadline, it turns out that was a good thing… as he’s done a fine job all by himself, who needs designers eh?

if you would like to see it why not pop by subbacultcha in amsterdam and by a copy? before the 13th of january… for a mere €5 it’s yours

…celebrating creative covers & their ace designers. an addiction to covers that smack you in the face or you wanna lick…

well erm yes… ahum, a website that is devoted to all-things magazine cover – related wouldn’t be complete without a physical magazine i guess, so here it is: cover junkie, now on sale… complete with interviews from a whole range of international magazine fanatics… i wouldn’t advise licking the website either however…

a collection of favourite book cover designs from 2010

although the name may not immediately suggest it, there is a new photo bookstore opening in amsterdam this week

…this coming Saturday the 10th of December sees the grand opening of a new bookstore… …will be catering to some of the more hard to find, limited run, self published and handmade books from across the globe… …the store will have a strong bias towards photography publications… …@ 301 Overtoom it will be open 2PM – 8PM every Saturday and via appointment at other times…

thank god for trains with wirelss… as i write this i’m heading off to burgundy, france for a few days… to help one of my favourite clients with the design of a new historical reference book he has written, my father

the blog will be a bit quiet (maybe) till i get back on tuesday, have a good weekend

when i initially saw some of this packaging it brought about a certain nostalgic feeling, not only because it is clearly old but also because i can vaguely remember some of it myself as a kid…

supermarket chain ‘sainsburys’ developed an untypically british ‘modernistic’ range of ‘own label’ products during the ’60s and ’70s of the last century and it turns out (to my surprise) that they had a dedicated in-house design team, something which to my mind is more often associated with german (braun), dutch (randstad) or swiss brands (geigy) than british ones of that era… the first golden era of ‘helvetica’?

the extensive archive has been lovingly documented in a fabulous little book, called simply ‘own label’ compiled & designed by london-based ‘fuel through their own publishing wing…

this is a rewrite of a dutch article i wrote last week for ‘fontanel’