they are from rotterdam and they are almost modern… yes, i think that they probably are indeed
me news
am i missing something?
what a fascinating breed they are publishers, i will paraphrase an e-mail i got this week (one of the 2 or 3 mails i receive each week from similar publishers…) the idea is as follows they ask you for some work because they are publishing an ‘amazing’ new book on ‘green graphics’, ‘design on a budget’, ‘fresh colour designs’ etc etc.
you perhaps feel flattered and send them the requested work, they publish a book and you eventually, perhaps receive a free ‘complimentary’ copy for your troubles… the problem is that the quality is rarely any good and the editors have no idea what good design is, they just want to collect lots and lots of stuff so that they can flood the market with ‘design reference’ books and make some quick cash…
let me at this point say that there are exceptions to the norm: i have had work published in books by both, UK publisher ‘lawrence king’ and german publisher ‘gestalten’ who both make very well researched and carefully compiled books that do actually make a point and show a real feel for quality… now back to that email:
dear ……….. (sometimes they add your name sometimes it just says ‘dear [blank space]’ or even better ‘hi there!’)
we are a top quality design publisher (never heard of them before) and we think your work is fantastic, we are writing because we are currently making an ‘amazing’ new book and would like you to submit some work (occasionally they have a quick look through your portfolio and select something, sometimes they don’t bother) please choose your best projects and send them, we will need several hi-resolution images (tiff, eps files in CMYK, minimum A4 size) we cannot accept uploads so please send the files per registered post on a cd, complete with the disclaimer forms to: blah blah blah…
(here comes the good bit)
unfortunately due to the recession we are not able to provide entrants with a free ‘complimentary’ copy of the book, but we will be offering a 20% DISCOUNT to entrants who make it into the book… please hurry as the dealine is next monday, yours sincerely……..
hang on a minute… for a start you don’t know my name, secondly you just want me to send any work i fancy and when your ‘amazing’ book is ready i can send you some money to help pay for the costs you poor publishers have to make for all of those superfluous design books? yeah great…. sure… good luck with that project then… don’t call me and i certainly won’t be calling you… somebody is missing the point here and it ain’t me…
little hands holding books and posters
here is some friday afternoon inspiration from all over the place: starting with mannheim (germany) based tobias becker
moving on to the very trendy two points from barcelona and finally swiss designer ludovic balland (thanks to my whisky drinking intern ‘uwe’ for the tips)
teevee logos
i was just searching around onliune to help a friend find some info on an old dutch TV station logo and came across the incredible ‘wiki’ archive, with pretty much all of the dutch TV idents dating back as far as the sixties with loads of info and names…
probably not very interesting if you can’t read dutch (or never heard of these companies)… but a it’s an amusing (for ‘logo nerds’ at least…) overview of graphic styles in the past 40 years…
on the subject of
‘typically american’ design… the fwis site has some interesting filters for their content like: these are very dutch, ‘my mum got it’ and the all too familiar ‘we didn’t get paid’ nice…