Seasonal paper art from Diptyque

Murray GM December 17, 2016

Mostly I tend to avoid promotional christmas giveaways, but this one from Diptyque is beautiful. It's a paper based theatre set, consisting of one pop up 3d theatre scene and a second stand up theatre where you can change the scenes - with 9 story cards telling the tale of "Une Nuit Chez Diptyque".

It's by illustrator Pierre-Marie Agin (pierremarie.fr) and it's a truly lavish piece of paper art. The foiling and embossing are wonderful and the completeness of the piece, right down to the bag and matchbox make it rather special.

Poster goodness from Dorothy

Murray GM November 16, 2016

Despite having limited wall space, I can't resist posters and prints. I recently discovered Dorothy (http://www.wearedorothy.com/) and oh boy what a treasure trove. After much deliberation I managed to limit myself to these three posters:

But this one is so on my radar for my next order:
Alternative Love Blueprint - A History of Alternative Music

Mondial magazine from Rapha

Murray GM October 8, 2016

There's something about cycling that seems to brings out the best in graphic designers. I'd seen a few pieces about Mondial magazine from the British cycling brand Rapha on the design blogs, but hadn't seen it in the flesh until I visited their San Francisco store. Rapha has been around since 2004. They launched Mondial in 2015 and it's a bi-annual magazine about cycling, but as they put it, it's...

"A WIDER VIEW OF THE ROAD"

With intelligent articles and interesting asides, it's much much much more than a cyclist's zine.

The thing is, Mondial is gorgeous. Which seems appropriate, as Rapha the brand is 100% design driven with incredible attention to detail. For me Mondial is one of the most elegant and beautiful magazines I've seen in a long time. Not only that, it's also brave with it's design and it's editorial. Everything is on the money; stunning typography, beautiful photography, wonderful colour work, lovely stock and of course great writing - it's the full package. When I first picked it up it reminded me of Zembla and Vince Frost's work, but it's more disciplined. The design team of Jack Saunders, Alex Hunting and Ben Brannan have produced a stunning piece of work. They never let the design idea take over, it's always kept it in perfect balance. Stunning.

Look at the fun they have with numbers, type and colour:

This is my favourite spread, really shows off their custom font; Mondial by Colophon Foundry. And it's a great piece of typographic layout.

The grid(s) work really well, lending great structure but also plenty of options for negative space. Which they aren't afraid to use. Even the photography reflects this sense of space, focus and room to understand the visual idea. The contents pages alone in a work of art.

All that's left is to flag this wonderful statement about cycling, however I'd suggest switching the word 'cycling' for 'design', as that seems equally appropriate.

Great work.

Grab a copy from their online shop here: rapha.cc/Mondial

Action Time Vision - was waiting for me

Murray GM September 20, 2016

Arrived back from a long weekend and this little beauty was waiting for me: Action Time Vision, #002 in Unit Edition's Archive Series. I'd almost forgot that I'd ordered it! I'm loving the books being put out by Unit Editions (Tony Brook, Patricia Finegan and Adrian Shaughnessy), and can't wait for the Lance Wyman Visual Diaries that just got funded via Kickstarter.

This book was a must for me. Although a little too young for Punk the design has resonated with me as much as the music over the years. It's a great collection of punk 7" single sleeves spanning from 1976 to 1984, and features such design legends as Malcolm Garrett, Peter Saville, Barney Bubbles and of course Jamie Reid. The book is created from the collections of Tony Brook and Russ Bestley. Russ is an ex Portsmouth design grad (was in the year below me) and a regular collaborator with the Ian Noble. He's also considered one of the world's leading authorities on punk and post-punk music.

It's yet another lovingly crafted book, designed by Callin Mackintosh. Mine came with four buttons (badges). Of which "99% IS SHIT" is my favourite, but "NEVER BEEN IN A RIOT" is a close second.

Grab a copy here: action-time-vision
or check out another of their publications I have here: FHK Henrion

Octothorpe

Interrobang

Octothorpes, interrobangs and other wonders in Shady Characters

Murray GM July 9, 2016

A few weeks back I saw a tweet featuring a pic of the octothorpe or hash symbol, from Shady Characters: The Secret Life of Punctuation, Symbols and Other Typographic Marks by Keith Houston. It looked exquisite and I couldn't resist grabbing a copy of the book. It's a fun book, chocked full of history and geeky knowledge - a perfect gift for the graphic designer in your life. But it's the book design that really shines. The designer (Judith Stagnitto Abbate) has done a beautiful job. It's full of elegant details and the two colours (the classic typographer black & red) are balanced perfectly throughout. Overall it has a very classical feel but with the occasional fun little twist like close cropping a mark or bleeding it off the edge of the page. You can tell she had a lot of fun with this, wonderful job.