About Print Design
Blissen make beautiful items, and are a constant source of inspiration. I’m particularly drawn to the founder of Blissen herself Jill Bliss who is a talented designer, borrowing heavily from her own work with Blissen, but also able to work independently with a versitile design style that seems to suit her clients impeccably.
Where are you all?, oh you’re at the Kid Robot Discussion Board, sorry.
There seems to be lots to read out there at the moment and to add to those in my typelist, I’ve been looking at THE TYPOGRAPHIC EXPERIMENT by Teal Triggs which comes from Magma which is a great source of design books. Just started You Shall know our Velocity by Dave Eggers I have to say that A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is fast becoming one of my all time favourite books. I am pleased to say that I’ve ordered Out by Natsuo Kirino Kirino is the queen of Japanese horror writing, and since we all enjoyed The Ring, we know that Japanese horror doesn’t pull its punches.
Its not gone un-noticed that Dots and Spaces has been neglecting its duties in terms of bringing you interesting bits of design to add to the clutter (of life). So I thought I’d address this, with a mention of Patent Pending Industries who are a print firm that do lots of cover art and posters for Subpop and the like, coving bands like Stephen Malkmus, The Hives, Belle and Sebastien etc. The designs that first caught my eye come from Jesse LeDoux, and this was after seeing a great cover for Hot Hot Heat’s Bandages. In fact, all the PPI designs are first class. There’s lots of Saul Bass influences in the poster work. The great thing is that the sum of the information comunicated is negligible to the overall effect created. I mean, they don’t just tell you which band is playing, they give you the feeling you’re already watching them…still with me?
I feel a Saul Bass entry coming on…
DB have a new CD, with plenty of new tracks. The boys have been working in the studio, and the songs are more fully fledged than before. There’s still plenty of tinkering, and I prefer the stuff that sounds more low-fi and scuzzy. The album has bags of character, it doesn’t sound like anyone else, and in this day of recycled ideas and photocopy influences, this is a refreshing change. For more info go to the site – if you ever get a chance to see this lot live, then it shouldn’t be missed. Artwork above by dots and spaces.
The wonderful people at Howies have posted a new catalogue, if you haven’t put your name down for one, then hit the link above. I’ve taken a special interest in the Chevron Bag – you can get it from wiggle as well as from Howies directly. You can’t buy on line, but there’s a nifty call back option on the website, just leave you’re details and someone will give you a bell. Its one of the few catalogues that you’ll read from cover to cover.
The catalogue is printed using vegetable inks and recycled pulp, and will take about 200 years to biodegrade. Remember, everything we do has impact.
This is the first of (hopefully) a long line of items from Imakethings, and I was so pleased and lucky to see this little book pop through my letterbox this week. It came with its own badge – which I have been wearing, if only to explain to everyone I meet that they should get their own copy of “The Hungry Bear”. I hear that the peeps at Tado were very impressed, and that’s quite a compliment.
On a separate note – this is the first image I’ve put in that is also a hyperlink (I know its basic, but its a big step for me)
I stumbled across Street Stickers today when I was looking for a supplier. The gallery is a labour of love, these photos are quite a lively record of all the stickers that get stuck around town. Then I remembered that Imakethings got an email saying his sticker had been spotted. I just love the range of artwork, and sometimes you don’t even know what the sticker means…but who cares@!
These things were rarer than dodo poo at Christmas, but as soon as the rush died down I crept into Woolies and bought one. So far, we’ve used up about half the pins and plates that came with it, and I know that the refills are expensive. You can get a Badge it from the usual outlets for about 20quid, which I think is pretty good. For us mac people, there wasn’t a template or anything (its so low-fi), but I made my own in photoshop using various layers so that you know what it’ll look like. The one above isn’t great, and I think the random ones down work so well as the personalised ones that I’ve attached to cards (homemade cards are transformed, and people don’t think you’re cheap – hey it took me ages!) I will happily post any badges that people send me and I will try to figure out posting .pdf’s so that you can all grab a template and a page of badges. Imakethings suggested I look at wear it with pride a lovely site that features tons of badges and even allows submissions. Its lovely to see something so simple and un-techy and cool out in the shops for everyone to use. I’ve started to see bespoke badges everywhere lately, on the train and in the supermarket and I think most of them were made with a Badge it.
