“From within a book row on row a forest of knowledge continues to grow. While brackets and comma’s flourish and bloom, we fear the end begins to loom.” These are the words that can be found on the amazing book sculptures created by Emma Taylor. She carefully picks each book she turns into a work of art. With her careful hand, she brings out the story literally in the form of cut out pages of the book. [Read more...]
As libraries around the world are moving towards the future and digitizing their collections, this has been no easy task. The fastest scanning method up until now involved cutting books up to feed them through a quick scanner, which seems blasphemous to do to rare editions, but the alternative of manually scanning each page would be far too tedious. But low and behold BFS-Auto, a robotic book scanner that can digitize books at the rate of over 250 pages/minute without damaging the book in any way! [Read more...]
Animal portraiture fights for the top of the charts of cheesiness in most cases. While most people would agree that a dog in a Halloween costume is particularly amusing, many dogs probably get humiliated being forced into outfits that make them uncomfortable. Then, the next thing you know a photographer puts together a pointless book with a collection of humiliated dogs.
What if instead the photographer took some time to capture the noble dogs that save lives? Dutch photographer Charlotte Dumas did just that. [Read more...]
“It all began with the ominous death of a fox:” so begins the beautifully illustrated book Pincel de Zorro. An whimsical tale from Spanish author Sergio A. Sierra, the Japan based tale is complimented by wonderfully complex illustrations by Meritxell Ribas using a unique technique called grattage: paint is scraped off the page with a pointed tool, leaving only the canvas beneath. [Read more...]
“I am after the maximum communication with minimum elements”, says designer Noma Bar of the aim behind his clever prints. Though his art is minimal in detail, his talented use of negative space speaks volumes, ending in humorous and even poignant results. Bar is so adept at the technique he has recently authored a book titled “Negative Space.” Find the book, along with much more of his work at dutchuncle.co.uk. [Read more...]
Back in 1981, urban design visionary Donald Appleyard published his now classic book Livable Streets. In this video by Streetfilms, we revisit some of Appleyard’s original research, which for the first time explored the way that car traffic affected our neighborhood social interactions and the attitude we held towards our homes.
To get your copy of the once hard to find book, Routledge Press will be publishing a much anticipated second edition of Livable Streets in 2011.
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No medium has quite provided instant gratification like the now discontinued Polaroid 600 film. Snap a shot, wait a minute and you had a uniquely hued print that only instant film could provide.
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When Jonathan Safran Foer looks at a novel, he sees layers of stories and prose hidden in the words. Taking one of his favorite books, The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, Foer die-cut specific passages out of the original book, leaving a haunting new tale he titled Tree of Codes. He gets bonus style points for using the characters from the original title in the new.
To carve deeper into this literary art piece or to purchase your own copy, see the attractive website of Feor’s publisher, Visual Editions.
