Lonni Sue Johnson: Anatomy of an Illustrator’s Illness

via the daily heller
“Lonni Sue Johnson, whose illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker and The New York Times, among scores of books and magazines, was stricken with viral encephalitis in 2007. The disease left her with severe, memory-impairing brain damage — amnesia.  Johns Hopkins University has been engaged in a research study into the ‘artistic aspect’ of her illness. An announcement and video of her cognitive struggle was just released by Johns Hopkins and an exhibit of Johnson’s post-illness work, ‘Puzzles of the Brain: An Artist’s Journey through Amnesia,’ will open on September 17 at The Walters Museum in Baltimore…”
Read the rest here; with lots of great links to follow.

Scoutmob and Public Bikes

Scoutmob is giving away a PUBLIC C7 or V7 bike every Friday in September.
Enter the giveaway here.

Merculiano’s ‘I Cefalopodi’

via BibliOdyssey
‘I Cefalopodi’ is hosted by the Biodiversity Heritage Library on behalf of the Smithsonian Institution. The author of the magnificent color and b/w plates is Comingio Merculiano (1845-1915), a professional watercolor painter hired in 1885 by prof. Anton Dohrn as in-house illustrator for the Naples Zoological Station.
The Biodiversity Heritage Library blog featured ‘I Cefalopodi’ in its Book of the Week. You can see more from ‘I Cefalopodi’ here, and even download the images [89.2 MB]. Be sure to check out the entire collection of illustrations from this work in Flickr.

Mapping Terms for American Streams

via Strange Maps Blog
“A body of running water may be called any of many different names, the most generic being stream, the most common being river.  A river can be defined as ‘a natural stream of water of usually considerable volume’. General terms for smaller streams include creek (smaller than a river) and brook (smaller than a creek). Very specific types of water currents  include anabranches (river branches that rejoin the main body of water) and distributaries (branches that don’t).

This map charts the rich variety of waterflow toponyms in the US, which reflects the climatological and geographical diversity of the country, but also its linguistic and historical heritage. River names seem extremely resistant to change, and indeed often are echoes of earlier dominant cultures.

The colors on the map, which is based on the place names in the USGS National Hydrography Dataset, correspond to the generic toponyms for waterflows, excluding the two commonest ones (river and creek, rendered in gray).

The term brook (light blue) is massively prevalent throughout New England, and into northern New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It is interspersed with stream (light green) in Maine, the only place in the country where that term is used with any frequency; and with kill (dark blue) in New York state’s Hudson valley - the occurrence of that Dutch-derived term coinciding somewhat with the former Dutch colony of New Netherland. Pennsylvania, Maryland, northern Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio are dominated by the run (pink)…”

Read the rest here, see the map large here, and visit Derek Watkins site here.

Little Free Libraries

via utne reader
“Andrew Carnegie built an impressive 2,509 libraries around the turn of the 20th century. Now Rick Brooks and Todd Bol are on a mission to top his total with their two-foot by two-foot Little Free Libraries, reports Michael Kelley in Library Journal. The diminutive, birdhouse-like libraries, which Brooks and Bol began installing in Hudson and Madison, Wisconsin, in 2009, are typically made of wood and Plexiglas and are designed to hold about 20 books for community members to borrow and enjoy. Offerings include anything from Russian novels and gardening guides to French cookbooks and Dr. Seuss. Each Little Free Library runs on the honor system, displaying a sign that asks patrons to Take a Book, Leave a Book. Fifty libraries have been built so far, with 30 more underway and plans to expand into Chicago, Long Island, and elsewhere…”
Read the rest here, visit Little Free Library here.

A Printer’s Lullaby

Heidelberg Z at Penn State

via Quality In Print 
Gordon Pritchard challenged Dwane Hollands, owner of Hollands Print Solutions and a sometimes music composer, with the idea of creating a piece of music using the sound of a printing press to create the underlying musical theme. He chose the rhythm of a Heidelberg press.
Listen to his composition ‘Printer's Lullaby’ here.

Film Biz Recycling

via swissmiss
Film Biz Recycling a fantastic Brooklyn-based non-profit keeping furniture and props from film sets out of the trash.

Transcending Fear in the Creative Process

via brain pickings
“ ‘Creativity is like chasing chickens,’ Christoph Niemann once said. But sometimes it can feel like being chased by chickens — giant, angry, menacing chickens. Whether you’re a writer, designer, artist or maker of anything in any medium, you know the creative process can be plagued by fear, often so paralyzing it makes it hard to actually create…”
Insights on fear and creativity from five favorite books on the creative process and the artist’s way can be found here.

Wood Type of the Month: Gothic Round

via International Printing Museum 
Read this month’s wood-type column to learn about the 200 year old typeface that finds use in the fast food industry today.

Silk

via How About Orange
Silk is a site where you create artwork that resembles silk blowing in the breeze. Just click your mouse and drag . . .

Image of the Day: Gracie’s Corner

trueindigo captured this image.
More ampersands from the Upper East Side can be found here.

Image of the Day: Gloom

Thanks to trueindigo for capturing this image

Images of the Day: Green Men

Thanks to trueindigoo for capturing these images

Ampersand Cookie Cutter

via felt & wire
Alyson Kuhn writes on her blog, “I have always been fond of ampersands & have even gotten to write about them on occasion, including here. Today I’m pleased to introduce my new cookie cutter. Now I can have my ampersand & eat it, too!…”
The rest of her post, including Amper Sans Black and her thoughts on cheese & hampersandwiches, visit here.

Image of the Day: Psychic

Thanks to trueindigo for capturing this for me.

Tractor Supply Co. Receipt

This is real.

Image of the Day: Underwood Ampersand

Spotted in an antique store near Belleville, PA.
A few other examples can be found here.

Cover: Japanese Fairy Tales

via letterology

Another one of the old cover scans found here.

Cover: Training in Commercial Art

via letterology
Just one of the old cover scans found here.
My 1982 degree from the Art Institute in Pittsburgh is in Visual Communication, and I am fairly certain that initially my resume from that time had me searching for jobs as a commercial artist. It was many years later that I took on the title of graphic designer.

Image of the Day: Chili Peppers

Afternoon at my in-laws in Lewistown