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

Vegan Ipsum

Both Vegan Ipsum and Veggie Ipsum are simple placeholder text generators.

A bit of history of Lorem Ipsum found on the Straight Dope:
“... Lorem ipsum was part of a passage from Cicero, specifically De finibus bonorum et malorum, a treatise on the theory of ethics written in 45 BC. The original reads, “Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit . . .” (“There is no one who loves pain itself, who seeks after it and wants to have it, simply because it is pain …”).

McClintock recalled having seen lorem ipsum in a book of early metal type samples, which commonly used extracts from the classics. “What I find remarkable,” he told Before & After, “is that this text has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since some printer in the 1500s took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book; it has survived not only four centuries of letter-by-letter resetting but even the leap into electronic typesetting, essentially unchanged...”

Lewis Hine: Photographer, Activist, Character

An expert linotyper in a
Southern publishing house.

via nytimes
Read this post by James Esztrin on the role of the photograph in affecting social change.

Image of the Day: Swallowtail Beach

Observed on the beach in Poe Valley State Park

Image of the Day: Fuse Box Rust

Found in Poe Valley near some old camps.