Business Cards of the Day: Vegan & Vegetarian

After a couple of trips to NYC and a vegetarian festival in Washington, D.C, I had some cards piling up to post. Quite the variety of shapes, sizes, and one is even a sticker [Action for Animals]. The two round ones above [purple and golden yellow] are actually the front and back of the same card for gobo. Very often, The Bacon is Not an Herb card [bottom row] has a QR code sticker on the back as well [seen to the right of that card] — kudos for great eye-catching use of technology!

A Simple Book Repair Manual

via green chair press
“Dartmouth College has a web version of their A Simple Book Repair Manual. It goes through the tools you’ll need as well as repairs such as tipping in a page and spine repair…”
Visit Green Chair Press here, Dartmouth College’s Book Repair site here.

Jain Running

The cool October rains have brought earthworms, grubs, and other little creatures out onto roads and trails. As a runner, I feel like I could publish a book / podcast on how to avoid stepping on them. “In chapter 5, you’ll learn simple techniques from pulling your stride up short to using short bursts of speed to lengthen your pace to avoid nature’s smallest crawling life forms; all while keeping under a 10-minute mile. Bonus section includes tips on night and twilight running with a headlamp, and how to avoid tripping over opossums.” Trust me, it is especially mentally exhausting keeping keenly aware and focused on your surroundings and footing for 45 minutes or longer.

Mail-Order Mysteries

via Neato Coolville 
Mail-Order Mysteries: Real Stuff from Old Comic Book Ads! by Kirk Demarais.
Watch the book trailer here, more on the book can be found here. His main site is here, with lots of retro items to explore.

Oct. 1: Doritos inventor to be buried with the snack that made him famous

via cnn
“Arch West, the Frito-Lay marketing executive credited with inventing Doritos, passed away of natural causes last week at the age of 97, and his family plans to honor his legacy in a lovingly cheesy way. The Dallas Morning News reports that at his graveside, service in Dallas, Texas on October 1, the family will be ‘tossing Doritos chips in before they put the dirt over the urn,’ according to his daughter Jane Hacker. ‘He'll love it,’ she continued…”
Read the rest here, and more here.

The Creative Brain On Exercise

via fast company
“For artists, entrepreneurs, and any other driven creators, exercise is a powerful tool in the quest to help transform the persistent uncertainty, fear, and anxiety that accompanies the quest to create from a source of suffering into something less toxic, then potentially even into fuel…”
Read the rest here.

Peter Gabriel: New Blood

via npr
“Peter Gabriel's 12th studio album, New Blood, contains re-imaginings of some of his best-known songs — including ‘Solsbury Hill,’ ‘Red Rain’ and ‘Don't Give Up’ — using orchestral arrangements and ambient sound. The album continues a career reinvention he began on Scratch My Back, a covers album with the attached expectation that the covered artists would reciprocate…”
Read the rest and listen to the interview here. Listen to a sneak preview of Red Rain on Peter Gabriel’s site, here.

Savage Chickens: Ribbons

via savage chickens
This makes me smile!

Vintage Maps Trace the Meandering Mississippi

via a raven
“For anyone obsessed with beautiful maps, these colorful and informative examples tracking the many paths of the lower Mississippi are a dream come true. The monumental collection was produced in 1944 by Harold N. Fisk, who drew in a rainbow of colors the path of past and current flows as the mighty river changed course and flooded over time...”
More can be found here.

He’s Dead Jim: T-Shirt

via ian leino
This t-shirt cracks me up; order it here.

Average Font

via a raven
Moritz Resl writes, “This project shows what a font would look like if it consisted of all typefaces installed on my system. Every character from a to z is drawn using every single font with a low opacity. In total there are over 900 typefaces in my library. I didn’t exclude the ugly ones…”
I just check my font library at work — I have 4,702 fonts; yikes! See his results of the 900 here.

Image of the Day: No Cheese Puffs Were Ejected

Real news story in today’s
Daily Collegian.

Chromolithography Printing Process Trade Cards

via letterology
“The process of Chromolithography was invented in the late 1790s, 40 years before the invention of photography, and it was an alterative to the woodcut or engraving process where you carve into the surface in order to create a relief image. Chromoliths, (sometimes referred to as chromos), are known as planographic prints, meaning the images and text were drawn on a flat, limestone surface with a greasy crayon and when it chemically treated, the drawn areas would attract ink and the stone would repel it. Each color represented a different stone, so the task of producing this method of lithography was not only extremely labor intensive, but an art that few mastered. The subtle texture of each print comes from the irregular grain of the stone. Some of the finest printers were in Germany and France where much of the best quality limestone was mined…”
The set of 6 cards found here illustrate the entire chromolithography printing process in consecutive order. 

Horn Books

This horn book includes
an ampersand

via the fontfeed
“Long before the invention of printing, hand painted letter boards were widespread as teaching material in schools. ABC tablets made of wood were already mentioned in an English manuscript as early as the 14th century. Later a thin, transparent horn plate was used to protect the paper glued on the board against wear and dirt. This is why up to this day letter boards are still called horn books in English-speaking regions, even though they are not books in the conventional sense of the word…”
Read the rest here, and learn a bit more about horn books here and here.

Keming

8via Ironic Sans

The Original Think Pad

via the daily heller
“Computer Revolution Trivia Dept.: IBM introduced the ThinkPad line of laptop computers in 1992. Back in the 1920s Thomas J. Watson, Sr, introduced ‘THINK’ as an IBM slogan. For decades IBM distributed small notepads with the word ‘THINK’ etched onto a brown leatherette cover to customers and employees. The name ThinkPad was suggested by IBM employee Denny Wainwright, who is reported to have had a ‘THINK’ notepad in his pocket…”
Read the rest here.

Progress Report for “Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama”

via dykes to watch out for
Alison Bechdel writes on her blog, “I’m drawing and drawing, on deadline for the memoir I’ve been working on for the past five years. It kinda freaks me out that the book is already up on Amazon.com, considering that it’s far from finished. But I guess it’s also motivating. The book will have seven chapters, for a total of around 280 pages. So far I’ve got 116 pages done…that’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to tally them up…”
I can hardly wait for this to be released; the subtle details she adds within each frame perfectly captures the era. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak at a public event, take the time to go; you will not be disappointed. On Tuesday October 18, she will be at Barnes and Noble Union Square, NYC, 7p.m.

1493: Chronicling the Ecological Impact of Columbus’ Journey

via wired
“Columbus’ discovery of the New World unleashed centuries of geopolitical turmoil. But humans weren’t the only creatures whose fortunes were forever altered. Entire species of plants and animals either thrived or suffered as well. In the book 1493, author (and Wired contributor) Charles C. Mann traces the far-reaching biological consequences of Columbus’ journey across the ocean blue. “There is a Rube Goldberg aspect to this,” Mann says. “Things are connected in ways that you would never expect.” And just as with human societies, some organisms came out on top, while others were radically subjugated. Here are a few key flora and fauna and how they weathered the storm…”
Read the rest here, more on 1493 here from npr.

Images of the Day: Neon & Enamel

These photos just do not do justice to the rich indigo enamel neon sign, located in Centre Hall, PA.

Image of the Day: “Cat No Allowe”

This handmade sign in Millheim cracked us up on a recent Sunday afternoon. We get this impression that rather than crosshairs, it is supposed to be the international no symbol. Love the fact that the cat has three legs, and that they ran out of room when writing the sign. What is the story behind this rather young person’s request?