As an appetizer, consider Rick Poyner’s take on the work of Pierre Faucheux, a book designer Richard Hollis called “the single most important figure in French graphic design after Cassandre.” For the main course, check out this incredible Book Cover Archive edited and maintained by Ben Pieratt and Eric Jacobsen. Finally, as dessert, nominate your favorite book designs from 2011 for Design Observer’s “50 Books/50 Covers” contest.
A Feast for Your Eyes
That’s a Mouthful
A Hawaiian woman named Janice Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaele has won her battle against the state’s government computer systems and will now be able to fit her name – all 36 letters and 19 syllables of it – onto her driver’s license and ID card. Previously she’d been using a truncated version on her official documentation.
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Sketches of a Life
Recommended Reading: On Lucia Berlin’s final stories, “a series of sketches which traced her life.”
An Existential Test
“It is a privilege and a gift and an honor to be a debut author, but it is, above all things, an existential test.” Courtney Maum writes about the darker side of publishing a first book.
Semicolon Shenanigans
Need to spice up your writing? Try one of McSweeney’s punctuation marks such as the Yellow-Winged Apostrophe, which likes “to ‘peace out’ of its obligation to indicate possession or contraction,” or the Academic Ellipsis, which “is used by those who wish to demonstrate just how much more they know about how to use ellipses than you do.”
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