Multi-Talented

Every once in a great while, I stumble across an artist who is so effortlessly talented and truly original that it’s awe-inspiring, and I become a bit star-struck. These are trying moments for me: on the one hand, I want to immediately call them up and gush with appreciation for the sheer existance of their remarkable talent. On the other hand, I am saddened that my own tiny efforts seem to pale so miserably in comparison, after which I want to throw rocks at everything I’ve ever done.

Such is the case with a gentleman named Ross MacDonald. An exceedingly talented illustrator & designer, a wonderful eye for humor, a Hollywood prop-maker, and a printer of fine letterpress work to boot. A long list of well-deserved A-list clients grace his wonderful web site, along with an abundance of excellent work. A veritable renaissance man of sorts, unafraid of tackling whatever sort of challenge or thought that crosses his path–and apparently succeeding quite well at all of them. I enjoyed making my way through every bit of it (especially the letterpress section), turning greener with envy at every click of the mouse. Very fine stuff here–I think you’ll really enjoy it.

All Bound Up

Thanks to Columbia University for providing online these beautiful examples of early book bindings, intricately designed and foil stamped to perfection (from the days when publishers spent real money and effort on such things). Some nice, concise history on the early binding processes as well, if you take the time to read the intro page (and you should).

These days, the limit of my involvement with the case of a book is typically a meager and simple spine stamping die. If I’m lucky, I get to spec cloth, headbands, and endsheets. I’d bet money that most designers could echo that comment. However, these designs offer inspiration for designing something truly different if and when the right job presents itself.

Bookmark this one–it’s bound to come in handy as reference some day.

Rare Books, Online

“The ‘Rare Book Room’ site has been constructed as an educational site intended to allow the visitor to examine and read some of the great books of the world.”

And a fine site it is. Numerous old and rare books on numerous subjects, and searchable by category, author, or library. Includes items such as the Gutenburg Bible, Harvey’s Book on the circulation of blood, the first printings of the Bill of Rights and the Magna Carta–what could be better? Well… some are even available on CD–that’s what could be better.

Flip through a few of those old volumes–I haven’t seen page margins like that on ANY books in recent years. Some fine stuff here. Check it out.

Best Book Cover Ever?

My good friend Jack sent a cover design to me the other day, commenting that this was, “without question the best book cover ever”. His comments were not politically motivated, and with all politics aside I am inclined to agree that it’s certainly one of the best I’ve seen in a very long while (in the top 10 for sure). My reasoning (and his): Instant communication–which is the name of the game in this business, seeing as how you have all of about 3 seconds to capture the reader’s eye. Designed using one of my favorite approaches, KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

And indeed, the genius IS in the utter simplicity of the design–and in choosing visual symbols that spark universal and immediate recognition. (A nice, concise title and author line don’t hurt either.) All covers can’t be quite so simple (nor should they be). But if selling the book is the primary function of a book cover, quick idea communication should always be at the top of the list of priorities. Just like a great photograph, a great book cover is worth a thousand words–spoken quickly.

By the way, I haven’t found out the designer’s name yet, but I’ll post as soon as I do. Pass it along if you know.

The Woody Allen Font

An interesting bit on Woody Allen’s constant and endless use of the Windsor font for almost all of his movie titles and credits… the Woody Allen “brand”? Uggh. I’m starting to hate that word.

Thanks to Kit•Blog for an interesting piece nonetheless… here.

JPEGed and Confused

JPEG files can be wonderful things. They pack incredible amounts of information into a very small package. You can email them to your friends, your clients, your printer, and a thousand other places all across the world at the touch of a button. Those of us in the design business have to deal with them almost every day. But they have their limitations, and if you have to handle them professionally, it pays to know and understand those limits.

Most clients and contacts that I work with are quite knowledgable about JPEG files. But every so often I run across “professional” people who are… well… just plain clueless about them. I find that annoying, and unfortunately it happens with some regularity. So without pretending to be an expert, but simply in the spirit of combating JPEG illiteracy, the following list touches on just a few JPEG myths and misconceptions that I’ve run into in recent months:

–JPEGs are always lo-resolution. FALSE.
–JPEGs are always hi-resolution. FALSE AGAIN.
I’ve heard it both ways from different sources, but the fact is, they can be EITHER. This is the primary misconception I hear about JPEG images, and I’m amazed how often I still hear it. Images intended for the Web are lo-res (typically 72ppi). Images destined for offset printing are hi-res (300ppi or better).

–JPEGs are always RGB format. FALSE.
I hear this one a lot too. JPEGs can be RGB, or CMYK, or even grayscale.

–JPEGs are great for both print and web use. FALSE.
They are great for web use, but for print work JPEGs have to be decoded by the RIP processor, and will often cause your job to run more slowly in prepress. Better to use CMYK TIFF or EPS format for importing into your print layout software.

–JPEG is a destructive format (TRUE) and therefore always bad (FALSE).
This is a debate that will rage on endlessly, and most of the gripes I hear come from photographers. But for hi-res images, it is this designer’s opinion that so long as you’re careful when and how you save your JPEGs, the damage that’s done to them is typically very minor and for the most part not detectible by the human eye. JPEG is indeed a destructive format (lossy compression it’s called). But on hi-res images saved at high quality settings, the deterioration is very difficult to detect. (File size increases dramatically at higher settings, so depending on what your prioritites are, keep that in mind.) Note also: the lower the resolution of the image, the greater the visual degradation to the image at a given quality setting. In other words, lo-res images take a proportionally bigger beating from JPEG compression than hi-res images do.
One caveat: JPEG compression can cause subtle color shifts in some tonal ranges, so images with precise color requirements should avoid JPEG compression altogether.

–JPEGs are damaged every time you open them. Nope… FALSE.
The simple act of opening a JPEG file does absolutely NO additional harm to the image. Nor does importing it into a layout program. It’s the SAVING of a JPEG image in editing software that causes the damage. For example: you open an image to look at it, and then close it–no damage. You open an image and edit it, then save it, then close it–you’ve done damage. Open it again, do more edits, and save again–more damage still, and worst of all the damage is cumulative–it gets worse with each additional open-and-save session. (Interestingly, if you open an image and save several times during editing, the damage to the image does not accumulate with each save during the same editing session.) Hmmm.
So, if you intend to edit your image at any time, you’re better off keeping it in a non-lossy format such as TIFF, PNG, or BMP until you know for sure there will be no more edits. At that point, you can save the final image ONCE to the JPEG format, thereby doing minimal damage to the image.

That’s it. Not a comprehensive list of information by any means, but it hits some of the main points that I run into over and over. Hopefully it’ll be helpful to someone somewhere along the way.