a girl named fred

Too fun! Typophile has book cover meme going… get a random topic from Wiki, a random photo from the LIFE archive, and get to it. Here’s my design.

Do you think Obama’s campaign would have been as successful if it had used this logo?

Or this one?

Instead of this one?

I don’t think so. But that’s because I see such a strong story in the logo they used. You can see more concepts, and hear from the design team lead, over at Logo Design Love.

Apparently this is the library parking garage in Kansas City. How cool is that?

Via Monoscope.

It’s a Baskerville coaster, made from sustainable bamboo. I love it! From Veer.

Never work alone. It’s essential to be in some sort of collaboration or partnership with someone. It’s really stifling and lonely to think that you can sit in your pajamas at home and work efficiently and fluidly. Design is inherently collaborative.

Read these and more words of wisdom from one of my favourite designers, Carin Goldberg (she did the Lopsided book cover in my previous post) over at Will Sherwood’s Success Secrets of the Graphic Design Superstars.

You can see more of Carin’s work there, too.

Joseph Sullivan of The Book Design Review has published his list of top 2008 book designs… and leaves the list open to the scrutiny of your vote. These are my top three. What are yours?

This one’s my favourite (design by Jennifer Carrow). It’s such a great example of expressive type. And if the point of a book cover is to grab your attention, well, that bright yellow ought to do it.  Just colour and type. Yum.

With this cover (design by Carin Goldberg), I think it’s the use of the female icon, and then the off-centre round shapes that appeals to me. I also like the way all the typopgraphic information is just stacked at the top. With periods. Which make sense on a number of levels.

Here’s my third pick.

It made me laugh. ‘Nuf said.

No. Seriously. It’s a website dedicated to everything you ever could possibly want or need to know about grid systems. 

That wallpaper is from AisleOne. Although I can’t understand why you’d want that wallpaper when you could have mine! [end of shamless plug]