Nimo

Having discovered there’s a deluxe limited edition tenth anniversary version of ND Stevenson’s Nimona coming out in May, I watched the wonderful film yet again. I was always disappointed they never got around to publishing a making-of book – but upon further googlage, it turns out they kind of did! Put together by the film’s production designer Aidan Sugano, The Art of Nimona is a 360-page, entirely free PDF. It’s a thorough exploration of how they developed the film’s distinctive look, described by Sugano as a blend of Syd Mead, Eyvind Earle and Charley Harper. And Stevenson’s introduction highlights the chaos that is essential to creation:

Nimona was pink because I could only find a pink pen the day I started sketching her. She lived in a medieval future because I liked drawing knights but not horses, laser cannons but not spaceships. Her first transformation was going to be into a T. rex, but sharks were easier to draw; and the shark had boobs because it was 5 a.m. and my life was falling apart and that meant it was objectively the funniest joke in the world. Even her name just kind of … happened, a result of writing down the first syllables that came to mind and telling myself I'd come up with a real name later. 

Moral: hide your pens.

Timequake

This passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1997 novel Timequake, recently bloosked by John Self, feels exceedingly relevant to the current state of creative affairs:

“People capable of liking some paintings or prints or whatever can rarely do so without knowing something about the artist. Again, the situation is social rather than scientific. Any work of art is half of a conversation between two human beings, and it helps a lot to know who is talking at you. Does he or she have a reputation for seriousness, for religiosity, for suffering, for concupiscence, for rebellion, for sincerity, for jokes? There are virtually no respected paintings made by persons about whom we know zilch. We can even surmise quite a bit about the lives of whoever did the paintings in the caverns underneath Lascaux, France. I dare to suggest that no picture can attract serious attention without a particular sort of human being attached to it in the viewer’s mind. If you are unwilling to claim credit for your pictures, and to say why you hoped others might find them worth examining, there goes the ball game. Pictures are famous for their humanness, and not for their pictureness.”

Götz Valien

“I add the human touch” – Berlin’s last cinema poster artist Götz Valien recreates promotional adverts in giant hand-painted images that add a distinct pop art flourish.

Ware

Chris Ware on Richard Scarry and the art of children’s literature:

The thing is, “people” weren’t anywhere to be seen in Best Word Book Ever. Instead, the whole world was populated by animals: rabbits, bears, pigs, cats, foxes, dogs, raccoons, lions, mice, and more. Somehow, though, that made the book’s view of life feel more real and more welcoming. A dollhouse-like cutaway view of a rabbit family in their house getting ready for their day didn’t seem to just picture the things themselves—they were the things themselves, exuding a grounded warmth that said, “Yes, everywhere we live in houses and cook together and get dressed, just like you.”

One must never underestimate the power of anthropomorphism in normalising empathy and diversity for children. I grew up with countless Scarry titles (to this day Peasant Pig and the Terrible Dragon is one of my favourite books) and they definitely shaped my view of the world.

Google Volume 2

Twelve years ago, Felix Heyes and Ben West’s book Google volume 1 replaced thousands of words and their meanings with the first image that appeared when the word was searched for on Google Images; a testament to the visual culture of its time. Google volume 2 updates the experiment with 25,000 images on 1368 pages, and an introduction by Douglas Coupland. It’ll be interesting to compare the two books (and hopefully one day a third), to see if/how AI-generated sludge has infected culture. 

K-Type

Always pleasing when a job comes along and you realise you have absolutely the perfect research material on your bookshelf that has just been waiting for its moment in the sun. This week I’ve been absolutely battering Alistair Hall’s excellent London Street Signs for a thing; and subsequently drawing upon the sign-inspired type from Keith Bate’s foundry K-Type.

Cover Meeting

“I’m into the idea of making stuff that doesn’t look like a book cover … something that doesn’t look like it fits perfectly in” – Steve Leard’s Cover Meeting podcast is back with a second season of talks with book cover designers, kicking off with one of my favourites, Jack Smyth, talking about working with art directors as a freelancer, the growing scourge of design-by-committee and why we don’t need more quotes on covers; followed by Sarah Wasley, Production Director and Design Director (aka “the bossy person that sets deadlines”) of Granta Books, on the importance of developing a thick skin by working in-house before going freelance, and how she collects freelancers like Pokémon. 

Some hyperlinks

A grab-bag of hyperlinks:

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My first ever Wikipedia edit! Added photographer credit to Blur’s Blur, having discovered the shot in question s by Scott Goldsmith. I reached out to him for more details:

I was on an assignment at a Pittsburgh hospital … my camera was mounted on a tripod down a long hall when I noticed the gurney rolling by. I happened to be at a low shutter speed and I instinctively started to shoot. It was a nice surprise when the film was processed.

Substack disillusionment

Creative Boom’s Katy Cowan on resisting Substack and disillusionment with the social web in general:

I’ve seen what happens when you rely on these spaces. Twitter, once a joyful community, became a hotbed of extremism. Meta, with its ever-changing rules, squeezed engagement unless you paid up. Instagram? The endless algorithm updates feel like PTSD triggers. LinkedIn, the last beacon of hope, is heading the same way. I’ve had enough.

I want to own my platforms. My website, newsletter, podcast, magazine, and now a private community—spaces where I call the shots. No world-domination-mad freaks deciding my fate. No sudden algorithm changes tanking my reach. I’m the boss, no one else.

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A big thank you to The Casual Optimist (aka Dan Wagstaff) for including my cover for Antonia Hylton’s Madness in Notable Book Covers of 2024. I always look forward to this list – Dan has an amazing eye for what’s going on in the field – so it means a lot to find myself on there.

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Just returned from Thought Bubble in Harrogate, always one of the most joyful weekends of the year. It’s not one of those “Funkos as far as the eye can see” comic conventions, this is one with actual comics and actual creators. Hundreds of them. There’s just this incredible atmosphere of inclusion and inspiration, I love it. Emma Rios, Will Dennis and Jock did a great panel on the art of cover design; my boy had a whale of a time in the Phoenix workshop; but by far the highlight of the whole thing for me was getting to meet Simon Furman. Simon Furman. And he was lovely. If you ever get to meet and thank the person who made you read as a child, it’s quite overwhelming I can tell you.

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It’s been quite a week for Bluesky. More of a stampede than a migration, the general vibe there right now is optimistic and troll-intolerant. It’s great to see actual humans at the core of it, rather than fascism or advertising – it’s absurd that chronological, non-algorithmic conversations should feel like such a novelty!

That said, I’m trying to maintain a modicum of caution about it all. It remains to be seen how long this honeymoon period will last, and surely it’s only a matter of time before the awful people start to infect the place with their awful ways. One thing they absolutely must introduce is some form of verification process. Yes, you can change your handle to your domain name (as I have) but this is very far from perfect – not everyone has a domain to connect to, and it’s all too easy to set up a domain that looks like it could be somebody’s official site.

To get a bit more understanding of why and how the Bluesky thing is happening, and where it sits in the context of other X-alternatives, check out these posts by Ian Dunt and 404’s Jason Koebler.

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“Links are the whole goddamned point of the web!” – I finally signed up for kottke.org membership (and not just because I get sort of mentioned in this post). Good old-fashioned blogging-and-hyperlinking; sites like Jason’s are absolutely essential to maintaining some humanity on this big old web.

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Pestka, Magdalena Wywrot’s stunning new collection of black and white photography is … hang on, where’s the blurb … “a gravity-defying, through-the-looking-glass portrait of the life of a mother and her adolescent daughter, a series of time-lapse dispatches seemingly beamed from a hermetic space station suspended high above a planet (and Krakow, Poland) where time is literally standing still”

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Some wise words from Austin’s typewriter interview with Chase Jarvis:

Most photographs fail to connect with the viewer because they are too complicated/they have too much going on, Capturing a single subject in a simple story in a single frame is (or ought to be) the goal. But most people don't capture or compose their images with this in mind – and so the results, story, and intended outcome rarely lands. … Another surprising thing is that photographic competence has very little to do with technology or gear. A photo is a is a single frame: story that simply relies on 3 key elements: composition, connection, and light. If you focus (pun intended)on these 3 things you'll be surprised at how quickly your photography improves.