Micro But Many

Micro but Many, Bitmap Books’ new tribute to Micro Machines looks absolutely gorgeous, a guaranteed blast of nostalgia for those of a certain age. Tempted to scour eBay for a PS1 and a copy of Micro Machines V3.

Nicolas Magand

Nicolas Magand on why browsing the web in 2021 is a terrible experience

In many ways, browsing the web is a lot like driving a car, getting from point A to point B, following a path through a series of signs. When you drive a car and you see ads on the side of the road, when you hear a commercial on the radio, you don’t feel distracted, you don’t feel in danger of crashing the car because of these ads. The driving experience is certainly not improved by these messages, but they don’t ruin driving, they don’t make it an unpleasant experience. Browsing the web is like that, but instead of cruising on a nice highway in your comfortable car, you’re behind the wheel of a kart on Rainbow Road, and it’s the final lap.

Common art

Some accidental compositions found within flickr commons results. Simply a case of search, scroll and screenshot. An incredibly addictive and satisfying form of procrastination – I’ve completely forgotten what I was looking for when I found these.

The Fens

This cover for Head of Zeus was an absolute joy to work on, as I got to play around with Fred Ingrams’ incredible paintings of the Fens. Spoilt for choice, I put together a lot of options! Although it wasn’t the final cover, I reckon this one – featuring Fodder Beans, Cock Bank, Whittlesey – is my personal favourite. Just look at that colour.

Witch

Unused cover for Rebecca Tamás’ poetry collection Witch, published by Penned in the Margins. In case you were wondering, that’s a very tight crop of Love's Shadow by Frederick Sandys, 1867.

Don’t Look Now

I asked on twitter for film poster requests, and somebody suggested Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now, so this happened. Took an awful lots of willpower to not include an obvious splash of red in there somewhere.

Michael Crichton

Michael Crichton on the importance of editors (in The Paris Review, 1994):

In my experience of writing, you generally start out with some overall idea that you can see fairly clearly, as if you were standing on a dock and looking at a ship on the ocean. At first you can see the entire ship, but then as you begin work you’re in the boiler room and you can’t see the ship anymore. All you can see are the pipes and the grease and the fittings of the boiler room and, you have to assume, the ship’s exterior. What you really want in an editor is someone who’s still on the dock, who can say, Hi, I’m looking at your ship, and it’s missing a bow, the front mast is crooked, and it looks to me as if your propellers are going to have to be fixed.

He was talking about writing, but this also captures the essence of a good designer/art director relationship. Working in isolation, it’s all too easy to lose sight of things. So many run-aground covers have been saved by an art director coming back to me with simple – and in retrospect, obvious – feedback. Sometimes it’s just a tweak of shade or size, but that extra perspective is invaluable.

Grace

Inspired by the incredible work of digital colourist Marina Amaral (get your hands on her book The Colour of Time if you haven’t already), I’ve been learning how to colourise black and white photographs, with some pleasing results that have found their way into other aspects of my work. For example, once I’d brought this Leigh Wiener portrait of Grace Kelly to chromatic life, I had to go one step further and turn it into a poster for 1956 film The Swan. Another one for the portfolio.

The Swan

Inspired by the incredible work of digital colourist Marina Amaral (get your hands on her book The Colour of Time if you haven’t already), I’ve been learning how to colourise black and white photographs, with some pleasing results that have found their way into other aspects of my work. For example, once I’d brought this Leigh Wiener portrait of Grace Kelly to chromatic life, I had to go one step further and turn it into a poster for 1956 film The Swan.

Carl Sagan

In the UK, it’s World Book Day (which almost explains why my son’s playground is full of kids dressed as Pokémon). A good excuse for this fantastic insight from Carl Sagan:

What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. One glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years.

A good reminder that books are a bizarre, brilliant, surreal and in no way inevitable invention.

Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron wrote this about blogging in 2006, back when everybody was at it:

One of the most delicious things about the profoundly parasitical world of blogs is that you don’t have to have anything much to say. Or you just have to have a little tiny thing to say. You just might want to say hello. I’m here. And by the way. On the other hand. Nevertheless. Did you see this? Whatever. A blog is sort of like an exhale. What you hope is that whatever you’re saying is true for about as long as you’re saying it. Even if it’s not much.

It’s startling how quickly we’ve taken for granted this incredible new freedom to publish something, anything, nothing. I’ve fallen in love with blogging again; my own little corner of internet that I can spill my thoughts into without fear of them being washed away by the social media tide. Most of it may be inconsequential whatever, but it’s my inconsequential whatever.

The Thing

I decided what the world desperately needed this week was a new poster for The Thing, so I assigned myself the brief and put together the above. Lots of nice feedback, but still no telegram from Mr Carpenter. I can wait. In the meantime, I’ll throw myself at other films, see where this path takes me. Cinema + rectangles = the dream.