I know three of the books are Japanese (Stockholm Apartments and Stockholm Ateliers, plus a monograph on Yurio Seki), but you just can't get these Jeu de Paumes or Pie books in Calgary... unless I started carrying them in UPPERCASE? hmmm... Should I stock Jeu de Paumes books? Let me know in the comments!
Dave Eggers and his McSweeney's publishing empire are a constant source of creative inspiration and community outreach. Their latest crop of books is as easy on the eyes as ever, and to my surprise, available in all its illustrative cover glory at the University of Calgary bookstore!
The image below is the cover of McSweeney's Issue 28 exploring the state of the fable.
Visit the website to discover what these folks are up to, and their shop to see more stunning cover art and a full range of titles.These books are real beauties.
UPPERCASE magazine is very proud to share a printer with such fine company.
I was browsing through a local Chapters bookshop yesterday and came across a selection of Penguin classics with patterned hardcovers so handsome, I was inspired to put Dostoyovesky's Crime and Punishment on my spring reading list.
The series was released in 2008 but exclusively available at Waterstones in the UK. Lucky for us Canucks, these penguins have finally made it across the pond.
Designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith in collaboration with a team of literary theorists, the covers elegantly represent key elements of the books' enduring themes and historical contexts. Candelabras, sheeves of wheat, wandering swans, creeping ivy -- the design icons and motifs convey hints about the stories and their unique settings. The intense geometric pattern on the Dostoyevsky cover matches the narrative's notorious psychological and moral complexity.
To read more of Bickford-Smith's insights on book cover design, visit the The Penguin Blog. For a full list of titles in this series and to find a location near you that carries them, visit Penguin.
This Sunday's nytimes featured an article championing the American Short Story and some of its great writers. The famous, and well used, typewriters above are master machines belonging to Flannery O'Connor and Donald Barthelme. Click here to read the full article.
If you are an O'Connor fan like me you will be keen to get your hands on a copy of Brad Gooch's new biography, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor, exploring the unsung chapters and quiet complexities of this Southern spitfire's creative and personal life. I had no idea she only lived to the age of 38.
Joyce Carol Oates wrote a whipsmart review of Gooch's book in the wider context of O'Connor's literary legacy in the New York Review of Books. O'Connor's lifelong passion for peacocks (as celebrated on the book covers above) is measured alongside her unsentimental prose and biting wit: "She would of been a good woman -- if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life." (From the title story in A Good Man Is Hard To Find, 1955.) To read an extended excerpt from this story, click here.
Artist Camilla Engman may live in Gothenburg, Sweden, but her appeal is international. A professional illustrator and exhibiting artist, her images are whimsical, poignant, humourous and insightful. With her keen eye for finding the extraordinary in the everyday, Camilla documents her inspirations and artwork on her popular blog. Nearly 2000 fans visit her site on a daily basis (with three quarters being from North America) to get a glimpse into Camilla’s creative life.
UPPERCASE is proud to have been the first gallery outside of Sweden to feature her work, in our 2005 exhibition “Best in Show”. We are excited to be collaborating on a book of Camilla’s art and life, the first volume in our “Suitcase Series”, to be released in the fall of 2009. I am looking forward to travelling to Sweden next month and meeting Camilla (and her cute dog, Morran) at long last.
The Suitcase Series presents in glorious detail the lives of select artists and designers. The books are image-based, full of artwork, sketchbook pages, beautiful photographs and artifacts from where the artists live and work. Interviews with the artist are included in both their native language and English. The books’ size will be small and intimate, like a diary/sketchbook and each book in the series would have a special treasure added: perhaps a small limited-edition art print, a vellum envelope filled with foreign paper scraps for collage, fabric swatches, etc. The book becomes a precious souvenir of a creative journey shared between the reader and the artist.
For our book and magazine subscribers, you will be receiving the Jen11 and Camilla books as part of your subscription. If you'd like to preorder Camilla's book by itself, click here. All pre-orders will include a unique keepsake of the project.
If you are looking for an inspired read on the topic of jazz, try Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful. Styled in the improvisational and expressionistic idioms of the music, Dyer's book is a sparkling and sensuous work of imaginative criticism. See the following link to City of Sound for a review with excerpts.
If you're on your lonesome this Valentine's Day, why not celebrate the joy of solitude with a fine book? I know that sounds lame, but I'm serious. I really really like reading. And I love love. And these are some genuinely fine books on the topic.
Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) catalogues the seedy side of love in a male newspaper columnist's down-and-out correspondence with the lovelorn of New York. A gritty tale with a (vintage) cover to match.
Carson McCuller's debut novel, The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter (1940) champions the loneliness of misfits and the difficulties faced by outsider love in the deep south. A real heartbreaker - sad but truthful.
We at UPPERCASE abide by Dave Eggers 'The New Rules' on book buying:
I came across this piece in McSweeney's lovely & amazing collection, One Hundred and Forty Five Stories in a Small Box. The box, pictured below, is beautifully illustrated with bears and clouds of golden smoke. The stories are tiny gems written by Dave Eggers, Sarah Manguso and Deb Olin Unferth.
Make UPPERCASE books 3 of your 10 - and you won't come to a nasty, brutish end.
Here are two brand-new books that I look forward to reading this weekend! I've just added them to the shop. (click on the covers to get directly to their pages.) Hey, fresh ACAD VC and illustration grads: these two books have got you covered.
Lotta Jansdotter is here! Well, her new book anyway.
With beautiful photographs by Lotta's childhood friend, Jenny Hallengren (you can see many of the book's photos on her site), Lotta Prints is an guide on how to print with "anything from potatoes to linoleum". Rubber stamping, iron-on transfer, leaves, stencils, and Lotta's forte: silkscreening, are all covered. Lotta's writing is conversational and to the point. The projects are easy in process, but it is her ability to create elegant organic lines and simple shapes that truly inspires. The book includes a number of tear-away stencils so that you can reproduce her patterns and there's a handy back pocket to keep the used stencils and even perhaps your rough drawings or printed experiments.
Click here to purchase the book in the UPPERCASE shop ($19.95 - we're selling it at the US cover price). We've also restocked her sticky labels, Seedlings journal, Simple Sewing book and other goodies. All this can be found in the Lotta Jansdotter category on the site.
p.s. We're having a spring sale on the website – just enter the code "spring" on checkout to save $10 on purchases over $30. Valid until the Tuesday after Easter.
by Frances Ewington
Oh, a peaceful Saturday afternoon with the art of Trio Magnus. The testosterone-filled Canadian artists Clayton Hanmer, Aaron Leighton, and Steve Wilson have finally published the inner workings of their warped sketchbooks.
As I flip among the bright pages of 'Equally Superior' I am forced to come face to face with the mind diarrhea of these feisty, brew-drinking Canuck boys and their collective works of sketched vomit. That introduction may sound like I don't approve of this book. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I love this book! Who wouldn't want to spend an hour exposing one's eyes to the loud chaos of fart-man scribbles, Jesus-freak pictures and ass-picking perverts. This book puts life into perspective in a totally warped way: How can you be sad when that poor alligator is trapped in a space suit, aimlessly floating in an abyss of tongue-slurping space ships? How can you be scared when Cappy Wilso isn't afraid to don a cape and brave fully exposing his Johnson to save the dehydrated grass? How can you be vain when every character in this book is uglier, more disgusting, and stupider than you in every possible way? At least you don't don the ancient symbol for retard on your head! This is the feel-good read of the year, especially because there isn't much to read but so much to read into. I hope those who find power in being offended find this book empowering. I hope those who can't draw are encouraged to try it. I hope these warped artists sell all their books. I hope little children everywhere never get their hands on this wonderful piece of filth.
And for all the rest I say: if a turd going for a jog in fubar pants doesn't make you smile then nothing will.
This book covers absolutely everything you need to know if you've ever toyed with the idea of turning a profit with your creative pursuits. Craft Inc. guides you step-by-step through the very basics of tapping into your creative interests, coming up with a name for yourself, pricing your wares, sourcing the materials you'll need, eventually leading you to the point where you could be booming with business and getting up for work every day to do something you genuinely enjoy.
Also, interviews with artists-made-business owners like Lotta Jansdotter, Jill Bliss and Jonathan Adler provide practical insight and inspiration.
I couldn't put this book down because like most creative individuals, the idea of making money from what I do for fun seems like a total dream, and after reading Craft Inc. I have a pretty good idea of how to get started.
Written by designer/illustrator/business owner Meg Mateo Ilasco.
Rex Ray is a San Francisco artist and designer who makes beautiful paper collages. The images above are from his website, except for the second from the top which is a shot of his newly-published book.
The process used in these works began by cutting up magazines for my own pleasure. (see paper collages). It's as simple as scissors, paper, and glue. As these works became more popular I began drawing, painting, and block printing various archival papers for source material.These papers are then cut up, collaged and assembled on plywood panels. The panels are then coated with a high gloss epoxy resin.
The new monograph on his work is really inspirational – it makes me want to start cutting and pasting all the eclecto scraps that I have. The book and a Rex Ray notebook are available in our store. You can enter to win an original artwork on the publisher's website and visit his work at Gallery 16 in San Francisco.
Couture Interiors by Marnie Fogg
Now here's a gorgeous book! Fashion and interior design have a natural relationship; many fashion designers also expand their aesthetics into interiors for the shops as well as products for home decor. "The home is now subject to the same directional trends as fashion, in part because so many designers are extending their practice to include interiors, as well as products and accessories. The fusion between fashion and interiors has never been more relevant. The proliferation of ideas, the speed of manufacture, and an increasingly visually literate consumer, have all resulted in interiors being subject to the same desire for innovation, change and fashionability as fashion. This investigation of the hectic dissemination of trends takes the reader on an eclectic, adventurous excursion into living with fashion." (from the publisher's website)
One of my favourites is above - a peek into Orla Kiely's studio (directly above). Inspirations mood boards, catwalk images paired with product designs, fabrics, textures, great photography - this is a must-have book for all style lovers. More photos here.
I've been eagerly awaiting this book for quite some time! Play Pen showcases new children's book illustration from diverse cultures. French, British, Korean, Japanese, Swedish, Norwegian, American and other cultures are represented. The author writes, "In making what must be of necessity a highly subjective selection, the aim of this book has been to represent a broad range of stylistic and conceptual trends and a range of cultural characteristics from around the world, across what is increasingly a global market."
One of the stand-out illustrators is Frenchman Marc Boutavant, who illustrated the cover and endpapers. His work has a marvelous sensitivity, texture and retro quality. It is amazing that his work is done entirely in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet. "I used to work late into the the night with a zero pencil and acrylic paints but one day, suddenly, I was free... And the great thing was, I was no longer looking at the end of my finger. My hand was drawing but my eyes were looking only at what I was drawing. It made me rasie my nose from the paper. Of course, beyond the technical, the biggest influence on work is life. My own children play an important part in feeding the work too... intangible things, little smiles or things like that."
The work in Play Pen is charming, exquisite and innovative. The book is divided into sections covering picture and board books, alphabets and wordplay, illustration for older children and art for non-fiction projects. The book itself is well-designed and presents each artist's work at large sizes so that it can be fully appreciated. Highly recommended!
Play Pen is available in the shop and online in the book section, illustration category.
Is it possible to be in love with a book?
Yes.
Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance is the object of my affections. First of all, the cover photograph is stunning. The book's modest dimensions make the act of reading a very intimate affair. The perfect binding and crisp, precise page trim lend this little block of book importance and heft. The page design is simple and elegant and lets the personality of the objects be fully appreciated, elevating the most mundane to that of a museum artifact. Taking Things Seriously presents a curious mix of items with personal significance to its owners: dirt piles, an ugly Santa, childhood toys, bizarre gifts, found objects... with the right circumstances, an ordinary object can have extraordinary significance. The contributors to this book are creative individuals (designers, writers, artists, architects) and all the entries are equally well-written, humourous, insightful and quirky.
This book is something to treasure.
(copies are available in UPPERCASE for $21.95... and soon will be available on our online store: launching very soon!)
PIE
Illustration is everywhere; on clothing, in product and book design, fashion design, advertisements and even corporate identity. Pictures have the power to express what words cannot; they are personalized, immediate and powerful visual statements. As reflections of the times, illustrative styles range so greatly today that the only consistency comes from a general acceptance that 'anything goes'. Illusive, edited by Robert Klanten and Henrik Hellige is a collection of illustrations from around the world, and touches on stylistic approaches ranging from hand-cut paper images to polished vectored computer graphics, and everything in between. The book also features interviews with emerging illustrators, showcasing their technique, inspiration and business practices. Illusive is a thorough overview of some of the most beautiful and inspired illustration happening today.
Ornamentation and decoration of designed objects and spaces is a current hot topic in publishing. Wallpaper by Lachlan Blackley is a new arrival at UPPERCASE. In contrast to the Florence Broadhurst book (see review below), this book is a compilation of very current work.
The revival of ornament has seen a resurgence of interest in wallpaper design. Wallpaper is back, but this time it is different. No longer used 360 degrees to cover cracks and imperfections in crumbling plasterwork, wallcoverings are now a means of expressing individuality. The new wallpaper is blurring the division between art and interior decoration. Graphic designers and illustrators are playing with scale and using walls as their canvases, while fashion and textile designers are transferring their fabric prints to paper.
The book offers some great inspiration for designers and illustrators: the artwork and ideas are impressive for their scale, ingenuity, and obsessive-compulsiveness.
Available at UPPERCASE $52.00
A fabulous reference, Twentieth-Century Pattern Design is organized by decade. It has recently been released as a softcover.
Focusing on surface pattern in the home, [the author] draws frequent parallels to the worlds of fashion, packaging, and graphics and explores the interrelationship between painting and pattern design. The result is a book that is as inspiring as it is informative. Twentieth-Century Pattern Design is an invaluable resource for modern design enthusiasts and historians, collectors, and interior and graphic designers.
This is one of those books that you'll refer to again and again.
Available at UPPERCASE $45.95
While we're on the subject, here's a must-see wallpaper company that makes gorgeous hand-printed papers: Nama Rococo. (Someday, I'd love to have an exhibition of pattern and paper and this company would be first on the list!)
Cover by Christy Batta
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UPPERCASE is a quarterly print magazine inspired by craft, design and illustration. A playful exploration of creativity, an affinity for vintage ephemera, and a love of handmade are some elements common in each issue. The magazine boasts high-quality paper and printing, a unique design aesthetic and incredible attention to detail.
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