Handmade 2012

Wallpaper magazine has employed the services of various designers and illustrators to create a series of handmade covers for their August issue. With the involvement of artists and designers such as Alan Kitching, Anthony Burrill, Rob Ryan and APFEL the result is obviously quite impressive to say the least.

The 30 covers will be displayed  at London's KK Outlet from 5 to 25 July.

Personally, I felt I had to include this short but very moving film of Alan Kitching making his cover, but you can also check other artists at work here. 

*all images from wallpaper.com, artists featured in order are Anthony Burril, Tom Hingston, Alan Kitching, APFEL, Supermundane. Film by Jake & Josh featuring Alan Kitching.

Full circle

Some days you start checking something important on the web, and then you find a link that looks interesting, maybe an image that intrigues you, and then before you know it you have visited more than 20 blogs and websites that you had never seen before.

Today was such a day and somewhere down the line I came across some extremely neat and interesting work by Swiss designer Rosario Florio. Clean layouts, plenty of white space and beautifully crafted typography, I'm glad I took a web detour.

If you have a spare couple of minutes do take the time to check the website, in the meantime here is one of the featured projects: Printed In, a magazine made from blog entries, blog articles given the editorial treatment they deserve (or aspire to deserve) and restored to a physical medium... Call me sentimental but I find this project quite touching. As much as the immediacy of the internet cannot be disputed, there is a cultural disposition to printed matter that I cannot -and in all honestly, do not want to- avoid, and that inclines me to appreciate and trust the content further.

And if you don't really care about my melancholic disposition, just enjoy the work...

found via Print & New Media blog after a few twists and turns...

*all images from Rosario Florio's website.

Printing with threads

So, you decide to research the possibilities of combining crafts and new technologies, printing and colour theory and you have excellent skills with a needle... add quite a bit of patience and dedication and ...ah yes! your name is Evelin Kasikov, now you have all the key ingredients for these beautiful and intricate books, craft at its best.

And as much as the finish work is a thing of beauty it's always interesting to see the process and sometimes if we are lucky to get a peek at previous work and experiments that lead to it. I find the work in her sketchbooks equally fascinating, maybe due to the unfinished and less controlled nature of sketch work.

all images by Evelin Kasikov, obtained from her website

(via It's nice that)

Woodtype Now!

An interesting and inspiring research project by Dafi Kühne for his visual communications Bachelor, where he combines digital composing and production methods with traditional letterpress techniques. A very thorough piece of research with beautiful results, Dafi has experimented with a variety materials from cardboard to plexiglas, adhesive foil and thread on plates.

*all images by Dafi Kühne from his research catalogue (presented in website form).

discover America...

...best by car, indeed, how else?

I've been meaning for a while to post about the above wedding invites by all round designer and 'renaissance woman' Melissa Bluhm (landscape architect, illustrator, occasional printer...). Sorry, no link to a website showing her work yet, hopefully this will change soon- I've already been talking to her about the joys of Indexhibit, see if she gets the hint. However, in the meantime I thought I would share her extremely informative invitations -the back of the map is full of details, from how to get there to what to wear. The vintage theme will also be continued in the reception and I know she's planning other bits and pieces to match the invitations, but I won't spoil them here just in case any guests are reading...

...on the twelve day of Christmas

Just a short note to wish you all a very happy holiday and of course an excellent New Year 2009. Inkthread has lots of new plans and good resolutions for the next year, some are old ideas that never took shape during 2008 and with a bit of luck and lots of hard work we are sure will come to live in 2009. As always we will keep you informed... thanks for reading.

And now a few things that I hope to find under the Inkthread tree, I have been very very good indeed!

No 1. The beautifully designed and bound selection of classics by Penguin. So you may have read them all by now but did they look this good on the outside? Well, now the cover matches the quality of the content, form follows content, ahem.



No 2. ABC 3D a pop-up book where each letter of the alphabet magically transforms with every page you open. Using a restricted palette of black, white and red. You can find it via Present & Correct.


No 3. Rainbow In Your Hand, flip book by Masashi Kawamura. Flip the pages and the rainbow appears...very sweet. Find it at Analogue Books.

No 4. The Applause Machine, designed by Martin Smith for Laikingland. Just press the button and the Applause Machine claps its hands for you in case you need cheering up, silly but funny.

*all images from the websites mentioned as links, (except top image by Inkthread).

There's something about cutting paper

(I've been having problems with my connection and finding quite hard to post, let's see if this one works!) The images above are stills from an amazing animation by Andersen M Studio, found via It's nice that. I've seen quite a few samples of recent work using animated paper cut silhouettes, one of my favourites is Checkland Kindleysides' website.

Some nice work

Recent work by Madethought for furniture dealer Viaduct. They also have done some very nice packaging for Stella McCartney and for London restaurant and tea house Yauatcha. They certainly have a very impressive list of clients and a beautifully simple website.

*images by Madethought.

Penguin does "handmade"

These are some of the covers from Penguin's new Great Loves series, designed by David Pearson. For this series they've decided to use more traditional printing methods such as lino cuts and screen printing to achieve a distinctive look. Shame they couldn't screen print the covers for real, obviously that would have made them very expensive paperbacks! A limited edition maybe? Here's the man himself explaining the process.

Flipping again and again

A really simple and smart old-style clock screen saver by 9031, beautiful, don't you love nice freebies!
(via It's nice that)