A transmission from the deep south.
Letterboxd, the social film diary and review site I’ve been working on with a few colleagues over the past year, is nearing its public beta launch. We’ve continued to add to and improve the site since launching at Brooklyn Beta last October — film pages have had an overhaul as you can see above, among many other improvements.
If you’d like to be part of the private beta, drop your email address at letterboxd.com over the weekend, and we’ll get an invitation out to you early next week.
Offscreen magazine, a Kickstarter project from Melbournites Kai Brach and Jess Murray, is a little over $5,000 short of a modest goal with 3 days left to run on its campaign. Here’s the idea in their words:
Offscreen is a new, quarterly print magazine with an in-depth look at the life and work of people that create websites and apps shaping our digital lifestyle. We want to tell the less obvious human stories of creativity, passion and hard work that hide behind every interface.
The pair plan to print and distribute the inaugural issue regardless of whether they’re successfully kickstarted, and the list of interviewees for it is impressive: Tim van Damme, Dan Cederholm, Andrew Wilkinson, Drew Wilson, Blake Whitman, Ryan Singer, Lisa Bettany, Sam Brown and more.
Visit their Kickstarter page to contribute $25 (or more) to receive the first issue, or subscribe for email/Twitter updates.
The Dutch Icon collective, headed by Hemmo de Jonge, has an impressive collection of royalty-free work for sale. The examples above are just two of the 99 sets they’ve drawn to date, all of which are sold exclusively through iStockPhoto (which sadly means there’s no way to buy the complete series as a single set). The consistency and proportions are perfect throughout — alongside Drew Wilson’s Pictos sets, these are among the best stock icons I’ve seen.
For more similar resources, Meagan Fisher posted a great round-up of alternatives a month or two back.
Lucky Peach, the new quarterly food magazine from Momofuku’s David Chang and McSweeney’s. Ridiculously excited about this!
(Source: youmightfindyourself)
New Zealand rendered in paint, from my brother Ben’s New Zealand series. Coming soon to a t-shirt near you.
Great coverage of type-related updates to both Esquire and Condé Nast Traveler by André Mora at Fonts In Use. Both publications have adopted Commercial Type’s geometric sans Graphik, pairing it with commissioned serif Granger (named for its editor) and the playful swashes of DSType’s Leitura (pictured), respectively.
Darren Booth’s sparse, Ruscha-inspired cover design for actor Steve Martin’s recent novel An Object of Beauty. Darren describes his process, and the creative freedom he was given by Hachette Book Group’s creative director Anne Twomey, on his blog.
James White’s sketched ideas for his 2001 poster, created for a Kubrick exhibition in Paris. From his notes:
I immersed myself in 2001: A Space Odyssey for a week, watching the film twice along with all the ‘making of’ footage and documentaries, researching concept art and posters online, and doing a bunch of sketching.
Portland illustrator and designer Frank Chimero is kickstarting a book about why people make things, entitled The Shape of Design. If you’ve read his blog or seen him speak you’ll know he thinks deeply on this and related topics. I predict he’ll breeze past his target in the next few days today: consider me signed up. Also: ecstatic that Frank is a last-minute addition to this year’s Webstock speaker lineup!
A new set of minimal Kafka covers by Peter Mendelsund, set in FF Mister K and Times New Roman. (via Stephen Coles)
Written and designed by Matthew Buchanan. Colophon. Please give credit. Email
