The latest installment of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) poster series is a set of three original book-themed posters by Owen Smith.The series features three literary icons from the Bay Area; Dashiell Hammett, Jack London and Amy Tan. In each poster a commuter is reading one of the author's books while related imagery swirls around them.The image above features characters from Hammett's The Maltese Falcon while out the train window you see the sign for John’s Grill, the iconic Union Square restaurant that appears in the book. Next is Jack London's 1903 novella The Call of the Wild. A...
When in need: Dial-a-Poem
The Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language exhibit at MoMA "brings together historical and contemporary works of art that treat language not merely as a system of communication governed by grammatical rules and assigned meanings, but as a material that can be manipulated with creative freedom"One of the cooler components of the exhibit is Dial-a-Poem; four rotary phones on display that when picked up will treat you to an original recording of a poet reading one of their works. And what if you can't make it to New York in the next few months? You can still partake by calling the local...
Paper Passion: Now You Too Can Smell Like a New Book
The smell of a freshly printed book is the best perfume in the world. - Karl LagerfeldI think that to be able to wear the smell of a book is something very chic. Books are players in the intellectual world, but also in the world of luxury. - Gerhard SteidlIt should come as no surprise that Lagerfeld first mentioned the idea of a book scent to German publisher Gerhard Steidl.Karl Lagerfeld should know about such things. His library is world renowned and contains hundreds of thousands of books. That's right, hundreds of thousands of books!Wallpaper* Magazine then commissioned master perfumer...
The ‘Little Library’ in the Big Picture
OK everyone, put on your long read hat and settle in. Shannon Mattern has a must read essay on the Design Observer blog Places titled Marginalia: Little Libraries in the Urban Margins.In it she looks at the recent rise of the mini, pop-up, guerrilla and ad-hoc library and tries "to figure out where they’re coming from, how they relate to existing institutions that perform similar roles, and what impact they’re having on their communities.""Nowadays we have libraries in phone booths and mailboxes, in public parks and train stations, in vacant storefronts and parking lots" says MatternMattern also covers the various mobile...
Paper Moments
Inspiration 1 by Anna DorosenkoTo celebrate their 20th anniversary, The Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI) launched Paper Moments, a competition that invited people to submit paper-themed photos. About the contest: Throughout times, paper has been all around us, working for us, delivering to us and making our lives easier. It is so much a part of our daily lives that we take it for granted and rarely stop to think about it. Yet it communicates symbols, engages our senses, brings cleanliness, comfort and safety and accompanies our every moment. Capture one of these moments and you might win one of...