Let’s talk about typography as standalone artwork. Below are a collection of favourite typographical book covers.
I have a lot of brush and felt-tip typefaces in my library. They are appealing, but don’t tend to look good unless I play with the tilt, sizing and get the typeface combo exactly right.
Let’s take a close look at how book cover designers alter the baselines of text to create a variety of interesting effects.
Stories that scare me the most often involve getting lost. The scariest Australian stories are, to me, the ones where a little boy goes out into the wilderness and dies in the heat, unable to find his house.
The Happy Lion picture books were written by Swiss author Louise Fatio (1904-1993) and illustrated by Swiss-born American artist Roger Duvoisin (1900-1980).
Perfectionism can be a superpower but can hinder us in getting things done. Framing perfectionism as fear is one way to harness it.
Aotearoa New Zealand elected an Evangelical Christian Prime Minister. Relying on stats a decade old, in 2013, there were only 15,000 evangelical Christians in a population of 4.4 million (~0.34%).
“Material” is a short story by Canadian author Alice Munro. Find it in Something I’ve Been Meaning To Tell You (1974
The first of Duvoisin’s Petunia series was published in 1951. Petunia’s Christmas came along the following year.
Ruben Östlund’s Triangle of Sadness is a disturbing mash-up of Lord of the Flies, reality TV series Below Deck and Alex Garland’s The Beach.
“I Stand Here Ironing” is a 1950s short story by American feminist and activist author Tillie Olsen (1912 – 2007). This is one of those stories which will likely hit differently if you’re a parent, especially a mother.
Written by Eve Sutton, My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes is the very first picture book illustrated by New Zealand’s Dame Lynley Dodd.
What is it about corn? Sure, Stephen King can make anything creepy, and so he does in “Children of the Corn”. But long before Stephen King filled his first diaper, humans have been very wary of… yes, corn.
Of all the deadly sins, slothfulness is the least problematic. In fact, most people would benefit from becoming more like a sloth, not less.
“Strawberry Spring” is a short “Jack the Ripper” story by American writer Stephen King. But rather than Jack the Ripper, King utilises Victorian folklore around a figure known as Springheel Jack.