Herb Lester’s gorgeous graphic goods

Found here.

As it says on their beautiful website Herb Lester Associates “publish guides for tourists and locals: witty, pretty, curious and opinionated.” They collaborate with some pretty awesome designers and illustrators to do so, and I am blown away with their gorgeous graphic profile of their printed goods. They are all for sale in their shop.

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

Found here.

modernista pt. 2: female writers

Here's another bunch of excellently designed book covers from Swedish publisher Modernista. Apart from being the most stylish book publisher in Sweden, Modernista also publishes quite a lot of female writers, which must be applauded. I wish it didn't have to be applauded, I wish it would go without saying that in the so called "most gender equalised country in the world" all publishers would have as many female as male writers. But that's not the case, although I guess it could be a lot worse. Where I work we're far from perfect, but at least we're aware about it and always try to do better. Politics aside, just enjoy these nice book covers.



















I really love this last one, and I've been meaning to read the book too but still haven't gotten around to it. I like this font so much, and think it works brilliantly with these covers. With a different design this is the kind of font I could just as easily hate, but somehow they manage to make me feel the opposite. That's clever design in my eyes. And my eyes decide what goes up on this blog. In case anyone was wondering about that.

cover me

Just a quick note with one of the most beautiful book covers I've ever seen. Found it here, who in turn found it here. I love the colours, I love all the fonts, I love the design, I love the composition.

I love it. And I want to read the book.

Have a great weekend!

particularly pretty penguins pt. 4

I've been feeling a bit green lately, but haven't done much about it. When I say green I don't mean the fact that I'm a vegetarian, or that I try to be environmentally friendly as much as I can, or that I'm envious of someone, I mean the colour green. That I want to dress in green, and surround myself with green stuff, which I haven't really done that much. So I thought I'd take this opportunity and spread some love of Penguin Classics Covers yet again, this time around: the great ideas series in green. I saw some of these books on the book fair in Gothenburg, and man do they look great! Not only is the design great, but the printing is immaculate too. Not that I would expect anything less when it comes to Penguin (and no, I'm not sponsored by them, although I wouldn't say no if they asked).























How about that lot? I wish I could wear these covers as clothes. I bet they would look good on me.

Speaking of looks, I'm not quite done with the blog makeover, but will leave it like this for now anyway. Hope you can live with it. Otherwise think of a way I can compensate you for it. Maybe another giveaway soonish? Something graphic? Hm, I'll have to think about that for a bit.

particularly pretty penguins pt. 3

In honour of the beginning autumn, I'm gonna pretty up the blog with some more beautiful penguins in a very leafy yellow colour. These are all from the series Great Ideas, and it's just a parade of excellent graphic design, typography, and of course book titles. No one does it like Penguin. I adore them, have I mentioned that before? Well, sorry for going on about it, but just get used to it, because this love is here to last.



















Outside the leaves are still green, but the temperature occasionally dips down to about 10-12 degrees, definitely feels like autumn. Unlike Durban, that I hear was boilers today with proper summer heat, although it's just spring. The southern seasons don't really compare with the northern ones, and come winter here I'm most likely gonna go on about how much I miss the Durban sun.

Don't forget about the giveaway, there's still plenty of time to enter!

particularly pretty penguins pt. 1

Ever since I can remember starting to appreciate book covers Penguin has been one of my absolute favorites. Their amazing sense of style is simply immaculate, and I cannot get enough of it. It could in fact be that they're partly responsible for me wanting to work in publishing in the first place, cos I so wanted to be a part of creating something desirable from the outside in. Today I discovered this great batch of special edition classics they've published in association with (RED), where 50% of the profits will go towards helping eliminate AIDS in Africa. A very good thing indeed, and I'm tempted to ordering the lot to be honest, and hang them on the wall cos they are so incredibly beautiful! Seriously, breathtaking! Being a big fan of red and black and white is of course one of the reasons I like them so much, but add the calligraphy and unusual fonts and handwriting and letter illustration to that, and I'm one happy girl just looking at them, again and again and again. Of course the titles are not too bad either, but I've already got most of them in other editions, so if I was to get any of these I guess I'd donate the old ones for charity first. Or keep them in case I want to re-read them one day, and I've nailed the new ones to the wall as art!

































Last year I got three Penguin book cover design books, and I love just flickering through them for inspiration, there's so much to choose from. There's the odd not so great cover in there too, which is almost a relief, cos pure perfection is hard to handle in my book. No pun intended. I also think that the Penguin logo is probably the best logo in the world. In the future, if I should move somewhere else and not work for Leopard anymore, and I'm not moving to San Fransisco to work at McSweeney's, getting a job at Penguin would rate pretty high for sure. Oh, the dreams, the dreams. Where would we be without them? Well, if I had followed the advice of the students counsler in my high school, I'd be working in the steel factory in Oxelösund right now. Do I have to add I'm happy I don't?