Harry Beck – { feuilleton }

Weekend links 371

• My cover design for the Doug Murano-edited story collection, BEHOLD! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders, appeared here last December but a repost is in order since the book has been published this week by Crystal Lake. Back in December I didn’t have a list of the featured authors but I do now: Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell, Lisa Morton, Brian Kirk, Hal Bodner, Stephanie M. Wytovich, John Langan, Erinn L. Kemper, John FD Taff, Patrick Freivald, Lucy A. Snyder, Brian Hodge, Kristi DeMeester, Christopher Coake, Sarah Read and Richard Thomas. The foreword is by Josh Malerman, and the interior illustrations are by Luke Spooner.

• “How do you memorialize an artist who refused to remain identical to himself? How do you remember one of the great philosopher-artists of memory?” Ben Lerner on the elusive Chris Marker.

• Diabolical Fantasia: The Art of Der Orchideengarten, 1919. A welcome reprinting of art from the German magazine of weird fiction compiled by Thomas Negovan. (Previously)

• Coming in September: Conny Plank: The Potential of Noise, a documentary by Reto Caduff and Stephan Plank about the great record producer.

• The Roman Roads of Britain mapped by Sasha Trubetskoy in the style of Harry Beck’s London Tube Map.

• At Dennis Cooper’s: Spotlight on…Julia Kristeva Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1980).

• Ian Shank on the trove of erotic Roman art that scandalized Europe’s royals.

• At Haute Macabre: Biblio-alchemy: The Liquid Library of Annalù Boeretto.

• What makes a French film noir? Andrew Male has some suggestions.

• David Shariatmadari on how 1967 changed gay life in Britain.

• Mix of the week: Gated Canal Community Radio.

• A Gallery of Moods by Mlle Ghoul.

• Loe And Behold (1970) by Sir Lord Baltimore | Behold The Drover Summons (1983) by Popol Vuh | Beholding The Throne Of Might (2014) by The Soft Pink Truth

Weekend links 24

Delta-Wing (2009) by Chloe Early.

• “Feted British authors are limited, arrogant and self-satisfied, says leading academic”. Stating the bleeding obvious but it still needs to be said, apparently, especially when the announcement of the Booker list this year caused the usual confusion when Amis Jr. and McEwan weren’t included, as though the mere existence of their novels makes them prize-worthy. And as someone pointed out, the word “male” is missing from that headline.

• Hero of Comic-Book World Gets Real: Alan Moore again, in the NYT this time. Related: a review of Unearthing live.

• Announcing The Hanky Code by Brian Borland & Stephen S Mills, a 40-poem book to be published next year by Lethe Press. For an explanation of the Hanky Code there’s this, and there’s also an iPhone app.

• Folk—the ‘music of the people’—is now hip again, says (who else?) Rob Young who can also be heard on the archived podcast here. Related: the folk roots of Bagpuss. Related to the latter: The Mouse Mill.

An endpiece from The Firebird and other Russian Fairy Tales by Boris Zvorykin.

• ‘Yes’ to Catastrophe: Roger Dean, Prog and SF. A lengthy and thoughtful analysis of Roger Dean’s early work.

• Into the Media Web, the enormous Michael Moorcock book which I designed, is officially published this week.

• Cassette playa: in praise of tapes. I’ve complained about tapes in the past but people continue to find them useful. Some technologies die harder than others.

• Boy BANG Boy: “Quiet moments made suddenly very loud with the attitude and opinion of what it means to be a young male in an impossibly diverse world.” An exhibition opening at Eastgallery, London, on August 5th.

• Empty your heart of its mortal dream: Alfred Kubin’s extraordinary novel, The Other Side.

• Ghostly and Boym Partners devise a new way to deliver digital music.

• Besti-mix #27: a great selection by producer Adrian Sherwood.

• Agnostics are troublemakers. Amen to that.

• RIP Harry Beckett.

• Acousmata.

• Let Us Go In To The House Of The Lord by Pharoah Sanders (live, 1971): Part 1 | Part 2

Into the Media Web by Michael Moorcock

Here at last is the book I spent a good part of last year designing. Into the Media Web is a huge volume as befits a huge talent, 720 pages of Michael Moorcock’s non-fiction spanning fifty years of his career from his days writing for sf and fantasy fanzines, through to journalism, reviews and articles for major newspapers and magazines. Moorcock expert John Davey did an amazingly thorough job of compiling, editing and annotating it all, and it’s been a considerable pleasure to design such an important collection. Alan Moore provided the substantial introduction. Savoy Books haven’t announced a price yet but it’s going to be about £45 since it’s another limited edition and weighs a ton. Into the Media Web makes a fine companion to last year’s The Best of Michael Moorcock from Tachyon, also edited by John Davey (with Ann & Jeff VanderMeer) and whose interior I also designed. Details about Into the Media Web‘s design follow below.

The dust jacket is matt white with a spot UV layer which picks out the titles and lines in gloss.

Continue reading “Into the Media Web by Michael Moorcock”

London Underground posters

top left: Power by Edward McKnight Kauffer; top right: Speed Underground by Alan Rogers
bottom left: Which? by Maurice Beck; bottom right: St Paul’s Cathedral by Robert Sargent Austin

A small sample of the many great posters commissioned by London Transport during the last century, part of the collection at the London Transport Museum. These are all from the 1930s. The design and iconography of London’s Underground system has occupied much of my attention this year due to a substantial book project; more about that later. Meanwhile, Jonathan Glancey was asking earlier this week whether the expansion of the Underground system means the end of Harry Beck’s classic and much-imitated map design.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Battersea Power Station
• The Mentor
• The art of Cassandre, 1901–1968

British Design Classics

The Royal Mail issues this splendid set of stamps next month, celebrating their choice of “the greatest achievements of British design”. The set was designed by HGV with photography by Jason Tozer and regular readers will note two { feuilleton } cult items among the selection, the Penguin book jacket and Harry Beck’s London Underground map.

British Design Classics will be available from January 13th, 2009.

Continue reading “British Design Classics”