Needles and Pens, opened in June of 2003 by founders Andrew Martin Scott and Breezy Culbertson, has accomplished a lot in the last ten years. As it curated 85 exhibits featuring artists all over the world, published half a dozen books, hosted musical performances, and sold some nifty stuff, the San Francisco based art space/shop established itself as a community hub for artists. To celebrate this success, Needles and Pens hosts an anniversary show at The Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. The opening reception for the show is May 10, 6-9:30pm, includes work from 66 unique artists, as well as musical performances by Tara Jane O'Neil, Strawberry Smog, and WR/DS.
The show will be running until June 8, so make sure to stop by and celebrate a decade of Needle and Pens.
The geometric variety Alex Fuller achieves with just two colors and two letters at a time is pretty amazing. His new publication, Book of Two Letter Words, which he says was inspired by his Scrabble champion mother and English major father, abstracts simple words like "It," "No," and "At" by weaving the letterforms together and pitting the primary blue and red colors against one another. The result is elemental and visually striking. If you had any doubt how committed Fuller is to the two-color scheme, note that even the staples are red.
The book is limited to 250 copies, some of which are available at 5x7
Is it really necessary to reissue the Kama Sutra at all? Used copies aren't exactly hard to find. But perhaps, the opportunity to update the looks of the classic sex manual was just too good to pass up for Penguin Classics. Malika Favre's cover illustration and typography is both erotic, slightly cheeky, and graphically bold. With art direction from Paul Buckley, the deluxe edition will surely find its way into a many bedside tables.
The group show at the Gestalten space in Berlin this month is a celebration of the new infusion of energy we're seeing in print, yes, print publication. It seems, perhaps in light of the Internet content explosion, that designers and publishers have gotten more inventive and creative with print. Gestalten thinks we've entered a new era in print publishing. The "Fully Booked" show celebrates the tactile experience of print and distinctiveness of design, materials, and technique. The show is broken up into roles that print can play: The Storyteller, The Teacher, The Collector, and so on. Featured designers among the 200 include Stefan Sagmeister, David Pearson, L2M3, Made Thought, and many more. Luckily for those that can't make it to Berlin, Gestalten has published Fully Booked: Ink on Paper, 272 pages of print design thrills.
Fully Booked is available at Gestalten.com
Sure NASA gets a lot of credit for, you know, landing on the moon, but their achievements in design and typography have been greatly understated. An auction on April 18 will showcase dozens of documents the space program produced, including public materials like booklets for the press and various brochures, but also a few formerly protected documents like a signed copy of the official "mission rules" of the Gemini IV. (via)
