Portland based design and illustration duo Josh Kenyon and Colby Nichols, better known as Jolby, have published a new children’s book titled The King’s 6th Finger. A collaborative effort between Jolby and Rachel Roellke, the book revolves around King Mortimer and his obsessive compulsion around the number five. Everything in his kingdom revolves around this cardinal number, until the day he grows a 6th finger. His world is then turned upside down, and he is left decide the fate of not only his finger, but his kingdom.

The King’s 6th Finger is a 46-page 10″x10″ large soft cover book with tons of colorful and whimsical illustrations. Copies are available for purchase at Jolby’s etsy store. If you happen to be in or around the Portland area this weekend, be sure to stop by a special art show featuring a reading of the book, as well as original drawings and sketches from the book. Details may be found at the event’s facebook invite.

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Also worth viewing:

Sasha Barr Interview
Neither Fish Nor Fowl (Jim Datz) Interview

E

If you’re a book reviewer, chances are you’ve heard about the new FTC (Federal Trade Commission) regulations concerning bloggers who review products online.

What’s going on and what do their new guidelines mean for you, the book blogger/reviewer who writes reviews? Is the FTC keeping records of who’s doing what online? Can the reviewers be fined for accepting books for review if they don’t have a disclosure posted on their blogs stating how they got their books, and whether or not they bought them themselves or were provided by authors or publishers?

The truth is, the FTC has been struggling with how to deal with bloggers for a long time. The FTC doesn’t see book bloggers as journalists, so the guidelines that apply to, say, The New York Times, wouldn’t apply to an independent book blogger. The people at the FTC see blogs as a new type of communication so blogs must be treated in a different way.

What’s the difference between a reviewer who works for a newspaper or magazine and a book blogger?

Basically, their reasoning is that in the case of a newspaper reviewer, it’s the newspaper that gets the compensation, not the book reviewer, whereas in the case of the blogger, she gets to keep the book. So there’s a direct connection between the compensation and the review. Many people think this is silly. After all, there’s nothing stopping a newspaper reviewer from keeping a book. There’s no one at the newspaper making sure all review copies are stored in a secured shelf once reviewers have read the books.

How do you deal with this new regulation if you don’t want to get into trouble and want to come across as an ethical reviewer?

The FTC has made it pretty clear: A disclosure is required.

In order to meet the standard, all you have to do is put a disclosure on your blog, a brief, clear message prominently displayed on your sidebar or on the ‘About the Blogger’ or ‘Review Policy’ pages. Your disclosure could be something like this: “Review copies are provided by authors and publishers. I don’t receive monetary compensation for my reviews.” (If you receive monetary compensation or, let’s say, a gift such an Amazon gift certificate, you must state this clearly). The clearer and more straight forward the disclosure, the more you’ll come across as an honest, ethical reviewer. It’s all about integrity and good practice behavior.

If you go to my blog, www.mayrassecretbookcase.blogspot.com, and scroll down a bit, you’ll see my disclosure on the right sidebar. As you can see, it’s pretty short.

Here is an example of a longer disclosure from a mom blogger: http://www.theclothdiaperreport.com/2009/07/disclosure.html.

Though the degree of prominence isn’t spelled out (as far as I know), some bloggers are including this disclosure at the bottom of every review they post, but this isn’t really necessary, not as long as the disclosure is easy to find somewhere on your blog.

The FTC regulation is a good thing for the consumer. If you’re a reviewer with Amazon Affiliate purchase buttons all over your blog, I want to know if you’ve accepted monetary compensation in exchange for your reviews. Granted, most bloggers earn only pennies from their affiliate buttons, but I still want to know.

The FTC guidelines also put responsibility on the authors, publishers and other marketing people (such as publicists) who are trying to promote a book. For example, if you’re an author looking for bloggers to review your book (as in the case of virtual book tours), you should make sure those bloggers you send your book to have that disclosure. Or at least, this is what the guidelines suggest.

But to go back to one of my initial questions: Can reviewers be fined for accepting books for review if they don’t have a disclosure poste

“One of the best Books I’ve ever read,” says Seed Agent Toby

Review by Julian Broadhead

Having drinks with friends recently, conversation turned to childhood and the passions we’d developed at a young age (cooking, fishing, rhythm and blues), as well as those things that we wished we’d spent more time on (almost universally languages and learning musical instruments). For me however, whilst I could have spent more time learning Spanish and playing the guitar, I also regret not learning more about plants and growing things in general. Unfortunately, despite two green-fingered parents, I regarded any invitation to help in the garden as a thinly veiled attempt to extract some child labour.

Perhaps things would have been different if I’d been a member of the Secret Seed Society, a fantastic new social enterprise that aims to introduce 3-7 year olds (and perhaps also their parents) to food horticulture. Based around the adventures of the inhabitants of ‘Seed City’, such as Peter Parsnip and Chrissie Cress, they offer packs containing a storybook, seeds, growing instructions and a recipe for the resulting produce. Even better, you can then sign up on the website as a fully-fledged ‘Seed Agent’, to receive additional growing missions, tips and advice.

Although the first Secret Seed Society pack was only launched in July 2009, it has already proved popular with both parents and children, in addition to being awarded a prize by the SE100, a body that supports and promotes social enterprise. And it’s easy to see why. Not only is it great fun for parents and children, they also introduce the growing and cooking of food, as well as helping us all to appreciate where the things on our plate actually come from. So, if you have a child or even if you don’t, get yourself a pack, a place (a window box will do) and get planting! In the meantime, Julian Juniper Berry would love to know what you’re Seed City name would be.

I was excited to receive some books from the Secret Seed Society for review.

We have very much enjoy growing vegetables in our garden, and books that link in to gardening are always going to be off to a good start with us.

The books are designed to be used as an interactive aid to introducing children to vegetables, exposing them to the benefits of vegetables, and how they actually get to the edible form they usually find them in.

“Secret Seed Society takes the whole family on a journey from plant to plate.”

In fact, I am selling them short by calling them ‘books’. They are actually supplied as ‘packs’. Each of which comes with an illustrated storybook, seeds, growing instructions and props, a recipe for your eventual produce and an invitation to join the Seed Agent Club online.

There are several titles that all centre around a character based on a vegetable, such as Rudi Radish, Carla Carrot and Mingo Mung.

The creator of Seed City, Shena Cooper, actually explains it much better. She told me: “Every vegetable has a story, and the other vegetables pop up in the other stories. The main idea is to entice very young children into the garden and kitchen, growing and preparing tasty food as they come to love their vegetables.”

They are designed for supervised play with the three-to-seven age group. My five-year-old son found the stories very enjoyable, notably as he found lots of the names given to the characters, and places in the story amusing.

The illustrations are good fun too. Drawings are colourful and play a big part in telling the stories on their own.

Each book is a handy size, ideal for children, and also for popping in a handbag (not that I have one).

We grew some mung beans, which was fun. And as they mature over a very short period – three to five days – we could return to our sprouting jar regularly to check on their progress, and to give them a rinse.

You are even encouraged to send your sprouting pictures to the Secret Seed Society, so as you can share your successes with others. But we’re only sharing ours with you.

The books make for a very pleasant read, and it is a project that deserves some attention and success.

You can find your local stockist of Secret Seed Society on their website, alternatively you can order directly from them online.

They also have a Facebook group, and you can even follow Peter Parsnip on Twitter.

Photo: Kate Bingaman-Burt

Did you buy something today? Do you remember things you’ve purchased within the last week, let alone within the last year?

For the past four years, Portland based illustrator and educator Kate Bingaman-Burt has documented all of her purchases with daily drawings. The end result of this documentation: a new book published by Princeton Architectural Press, entitled Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today?

Started as a break from drawing credit card statements, Kate’s ink drawings are entertaining and intimate as they put a face on ordinary objects that we consume on daily basis and often don’t think twice about. From sunglasses and snacks to wedding bands and a dog, these objects tell a personal story we can all connect with as members of consumer culture.

If you don’t have a copy already, this book is definitely worth picking up and you can purchase a copy here. Be sure to visit Kate’s website to see more work and keep up with her on twitter.

The (Not So Secret) Seed Society

As a child, I was always obsessed with the mail: boxes, letters, magazines, catalogs: the whole lot. I secretly had a crush on the postman, and loved loved loved the look of the UPS man coming in his flat brown shorts. Nothing bad ever came in the mail when I was young! As an adult, times have changed and bills fall like rain from the postbox now and I long for those carefree-mail days….

It’s not surprising given my love for the postal system that I have an online store where everything goes by post! Having said that, I am clearly a supporter of all things mail-related from online stores to catalogs. I love the idea of ordering something at 1am in my pyjamas with a glass of wine next to the computer (which can also be lethal depending on what number of glass you’re on…) and then the package arriving a few days later like a surprise you (almost) forgot about! That is what I feel like when I look at this Secret Seed Society membership. It combines two of my favorite things: postal treats and a food-ucational experience for both children and parents. Double yay! The Secret Seed Society Seed Agent Subscription works like this: you receive periodically a set of 5 seed packets and accompanying stories (which explain the seeds, how to plant them, etc) that you can plant at different times of the year. The subscriptions are recommended for children from 3-7 years, and even though my daughter is only 2.5 years, I have seen her eyes light up from seeing the cilantro grow that we planted weeks ago, so I know this would be for her (or me too). The Secret Seed Society also has other individual packages available that seem like equal learning fun – like Chrissie Cress Story & Seed Pack and Mingo Mung Story & Seed Pack. Best of all, there’s also info for us parents who weren’t born with a green thumb……a win/win postal treat!

“Its vitally important for young children to discover the joys of growing their own and these lovely story & seed packets are the perfect way to get them going.”

Rosie Boycott is a woman whose drive and passion for sustainable living is making unbelievable things happen! So we’re over-the-moon-flattered that she likes what we’re up to at the Secret Seed Society.

Londoners may have heard that last year Rosie and the Mayor of London launched the Capital Growth initiative with the aim to create 2,012 growing spaces in London by 2012 (in time for the Olympics). London is 1/3 green space, and has large amounts of roof space too that can be used for growing – we just need to use it!

Each space must be community-based so it not only improves the environment, but also provides a focal point around which people can gather and unite. By inspiring young families to get digging with their kids, Secret Seed Society hopes to help the Capital Growth team hit their 2012 target!

Reading is an extremely important activity in any child’s life; it enables parents to spend quality time with their children and books are an excellent means of teaching young people new vocabulary. Of course, with such a wide selection of books for children on the market, it can be very difficult for parents to identify which will be best for their child’s development. There is one new range of activity books that are both fun and educational. They aim to teach children the importance of healthy eating by enabling them to grow their own vegetables.

The books in the Secret Seed Society range are set in Seed City and follow stories about the adventurous individuals that live there. The books aim to take children on a journey from plant to plate, with each book containing a packet of organic seeds, growing instructions and a tasty recipe. The Mighty Messenger and No Hens In The Pen are just two of the books currently available in the range.

Children between the ages of 3 and 7 can really get their hands dirty by learning how to grow their own vegetables, with or without the aid of their parents. They can then learn to follow recipes, by using the vegetables that they have grown to create a meal for the whole family.

The Secret Seed Society isn’t just about books; there is an entire world ready for children to explore on their website. By joining the online club, children can take part in seasonal missions, learn more about growing fruit and vegetables and enter competitions.

To learn more about the educational books for children available from these publishers, feel free to browse their website. Books can be purchased easily through their website and signing up to the online club is absolutely free. Start your journey today!

(Photo by Anna Wolf)

Let’s travel to the boogie down borough of Brooklyn, New York — home to the colossal rides and hot dogs at Coney Island, the beautiful Central Library, and one of my favorite illustrators Jim Datz.

For those who are in the know, Jim goes by the moniker Neither Fish Nor Fowl. His work is reminiscent of olden times, with images of sailors, explorers, keystone cops, and mustached men in bowler caps.

In this interview, he discusses his transition from architecture to illustration, dapper gents and hippies, his creative process, and reveals something that most folks don’t know about him.

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

What’s the story behind “Neither Fish Nor Fowl?”
I’ve always been drawn to the shapes of letters & words and the slipperiness of language. I also tend to lose most of my better ideas (words AND images) if I don’t record them immediately. They get muddled if I try to reconstitute them later. So most of the time, I walk around with pocketfuls of paper shards, scribbled post-its and dog-eared notebooks containing words & phrases that bubble up from my subconscious. When it came time to name my fledgling practice (founded after a long meandering path through the applied arts), I consulted that pile of ideas and Neither Fish Nor Fowl seemed appropriate for my many-hat-wearing business. I also like the shape it makes!

Where are you from originally and how did you end up in Brooklyn?
I grew up in South Jersey and spent most of my time on a skinny sandbar lined with tidy little suburban houses and a slew of very odd things like shipwrecks, spaceship-shaped water towers with smiley faces, buildings shaped like elephants and devil children that supposedly haunted the nearby pine forest. My family history includes water ski pyramids, diving horses, tightrope walkers, lifeguards, and kangaroo pugilists. And all of these things were arranged primly at the edge of the Atlantic, ready to be erased overnight by one ill-behaved tide.

After a while, I wound up in Philadelphia studying Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, spent too many years determining it was not the best career path for me, then took a very fortunate sideways leap into Graphic Design. I stayed in Philly for another decade, working at Urban Outfitters for most of it (where I eventually managed to shoehorn Mike Perry, Damien Correll and Daniel Keenan into a tiny little room where we churned out piles of really enjoyable things–and went to A LOT of meetings).

I began Neither Fish Nor Fowl in July of 2006, just after leaving UO. I needed to clear my brain and regroup after so much time spent in service of one brand, so I spent most of my savings on a lengthy sabbatical in London. I definitely wanted illustration to be a large part of my new business, and my goal was to use the self-subsidized free time to build up my book. I did a good portion of the independent work on my site while sitting in my little London flat hoping that it’d be good enough to attract clients when I returned to the States. After 6 months, I flipped a coin (literally), and it chose Brooklyn over Portland. This was a very good thing because many of my dearest friends have migrated here, and I’m lucky to have fallen back in with all of them.

What are some of your favorite things about Brooklyn?
Brooklyn has its ups and downs, but the ups are much more “up” than most places I’ve lived. Some days, everything comes together and it occurs to you how special it is here. There’s an energy that fuels the making of things. There’s also an unusual concentration of immensely talented and motivated people, which is a really good cure for laziness (lazy people tend to get left in the dust here). And the epic social, cultural and economic diversity tends to produce some fantastic hybrids. When given the option, I prefer to avoid monoculture. More options keep things more interesting. And because everyone consents to live with the little daily frustrations of the place, there’s an unspoken sense of “we’re all in this together and so I’ll help you out.” That’s another thing I love—everyone helping everyone.

Would you ever move back to London or relocate to the West Coast?
Oh absolutely. My heart belongs in so many places now that there’s little left to go around. But having the option to roam around while still making a living is a tremendous privilege. Fortunately (for my generation), it’s getting easier—not bureaucratically (especially to move somewhere for an extended period)—but it’s so much more in reach than it was for my parents’ generation. On one hand, it feels liberating, but on the other it’s frustrating to have something so close that you can’t write it off as impossible. Still, I’d like to keep moving. Someone make it easier for me and I’ll hit the road right away!

It’s imperative to leave your context and culture behind for a while. There’s a tremendous expansion that you experience—a suppression of the ego and a reawakened sensitivity to the tiny details that make up everyday life. These are the things you tend to erase from your conscious mind when you’ve slipped into a groove at home. Returning from a long trip with your mind and eyes primed for sponging up new things always results in a renewed understanding of where you live. I’ve learned more about America by leaving it than I ever learned by looking it in the face. It’s hard to see things accurately when you’re inside them. So whether I’m actually traveling, or devising some compensatory strategy at home to induce a similar sensation, I try to get out of my context as much as possible. It yields the best ideas.

When did you first become interested in illustration/design?
Image making has been a constant from as early as I can remember. But the gradual realization that it could be used in service of a career was a much more organic process, usually characterized by moments where i randomly crossed paths with someone awesome who was doing something MUCH more interesting than me, and thinking “oh, so I can do THAT for a job?” I’m painfully slow at figuring these things out. But I’ve learned a lot about a lot of things along the way. It all gets used eventually.

What was the first drawing you remember making and how old were you?
When I was really little I was taking asthma medication regularly, and one day managed to shazam my chin on the asphalt at recess. The subsequent stitches required a few shots of Novocain, and that reacted with the asthma stuff…and basically I turned blue and pretty much croaked. Somehow I managed to document the resulting hospital visit in the form of an illustrated book—essentially a comic book about trauma. Fun! So maybe boredom, easy access to crayons, and lots of free time was the beginning of everything for me.

Did you attend a traditional art school? If so, what was your experience like?
I went to school for Architecture (a fact that will probably seem obvious to anyone who’s a stickler for proper typography) and loved it enough to work my butt off for a Masters Degree. The curriculum was heavy on theory and light on technical stuff, and because I liked living in an idea bubble, it was fantastic. I gorged myself on art history, urbanism, philosophy and sociology, and tried every chance I could to avoid inconvenient earthly limitations like gravity and budget. Thankfully, a great deal of architectural education is portable and not product-specific. A similar process of investigation, problem solving and presentation can yield buildings, toasters, websites, and printed matter…and ultimately this saved my butt when I decided to leave the profession.

The deal-breaker was the amount of time it took to express ideas in brick and steel and glass, versus paper or pixels or some other more immediate means. The complexity of the architectural process, its lengthy documentation of nuts and bolts and endless negotiations with people (and their respective egos) began to wear on me, especially since I was more interested in the IDEA of the building (or urban project) than how it was going to get maneuvered into existence. And anyway it was far less combative to work with printers than with contractors. In the course of stumbling through some sloppy graphic design projects for very patient “clients” (i.e. friends), I realized that I found a medium I could love more. I’m fortunate that I had the option to switch.

How was the transition between architecture and design/illustration? Was it difficult?
The initial decision was totally nerve-wracking, mainly because I was deciding to leave a career behind with no guarantee that I’d find success in the new one. I had already committed a great deal of time, money and effort to Architecture. But luckily conditions in this country were such that a lateral move was not only possible, but in my case quite beneficial.

I love that now, after a decade of doing graphic design, I am finally coming back around to thinking about urbanism and built structures. The past several years have seen an incredible concentration of thought and output from architects and urban designers all over the world, and while I don’t think I’ll ever go back to making buildings, I’ll certainly enjoy thinking about them!

What was your first design job?
Everything I learned about graphic design happened through a few lucky job opportunities:

When I was finishing graduate school, a toy company posted an ad for a summer job on one of the job boards in my studio. The assignment was to sit in a roomful of knockoff Lego parts, concocting new ideas for play sets. I jumped on it. A year later, the same company opted to build an in-house art department to manage the design and marketing of there new hit product: Super Soaker water pistols. So I managed to learn the rudiments of graphic, product and packaging design on the job (heavy on the drop shadows - haha).

My second break came during an interview at a company that designs interiors, custom furniture and fixtures for progressive retail boutiques. They approached me to be their first official in-house architect, but I basically blew the meeting by saying I was considering leaving the profession and the job was probably not for me…at which point the owner said “Wait, let me call my wife at Urban Outfitters. I think they’re looking for a graphic designer over there.” So I pressed on: an optimistic ignoramus with a portfolio of abysmal work (that I would have NEVER hired me with), and for some reason the outgoing Art Director liked me and I squeezed my way in there. I essentially owe my design career to them, at least as far as having a well-padded portfolio and a ton of experience gained from working with many gifted folks.

What was your experience like at UO? How has it shaped you as a person and your work?
I matured as a designer there, so it was a thoroughly rewarding experience both creatively and professionally. It allowed me to slide safely away from architecture, provided a very rapid portfolio-inflating environment and gave me a substantial education in how fashion retail—and business in general—functions. When I switched over to working as Art Director of the Web and Catalog division, there were only 12 people on staff in the department. When I left 5 years later, there were 60 or so. Anyone who’s worked in a start-up environment has endured a similar rapid expansion of responsibility, initially from doing everything themselves, to managing a bunch of people while at the same time trying to insulate their own creative skills from atrophy. Working at UO taught me how to function in a much larger context than sole practitioner image-maker. And I learned how to finesse my way through the politics of a large organization. Now that I’m swinging back (deliberately) to a smaller, simpler operation, I’m using what I learned to help make my own business more efficient.

Who or what are some of your influences?
My sweet spot for the Applied Arts lies between 1954 and 1968, which seems to have been a period that—while full of experimentation—still managed to generate mass-produced cultural artifacts with impeccable aesthetics. In later decades, that sense of proportion, line, color, attention to detail and economy of materials has rarely been topped. My proclivity for this period has definitely bled into my drawing style. It’s a very conscious thing.

Method-wise, I tend to devour older things, stop looking at them for a while, then sit down and what comes out of my hand is hopefully influenced by (but not directly derivative of) my favorites, some of whom are listed here: Naiad and Walter Einsel, Jerry Smath, John Clappison, Mary Blair, Daphne Padden, Dorrit Dekk, Anne-Marie Odegaard, Ryohei Yanagihara, John Alcorn, Abner Graboff, Martin Provensen, David Weidman, Ed Emberley, the UPA Animators, Alexander Girard, Marilyn Neuhart, Grete Jalk, Hans Brattrud, Ib Kofod Larsen, Warren Platner, Eva Zeisel, and George Nelson

There’s a lifetime of design and illustration education to be had just by studying the products of those people’s hands and minds.

What contemporary illustrators do you admire?
Jeez, there are so many people out there making beautiful things every day. It’s pretty hard for me to come up with a list that’s not a hundred pages long.

Here are a few makers in my neighborhood that I admire and gain tremendous motivation from being around: Mike Perry, Damien Correll, Mario Hugo, Garrett Morin, Justin Fines, and Naomi Reis

And elsewhere, these folks regularly blow my mind, set the bar higher than I’ll ever reach, and all seem to share an affinity for mid-century culture, each absorbing and advancing it in their own way:
Shinzi Katoh, Rica Takada, Toru Fukuda, Jonas Bergstrand, Esther Aarts, Frank Chimero, Adrian Johnson, S.britt, Lab Partners, Invisible Creature

Outside the MCM circle, I’m in awe of the deceptively simple work of Raymond Biesinger the “hello, here’s the inside of my head” maximalism of Jim Stoten, and the lovely precision of Jessica Hische’s typography.

What is a typical day for you like?
I wish I could offer a romantic description of early rising, thoughtful tea-drinking, inspiration-gathering and effortless creation, but usually it goes like this:
- wake up later than intended
- run to the studio while eating a bagel
- answer emails & make some phone calls
- bid on new projects, forget to bill for old projects
- get distracted online for a while (ugh)
- panic, shove the unfiled piles aside
- make stuff until late in the evening

Pretty much the same as everyone, I guess. Someday I hope to find a more elegant process. One of the other challenges of living in NY is suppressing the constant feeling that you’re missing something important elsewhere in the city…because there IS something important happening pretty much every minute.

How would you describe your creative process?
It depends on the project, but every assignment usually involves preliminary research—during which I try to sponge up as much relevant material as I can—to get in the appropriate headspace (similar to acting, I assume). Then, a period of editing and distillation (to prepare my mind and studio for work). Somewhere along the way a few directions will begin bouncing around in my head, so I’ll jot them down on the aforementioned shards of paper.

If I get stuck, I can always jump start new ideas by digging into old sketches or doing some busywork. I’ve also found that many of my best ideas come when I’m working on some other project, when my brain isn’t supposed to be solving the first assignment (and it misbehaves by conjuring something amazing). Business meetings are also excellent opportunities for doodling in the margins of your notes, allowing your subconscious to solve everything. Many times I’ll look back and wonder how the heck I came up with half my stuff.

Once I get rolling, I focus and drill down really deeply and begin executing the piece. Usually this involves taking a teeny scribble from one of the paper piles, scaling it, tracing it, and iterating until I get a final clean sketch. Then I’ll redraw the entire thing in pieces on crappy paper towels and napkins, trying to squeeze a ton of variety and life into the line work. Once I have all of the parts gathered (some hand-drawn and some sampled), I scan everything and do the layout and coloring on the computer. I’m not super confident in my color sense, so usually it takes a lengthy trial-and-error process to arrive at something that looks good to me. I also make some happy accidents along the way, many of which tag along in the final piece.

Details of the pile.

So, at some point a few of the scribbles will start to separate from the mess. I’ll hook onto something, and I’ll get an idea about a larger image. In this case it was a combination of several: the bullet-riding guy, the menacing arms, the architectural asteroid and the twisty tree branch knot.

I’ll begin by sketching more resolved versions of the doodles, trying to work out another level of detail and overall composition at the same time. How to bring these elements together?

Then I’ll do some tracing, to tighten up the initial sketches and revise details on the fly.

OK, now a critical point for the piece. I will redraw the simple contour drawings using different pens on a variety of materials (newsprint, napkins, watercolor paper, paper towels—each chosen to result in a particular quality of bleedy line. I like processes that result in controlled accidents.

Next comes a boring phase of scanning all the fragments and prepping them in Photoshop. I make little tweaks to line density during this period. Since I’ve decided to make this particular drawing in InDesign, I save all the linked files in a way that will make it easy for me to place them later. This is not always how I work. Lately I’ve been doing a lot of Live tracing in Illustrator, for speed and flexibility. But for certain pieces I prefer to work in InD, so there’s no loss of quality in the lines themselves. Anyway, after the scanning is complete, I start placing everything to get the overall composition locked in. I also throw some preliminary color on them to figure out a palette.

Then I clickety-click my mouse for a while, creating the vector color fills that will sit behind the scanned line drawing elements. I do quite a bit of experimentation with color during this phase.

Then I switch on both layers to see how the piece is progressing. In this case, it’s nearly done, but I want to add more texture, especially in the background because it’s looking too flat to me.

Most of my textures are sampled from old clipart and advertising books. I especially love using bits of old etchings. So I go to the trusty bookshelf to grab something appropriate, scan it and drop it in.

And at some point everything clicks and I decide “OK it’s done”. If this were a print piece, I’d have probably limited my palette more, to keep it manageable as a screenprint, but for this one I wanted to work unencumbered by those constraints. Time for a tea and some cookies!

I notice a lot of reoccurring images in your work. What’s up with all of the mustached gentlemen in top hats, the sea, and hippies?
It’s tough to answer that because, to be honest I don’t think much in advance about it. I tend to indulge in whatever motifs are pushing against the roof of my subconscious, and that’s usually what comes out. It’ll change over time, though. I’m only interested in hippies in a tongue-in-cheek way these days. I suppose if I had to ascribe some “meaning” to it, all of those things embody a certain romantic notion of freedom and looking into the unknown. In the case of the mustachioed chaps, it’s really because they’re more fun to draw. Mustaches, monocles, etc.

Sometimes they become trendy and overused. Sometimes not. Sometimes I’m ahead of that. Sometimes not.

Well said. I was looking at your latest contribution to Owen Gildersleeve’s zine, and I thought the image of the hippie vs. dapper man had to do with your wanting to move to the West Coast.
Hehe yes! That was one instance where I got a bit autobiographical. It had to do with deciding where to relocate after London. turned out to be Brooklyn. But not dissing west coast hippies. They’re my favorite of that species.

Haha, I take it you wouldn’t want to move out here then?
No I’d love to move out there. I think with that little Owen thing I was trying to articulate that the hippy probably represents the west coast that i temporarily put on pause—a west coast that in my mind (at the time) would have involved a major life deceleration. Hopefully when I move out there someday, it’ll be to move forward and embrace newness, not to settle down too much.

I’ve noticed you’ve collaborated quite a bit with Mike Perry and a few other artists. What has that experience been like? Who would you like to collaborate with next and what would the project be?
It’s something I don’t get to do nearly enough. I love the “conversations” that occur while doing a team drawing, etc. I always learn a lot about my own work by surrendering a chunk of it to someone else’s hand. Mike and I work on things from time to time because we share a studio space, so it can be pretty spur-of-the-moment, although lately our collaborations tend to manifest more as critiques of each others’ work-in-progress. I rely on him a lot when I get stuck on a piece (and vice-versa, I assume he’d say).

Since leaving UO, I haven’t had time to work with a lot of my old friends, so hypothetically it’d be great to do hand-paint a driftwood shack with Justin Krietemeyer and Steven Harrington. I also think it’d be great to collaborate across disciplines — with an architect or scientist or…someone moving society forward.

How do you pair a concept with your distinct style?
Do I have a “style?” I suppose I do for the vintage-inflected illustrations. But my design work (especially at Urban) was all over the map style-wise. We always tried to embody a certain sensibility, but the style was malleable. Seems to me that style is assigned by viewers of the work more than it is by the maker.

But I know what you mean—I’ve done enough self-initiated projects in “my own style” that clients ask me to produce work in that mode. Which is nice because I don’t have to invent a new visual language for every assignment. The challenge is to avoid self-pigeonholing, because eventually the market will move on to new things. That’s why i still use my personal work as a proving ground for future projects. There’s more room to innovate when I do it for myself. More often than not, I am contacted because of one of those pieces.

Occasionally I’m approached by a potential client to make something that lies outside what I believe I can draw well. Given enough time, I could probably draw anything, but it wouldn’t be sustainable budget-wise. The more I work, the more I realize that initial conversations with clients are key to assessing the quality of the collaboration. Recently I talked someone out of working with me (even though it would have been a well-paying project!). Midway into the conversation, I realized they called because they were responding emotionally to my work, but the assignment they had in mind would have precluded that style of drawing. It’s hard to separate your emotional reaction to a piece from its viability as a strategic solution to a problem. (even for creative directors).

How do you know when a project is finished?
I work a lot—but I work really slowly—so most of the time it’s “finished” 30 seconds before the deadline. When I’m not working under someone else’s time line, there’s a point where a drawing “clicks” and FEELS complete. Because I obsess so much over little details and the specific quality of line, that click moment doesn’t usually happen until I’m well over my budgeted time for the piece. I struggle with this every day, because i always feel like I’m handing off unfinished, rushed work. My posters take like a month apiece and don’t earn much money if you add up the hours. I try not to add up the hours. ☺

What’s next for Sir Jim Datz? Do you have any neat projects coming up?
The next in a series of typographic city posters (can’t tell you which one yet) produced thanks to the brilliant merchant-curators at Three Potato Four, Eugene Mirman’s new CD for Sub Pop (under the amazing direction of Jeff Kleinsmith), a new small run tee shirt for Collective Edition in Australia, a series of little prints for one of my favorite London shops, and a hand-painted skate deck for Contributor—a lovely Canadian organization that connects low-income kids with new skateboards.

If you could recommend 3 books and albums, what would they be?
Argh. That’s even harder than picking a short list of illustrators!

Books — Vurt by Jeff Noon, Fishboy by Mark Richard, and Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Albums — Parklife by Blur, The Lemon of Pink by The Books, and Return to the Sea by Islands

What’s one thing most people don’t know about you?
I once had a pet raccoon that was rather fond of potato chips and silverware.

Here’s a big interweb hug and thanks to Jim for taking the time to answer A LOT of questions and making this interview happen! Without him, we wouldn’t have known that raccoons like silverware, nor would I have found out about the best lobster sandwich ever. To see more work, check out his website, Neither Fish Nor Fowl . Be sure to have a gander at his ephemera section for little found treasures such as his glittery money.

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Also worth checking: Adrian Johnson interview.

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The Whimsical Works of David Weidman - Published by Gingko Press.

David Weidman’s name may not be familiar, but his work certainly is. Weidman began his career as an animator in 1950s Los Angeles, painting backgrounds for Hannah Barbara and setting the standard for the look of cartoons of that era. However, like a true entrepreneur he soon began to work for himself, and went on to establish a style that is today instantly recognizable and iconic. A printmaker, ceramicist, font designer, painter, cartoonist, and silk screener, Weidman never stopped experimenting as an artist. Today at age 87 Weidman’s staggering body of work is just as modern and visually stunning as it was forty years ago. His graphic sensibility and expert use of saturated color palettes evoke the vintage modern look while remaining completely relevant to contemporary designers.

If you don’t have a copy of this book yet, it’s seriously worth picking up. You can purchase a copy here.

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Also worth checking: Abner Graboff.

Not signed up for the Grain Edit RSS Feed yet? Give it a try. Its free and yummy.

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The National live at the Tabernacle, Atlanta - concert poster 18″x24″

This week’s poster pick features another cutting edge design from Methane Studios. The overall design is simple and understated, but manages to remain visually engaging. The subtleties in this poster are exactly what make it interesting to look at. I really like everything about how the band name is presented and appreciate the sense of depth created by the paper knife. There is great use of space and type throughout , I especially like how the type is managed at the very bottom of this poster.

You can purchase the poster at postercabaret.com

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Mogwai Concert Poster by Mark McDevitt of Methane Studios.  Handmade four color silkscreen measures 19″ x 25″ .

Continuing with our poster pick series we’ve selected this eye-catching, Mogwai concert poster designed by Methane Studios. I really like the bold use of color and all the geometric patterns that take form. The coloring reminds me a bit of the Technicolor logo (a favorite) used in old film posters. I’m also diggin’ the form of the type and the contrasting background.

Methane hails from Atlanta , GA and was formed by artists Mark McDevitt and Robert Lee. The pair have been designing screen printed posters since 1998 for a variety of US and foreign bands such as Pearl Jam, Wilco, and Dave Matthews Band to name a few.

You can order this poster and others by Methane at postercabaret.com

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Back in Febuary we featured John Foster’s work for the So-Cal Fire Poster Project . Recently John contacted us regarding his latest project, a book on packaging design entitled FOR SALE: Over 200 Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design. The book features many of the designers we’ve featured on Grain Edit including: Invisible Creature, Wink, Jason Munn of The Small Stakes and Burlesque of North America. In the exchange below John shares some of his thoughts on the book for Grain Edit Readers.

Your last book, “New Masters of Poster Design,” really captured a worldwide return of an important application of design (you might have noticed we enjoy a poster or two around here) - what made you turn your focus to packaging design?

Well, poster design is still my one true love and always will be. However, the point of that book was to curate a collection that would turn the world on to this amazing movement going on under their noses. With “For Sale,” I saw something similar; this amazing wave of packaging design we are experiencing. Only this time the renaissance is so close to the consumer that they don’t even realize it. Selling products in a fragmented marketplace is more and more challenging and I wanted to show the designers who were up to the task.

Besides seeing so many of my favorite folks included, the first thing I noticed was the broad range of firms featured.

Yeah yeah yeah! That was vital to me. I wanted to profile huge global corporate work from the likes of Sterling and Wink (two totally different approaches) as well as cutting edge music packaging like Seripop to everything in-between.

Speaking of music packaging, the book features a good bit but doesn’t overwhelm, what was the deciding factor on including certain firms in this field?

 A few folks are just making breath-taking work but really the designer had to be offering more in the experience with the consumer. Folks like Sub Pop and Invisible Creature are pushing for ways to make the CD vital in an itunes world - and succeeding! Other folks like Sleep Op or BankerWessel or Jewboy just make painfully thoughtful designs that speak directly to the audience in ways only they can.

That also touches on the range notion. The balance between new guns and the old guard.

The caveat is to be making important work. Sharon Werner made Target’s cleaning goods section a joy to be in. Sagmeister still sells clients on producing his concepts to the fullest like no one else in the industry, Art Chantry will always be Art Chantry and it tickles me (and is an important distinction) that he still doesn’t use a computer in his work. The “kids” are just catching my eye with mind-blowing work.

It seems like a sense of humor caught your eye as well.

Guilty as charged. Some of the pieces from Modern Dog like I”m Not Gay, I jUst Like Rainbows and Methane’s barrage of gum packaging just crack me up. I also don’t care much for pretension in design for the most part. Pentagram’s Saks packaging is here because it is so playful and witty in the way it deconstructs the black and white brand.

You not only wrote the book but designed it as well. Sounds like doing double duty.

It certainly magnifies the work. My first book was designed by the publisher and I won’t ever do that again with a collection like this. Having had my own work featured in books or catalogs that left me scratching my head, I really strive to create an environment where the work itself gets to sing.

Any ultra secret behind the scenes items we can be let in on before you go?

Ha ha - no. If I let you in on my super double secret curating process than my publishing career will be over! I will tell you that I actually took a lot of photographs for this book myself so that I could retain a consistent airiness in the design and give the proper perspective in a comprehensive shot whenever possible. (Thats a mouthful!) Thank goodness for the natural lighting in the alley next to my office. Not that I wasn’t already busy enough playing writer and designer but I thought it important enough to go the extra mile to get it right. I hope I at least have that in common with the stellar designers shown within.

We’d like to thank John for taking the time to share with us. For those interested, You can purchase a copy of FOR SALE: Over 200 Innovative Solutions in Packaging Design here.

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©2008 Grain Edit

Of Great Masses Moving at Visionary Speeds - Small Book Series vol. 2

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. Joel over at the design studio Forest (of The Drama magazine fame) sent us this swell little book that’s part of the Forest Small Book Series. Books in the series are released quarterly and feature various thoughts, sketches, collections, and travels. Each issue is handmade using French paper and designed by Forest.

Vol. 2 (seen above) features photos by Joel and quotes from CS Lewis’s Out of the Silent Planet. I really like the quotes Joel selected for inclusion in the book. Here’s one:

“To EVERY MAN, in his acquaintance with a new art, there comes a moment when that which before was meaningless first lifts, as it were, one corner of the curtain that hides its mystery, and reveals, in a burst of delight which later and fuller understanding can hardly ever equal, one glimpse of the indefinite possibilities within.”

Each issue is only $5, so stop by the Forest website and pickup vol. 2 and the recently released vol.3. You can sign up for a yearly subscription as well.

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Charley Harper’s ABC’s - published by AMMO Books c2008

Greg over at daddytypes always posts top notch modern design goodies for kids and dads alike. Yesterday he posted this sweet ABC book which features Charley Harper prints. At $10 this is a must for any Charles Harper fan.

You can buy the book here.

Also worth checking:
We posted a bunch of images of the heavily sought after Giant Golden Book of Biology, written by Gerald Ames and illustrations by Charles Harper (Copies sell for $300 +!) Click the link below to see the image gallery.

Charley Harper illustrations - Giant Golden Book of Biology

also see:
Charley Harper Ford Times

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Annette Simon sent over two lovely books that I’ve been meaning to post. The first is Mocking Birdies which is the story of two fun loving birds that love to copy each other’s words and whistles. The birds are having a real hoot till a couple of “copycats” come along. Its’ a really funny ending so, you have to read the book to find out what happens. I love how she chose to illustrate the book. The bright colors and simple shapes really catch your eye.

Annette also sent a very touching book titled This Book is for all kids, but especially my sister Libby, which her 5 year old son Jack wrote. The book contains Jack’s thoughts and questions as he struggles to understand the death of his real life sister Libby. Libby died when she was three and half years old due to a rare disorder. Jack’s questions are honest, frank and often humorous. For parents and young ones that are dealing with a similar situation, I’m sure this book leads to some thoughtful discussions.

You can purchase either book at Amazon by clicking on the links above.

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Un Sedicesimo issue #2 - Italo Lupi

Last week we looked at the first part of a package I received from Italian publisher Edizioni Corraini, which included a copy of the Pino Tovaglia book. Today we’ll look at the second part of the package.

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Pino Tovaglia book - The rule that corrects emotion

In addition to this blog, I own a small design bookstore. As a bookseller, I find it hard to find publishers that consistently produce quality titles. Italian publisher Edizioni Corraini is one of a few publishers that I look forward to their new releases each year. If you own or have seen any Bruno Munari books, you are most likely familiar with their work. They have reproduced dozens of Munari’s books, many of which I own in my personal collection. In addition to the Munari collection, they have produced books on or by Martí Guixé, Enzo Mari, Aoi Huber-Kono (Max Huber’s wife),Taro Miura, Albe Steiner and many others. With this in mind, I was delighted when I received an email from them mentioning that they had been reading Grain Edit and that they would like to send a package my way.

I will cover the contents of the package in several posts. The first being the Pino Tavaglia book seen above.

(more…)

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Rebecca OUP-US

School is out for summer, July 4th is rapidly approaching, ice cream trucks are circling your neighborhood (at least they are in mine…), and you need a good book to read on vacation. Now is when the Good Fiction Guide, edited by Jane Rogers, comes in handy. The guide features subject essays and over 1,100 entries on writers ranging from Chinua Achebe to Emile Zola. Each subject entry features a list of fiction books you MUST read. To inspire you towards lofty summer reading goals I have excerpted a few below. (more…)

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