Mark Porter

I recently visited Ljubjana to be a jury member for the 4th Slovenian Biennale of Visual Communication, and give a talk. It was a fascinating, if exhausting, few days. For a small country (2m inhabitants — London alone has 7.5m) theres a thriving design scene, and we saw some great work. Ljubjana also has some terrific restaurants (and we had the good fortune to be there during the truffle season), so it was a rewarding trip in many ways.

While I was there, I gave a few interviews, one of which you can find here. I can’t understand a word of it, but if anyone reads Slovenian, please let me know if I said anything stupid.

Tony Brook (of Spin) has kindly sent me a copy of “Studio Culture”, the first book from his and Adrian Shaughnessy’s new publishing venture Unit Editions. Read the rest of this entry »

Penguin Books have a great design tradition, with brilliant work from the likes of Jan Tschichold, Romek Marber, Derek Birdsall, Alan Aldridge, and in recent years the immensely talented David Pearson.

The latest example is a set of editions of classic reportage writing using images from the Magnum archives. I love the way that the front covers tell part of the story, but turning to the back adds another dimension. This is real book design, responding to the form of the object.

These are never going to fly off the shelves at Tesco, but its great to see a publisher treating the buyer/reader with such intelligence.

Via Eye Blog

… to regain the blogging habit; I have some excuses, none of them very good. But just to keep things moving, here’s a few random links I’ve enjoyed recently… Read the rest of this entry »

One of the reasons I’ve been so quiet recently is that I’ve just finished a 416 page book for the River Café. When you do a book like this, the publisher is officially your client, but it’s the author you have to satisfy. The River Café authors have very strong opinions, and I’ve probably compromised more with them than I have on any other project, beacuse it’s their book, I respect their opinions (up to a point) and I know that it will never come out if I don’t. But what makes it really exhausting is that they have a work style which Ive encountered a lot over the years — they will not stop changing things until the job ships. Read the rest of this entry »

After the recent frenzy of interest in Barney Bubbles, in which I was very willingly caught up, I was thrilled to see a post on Mike Dempsey’s blog devoted to another design hero who hasn’t had the mainstream attention he deserved — Raymond Hawkey. Read the rest of this entry »

Today I recieved the most exciting Amazon package I’ve had for years. Finally, there’s a book about the life and work of one of my heroes, the brilliant British designer Barney Bubbles. Read the rest of this entry »