Unsure if this one has made it to the U.S., but if not, it is fully worth Googling. Swiped description, hence the grammar:
*The Record Covers / Takeaki Emori
*2940yen, Jun 2005, ISBN: 4-86020-135-3 Hardcover
New design guide book for graphic designers, of lining up 238 record jackets selected by 17 graphic designers / creative directors. Editing and planning by Takeaki Emori. If you have brilliant ideas and design sense in addition to the strong D.I.Y. spirit, you don't have to get formal education on art or design to venture into the jacket design or typography at the low cost. This book is aimed for those new generation designers (or those who simply have interest in the graphic designs). If you love music, culture, fashion, design, the book will be a huge inspiration for you. The designers who selected the record jackets include the following: ABAKE (from UK. Art director for Air, Daft Punk, Kitsune) EYE (Yamataka EYE. Boredoms.) Hideki Inaba (NIKE ad artwork director) Laurent Fetis (from France: artwork design for Tahiti80, Beck / graphic design for the film "CQ".) Masami Akita (Merzbow) Moog Yamamoto (Buffalo Daughter) Naohiro Ukawa (Prof. of Kyoto University of Art and Design; designer, VJ and writer) SYRUP HELSINKI (from Finland. Ad artwork for TOYOTA and NOKIA.)

Chris Betting aka The Moutnain Label has a solo show tonight (thurs) at The Candy Store which opens in a few hours, so hurry up and cancel your plans and head over there. The opening runs from 6:30-8:30 (3153 16th street between gestalt and that giant bagel sandwich...)

Tomorrow (fri) night in San Francisco (its a busy one): Ryan Mcginley (!) @ Ratio 3 (1447 Stevenson Street, 6-8 pm) Michael Sieben & Nat Swope @ Fecal Face Dot Gallery (66 Gough @ Market, 6-9pm) and there is also a big zine release at the luggage store. (also 6-8 pm)

Saturday in San Francisco there is some kind of book arts fair at fort mason. Could be ok, could be a crafty snore fest... 9am-4pm. Anyone know of anything else going on this saturday?

and just in case you haven't yet, i highly reccommend checking out Scott Barry @ Reciever & Geoff Mcfetridge @ Mollusk while you still can.

The definitive guide to visual art in New York and baby sister to insane D.I.Y. mega-project Tokyo Art Beat has launched!

Tonight: A celebration of ten years of LOST, L.A.'s primero graffiti magazine, celebrating the anniversary and the release of the new LOST book. 

The book contains highlights of the past decade editor/designer EyeOne has spent documenting LA writing. Includes imagery by Atlas (if you haven't caught the documentary on his work, watch it now!), Pale, Cab, Haeler, and more. Screenprinted board covers, numbered limited edition of 2000.

Even if you are not a graffiti fan per se, the LOSt book is a musthave for folks interested in Angeleno culture. More about LOST here. 

LOST is a picture-perfect example of designer as author. 

Well, the first print run of Parallel Strokes is almost gone. To help move the last 200 copies, I printed up some fancy 2 color gradated canvas tote bags. Buy 2 books and get a tote free. Be nice and a poster'll get thrown in there, too.  Bags printed by Sweatshop Union, Osaka's raddest screenprinter. Well, Japan's raddest screenprinter, to be honest.

Check out the latest issue of The Artist's Guide. Looks rad!
"The Artist's Guide is a topic-driven art journal produced
by Matt Cassity and Sam Spratlin. "

My book, Parallel Strokes, is available now via the book website.

Click to read more ...

_{Image by Max Erdenberger}

We were recently asked to be in the book “Blogs: Mad About Design”. Look for it this fall. We aren't mad about deisgn. More soon.

I had the extreme pleasure the other night of visiting Robundo with Chris Palmieri and Eiko Nagase of AQ along with Christian Schwartz the night before last.

Robundo is a hybrid Japanese digital type foundry, type reseller, publisher, and manufacturer of really exquisite small tabletop letterpresses in the vein of old hobby presses. Riso's Print Gocco home screen printing kit is rad, but Robundo's Adana 21J is the next level tool for printing type properly at home.

Katashio Jiro, the owner of the company, is a really amazing fellow who is a treasure trove of Japanese and Western typographic knowledge. He brought out Japan's single oldest type specimen for us to check out (shown below) - a national treasure which he pulled out just for for us!

 

 

Thanks very much to Katashio-san for inviting us to come visit Robundo and for hosting Christian's great talk on he and Paul Barnes' design of the Guardian family of typefaces. The lecture was great, and meeting so many distinguished Japanese typographers was a really huge treat!!

Through 20 interviews with 29 key figures in the Tokyo art world and 6 essays by art specialists, Art Space Tokyo fleshes out a thorough exploration of the Tokyo art world and the issues that revolve around these spaces.

The guide is lavishly ornamented with over 50 beautiful pen and ink illustrations by Nobumasa Takahashi, bringing readers intimately close to the voices and spaces within.

Topics include:

- Japan's position within the rise of the Asian art scene
- Takashi Murakami and the relationship between contemporary art and manga/anime
changes in the Ginza area's position in the Tokyo art world
- an account of connecting with the Tokyo art world as a foreign curator
- converting subway luggage lockers into galleries
- 100 artists renovating a 160 year old warehouse
- contemporary Japanese architecture and urban regeneration in Tokyo
- the current state of Japanese art publishing and art criticism
- international art fairs in Tokyo
- the collecting of artwork and the history of Japanese auction houses
- art and performance in Tokyo's public spaces
- graffiti in Tokyo

This month over at Néojaponisme: a micro/macro look at Harajuku's place in the fashion landscape globally and locally; two analyses of what it really means to be an otaku; and Tokyo's first contemporary art fair. All this and our editor-in-chief is also having a kid!

J&L BOOKS - is a non-profit Atlanta / New York based publisher of artists' books. Since 2000, we have been committed to producing well-designed books of previously unpublished or rarely seen work by contemporary artists. J&L has established a reputation for quietly delivering books that are works of art in themselves. By printing small runs of 1000 to 2000, we are often able to take chances with artists who are relatively unknown. J&L produces 2-5 new books each year with the support and collaboration of individuals and institutions. (description taken from here)

According to this article, Where the Wild Things Are is in danger of being scrapped or considerably changed as punishment for not being family-friendly enough.

“Hollywood studio Warner Brothers is considering big changes to the movie after audiences at test screenings complained that the film frightened children and confused adults.” 

The film is directed by Spike Jonze with writing help from Dave Eggers. Not exactly a bunch of amateurs. If you have kids, don’t fret. I'm sure Norbit 2 will make it to theaters without a hitch. Here’s a test-clip from the production. It’s not frightening or confusing, it actually looks great and the dialogue is kinda funny.

Thanks to Nate Granzow for the tip.
 

It's been a vaguely exciting month over at Néojaponisme. We've debuted the first English review of Kawakami Mieko's 138th Akutagawa Prize-winning text Chichi to Ran (『乳と卵』, “Breasts and Eggs”), a questionable graphic novella I did years ago in Japanese, a retro review of an even more questionable Japanese submarine action thriller, talked about the northern islands ceded to Russia by Japan following World War II, dropped bootleg Cornelius radio broadcasts galore, some crappy type design, and an enquiry into Japan's attempt to reform its visual language.

There is much, much in store in the next year: limited edition clothing with a certain clothing giant and more...

If you are in LA and are vaguely interested in things Nihonesque, make sure to check out Néojaponisme Editor-in-chief W.  David Marx speaking at J-Wave at UCLA TOMORROW. A more crucial, engaging, and enlightening presentation on global fashion is going to be difficult to find.

Above: the non-LP b-side image that didn't accompany the Murakami review.

Didn't see you write about it on VLU, but maybe you know? NIEVES zine library opening tonight @ ooga booga in ctown. should be pretty awesome, met the dude whose sponsoring it today at family, he's the chairman of printed matter in ny, nice guy. you know someone is well off when they spend $150 on zines and talk about owning "several" houses. there's one thing he can't buy though... a dinosaur. see you tonight? peace nate

World premiere on VLU:

My new book, Parallel Strokes, is available now via the book website. It isn't officially being released for a  week, but I figured VLU readers should have the first pick.  

About Parallel Strokes:

Parallel Strokes is a collection of interviews with twenty-plus contemporary typeface designers, graffiti writers, and lettering artists around the world. The book is introduced with a comprehensive essay charting the history of graffiti, its relation to type design, and how the two practices relate in the wider context of lettering.

Interviews within include conversations with pan-European type design collecitve Underware, Japanese type designer Akira Kobayashi, American graffiti writer and fine artist Barry McGee/Twist, German graffiti writers Daim and Seak, American lettering artist, graphic designer and design eductor Ed Fella, among others. Parallel Strokes is an enquiry into the history, context, and development of lettering today, both culturally approved and illicit.

Full list of interviewees:

Akira Kobayashi
Underware
Ed Fella
Delta
Jerry Inscoe/Joker
Jens Gehlhaar
Daim
Seak
Jonas Williamsson
Handselecta
Tauba Auerbach
Lady Pink
She One
Eklips AWR/MSK
Eskae
Renos
Mike Giant
Chaz Bojorquez
Barry McGee/Twist

 

The result of a six years of research in the combined arts of lettering, graffiti, and typeface design, Parallel Strokes is a collection of interviews some of the best letterform creators in the world today.

Chaz Bojorquez talks about the origins of barrio graffiti in Los Angeles and the evolution of the craft. Fellow Angeleno, vernacular graphic designer Ed Fella, speaks about his history in lettering and how he earned the title “The King of Zing” in Detroit design and illustration circles. Famed Japanese type designer Akira Kobayashi discusses Roman and Japanese letterforms while showcasing a lifetime of type design work. European graffiti writers Daim, Seak, and Delta share their thoughts on dimensional graffiti lettering while American graffiti writer Mike Giant talks about vernacular lettering, typeface design, and the evolution of graffiti handstyles.

 
Parallel Strokes is richly illustrated throughout, featuring copious previously unpublished work by the interviewed artists, as well as supplementary illustrations and photographs detailing contemporary and historical trends in graffiti and type design.

The first 100 orders come with a two color 17" × 20" Parallel Strokes poster printed using recycled paper and soy inks at Portland, Oregon's Pinball Publishing.

 
Parallel Strokes is 244 pages thick and available for $25 with free shipping worldwide. 

A group art show celebrating one year of The Family Bookstore. Opening Feb 28, 8pm - March 31The show includes a range of mediums: from oil paintings by Dave Eggers, music videos by Mike Mills for Barr, etchings by Ashley Macomber, photography by Will Oldham, water-colours by Kyle Field, drawings by Geoff Mcfetridge, sign art by Aaron Rose, and embroideries by Vanessa Davis. Original works by: Geoff Mcfetridge, Aaron Rose, Will Oldham, Joanne Oldham, Dave Eggers, Paper Rad, Ian Svenonius, Mike Mills, Cheryl Dunn, Shary Boyle, Phil Elverum, Ashley Macomber, Sammy Harkham, Andrew Jeffrey Wright, Simon Evans / Sarah Lannan, Matt Brinkman, Lori D, Ron Rege Jr, Kyle Field, Will Sweeney, Trinie Dalton, Sumi Ink Club, Cayce Cole, Mudboy, CF, Vanessa Davis. (description taken from here) - Come out support Family tonight, one of the most amazing bookstores on the planet.

Evan Hecox has a new book out, it looks amazing!

Get a copy now at YouWorkForThem

Chicago-based Illustrator/Designer Frank Chimero just released Vol. 1 of The Small Print, a little book of illustrations he made last year. Dude's got some skills.

Great interview with Sumie Kawakami, author of the great book Goodbye Madame Butterfly, over at PingMag. GMB is published by the amazing Chin Music Press.