Skateboarding paradise
The Ramp House was designed to be a skatable living space, awesome.
Letters from Beckett
Letters from Beckett. Records of interpersonal communication will likely get lost in the swell of the digital world, it’s a shame.
The science of visual art
From Mirror Neurons to the Mona Lisa, notes from a symposium on visual art and the brain, exploring the neurobiological aspects of how we perceive and understand visual art. Slides and audio are available, but they’re half-hidden underneath each speaker’s photo.
Everything Picasso
The Online Picasso Project catalogues all of the artist’s work, as well as biographical notes, commentaries and references.
University on the tubes
Academic Earth provides a one-stop shop for lecture videos from America’s top universities. Combined with a pile of free textbooks, it’s never been easier to become a reclusive academic.
Where the Wild Things Are
Where the Wild Things Are trailer. I’m definitely looking forward to this one.
The Godfather Wars
The Godfather Wars, a recent Vanity Fair article, goes along way towards describing what was necessary to get the first Godfather movie off the ground. I can’t image what the film would’ve been like with some of the original studio demands.
Data visualization for the masses
Many Eyes is a project from IBM that seeks to “democratize” visualization and create a social kind of data analysis. Upload your own data set or use one of the theirs to create a variety of different visualizations.
Supporting free scientific papers
MIT backs free access to scientific papers. It’s a step in the right direction. Even if it’s a year or two after publication, it beats some of the exorbitant fees that you have to pay now.
Book design is invisible
Three video clips about the design process of a book. C.S. Richardson briefly explains the history of book design, interior layout and cover design. One of his most important points is that good book design is invisible.
The Wayfinding Handbook
A review of The Wayfinding Handbook. I’d like to see a copy before buying, but it looks like a good addition to the collection.
Bookkake
Bookkake, for those that love dirty books. Awesome name, and good idea for a small publishing venture.
Malabar
Dan Reynolds has released Malabar, an oldstyle serif typeface designed for extended reading. He also posted an article about it over at iLT. The font is available in six weights from Linotype.
The Science of Typography
The Periodic Table of Typefaces. I have to admit that I like the concept, but the science nerd in me has issues with the execution. The shape roughly resembles the original table, but it fails to make any discernible connection between the typefaces.
Open Baskerville
Open Baskerville is an attempt to create an open-source version of the classic typeface, based on derivatives by punchcutter Isaac Moore. Fork your own version at github and get to work.
F1 controls resemble video game
Formula One user interfaces. A quick peek at a few iterations of F1 steering wheels, if you can call still call them wheels.
Meta book covers
Books on book covers, an emerging meta-trend in cover design. Eventually, walking into a bookstore will become an Escher-esque event that blows your mind.
