Pictorial Webster’s
Pictorial Webster’s features over four hundred original woodcut and copper engravings from 19th century editions of the Merriam-Webster dictionary. The fine press edition features a letterpress interior, leather binding and a hand-tooled cover. A trade edition of the book is now available from Chronicle Books.
This video offers a behind-the-scenes peek at the making of the book. You get a good sense of what’s involved with production and the amount of effort that goes into it.
8-bit trip
An awesome stop-motion Lego homage to 8-bit video games. It took more than fifteen hundred hours of moving bricks around and photographing them.
Moyers and David Simon
Bill Moyers interviews David Simon, mostly centred around The Wire and the current state of society in America.
Lucas on film making
Michael Heilemann dug up an interview with George Lucas from 1971, shortly after Warner Brothers had finished butchering THX 1138. At this point, you can see that he’s pretty disillusioned with Hollywood, and how that pushed him towards the creation of Lucasfilm.
Influencing web design
Jason Santa Maria’s lecture about The Influence of Print Design on the web. This is kind of where I was headed with my master’s thesis about the changing online newspaper, but I felt the time crunch and didn’t really do it properly.
Obama and the Wild Things
Barrack Obama reads Where the Wild Things Are. There are so many awesome things about this video, you can’t help but smile.
Changing publishing for the better
Six Projects That Could Change Publishing for the Better is Michael Tamblyn’s presentation from the BookNet TechForum outlining projects, changes and initiatives that could help change the industry. It’s forward thinking and funny to boot, definitely worth watching if you’re at all interested in the book industry.
Slow motion showreel
Showreel for the SprintCam v3 featuring cheerleaders, firebreathers and jello at 1000fps.
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.
25th Estate
This is Where We Live — welcome to our city, to our world, of books. A charming video from the folks at 4th Estate Publishing.
Electrocuting an Elephant
Topsy the Elephant was electrocuted by Thomas Edison in 1903. He also happened to document the moment on film, which he obviously titled Electrocuting an Elephant.
