My wife and I have always been fans of J Otto Seibold. We have many of the books he illustrated with Vivian Walsh and a great poster for Penguin Dreams. So we couldn't resist this Olive the Other Reindeer Popup advent calendar.
Map porn - Scandinavian maps from 1482-1601
So the visit to Louisiana Art Museum in Denmark was as inspiring as always. Not only a great exhibition catalog (Arktis) but also a fantastic range of accompanying books.
I could't resist Printed Maps of Scandinavia and the Arctic 1482-1601 by William B. Ginsberg . This is top quality map porn, packed with details and full maps, absolutely beautiful. It's from SEPTENTRIONALIUM Press and has the same high quality and attention to detail as the books from Princeton Architectural Press.
Great addition to the library.
Arktis exhibition at Louisiana Art Museum Denmark
Great catalogue and poster for the Arktis exhibition at Louisiana Art Museum Denmark. Superb use of the fluorescent orange with the dark blue, really reminded me of some of the work CYAN did in the '90s and their beautiful Form und Zweck magazine.
However only the first piece of print from the visit. Also got a great map book: Printed Maps of Scandinavia and the Arctic 1482-1601 by William B. Ginsberg, more here
A myriad of gifts hidden between the pages
Just got hold of Forgotten Bookmarks by Michael Popek and it's full of wonderful little insights into people's book lives. These wonderful juxtapositions between the book and bookmark are fascinating, whether it's the subject or context each creates it's own narrative. The book is based on his blog ( http://www.forgottenbookmarks.com/ ) and is a neatly put together collection. I like the blog and it make sense to deliver these 'finds' in that format but having them collected in the book is a lot more satisfying as it adds a sense of artefact and history.
There's also some loverly advertising ephemera dotted throughout the book.
Waste not want not
Christien Meindertsma: PIG 05049 by Christien Meindertsma
I've been after a copy of this book for a while. The idea of tracking all the 'uses' of an animal in the modern industrialised food chain was just too fascinating and macabre to miss out on. The book itself is small and stocky and the plastic pig identifier is a really nice touch. It takes the form of a categorised index of 'use' and is the same format through out - there are a lot of pages.
I can imagine the artist/author's original version with the actual plastic tag and perhaps the actual pig's skin for the cover - that would have been truly disturbing. I was a little disappointed that there were a few printing defects on a couple of the spreads but it's still a great object.