MdN Designers File 2009, Rikako Nagashima and MdN Interactive

This is 250+ page collection of portfolio samples from a huge number of Japanese designers, illustrators and photographers. Beyond the relentless barrage of interesting stuff to be seen by simply flicking through, there are a couple of aspects of the book itself that I really like:

• The spine: A textured, white-coloured ink strip has been printed onto the cover, wrapping around the spine and creating contrast with the grey cover stock. I don’t think that this is anything to do with the binding, as it seems to me that it wouldn’t affect anything if it weren’t there. So; a bold use of refined printing techniques on the smallest percentage of the cover, for no reason other than visual effect. Got to love that.
• The type: The cover type is nice, a scrappy felt-tip rendering of what would normally appear as a refined typeface (something like Belizio perhaps). The letters are also embossed to add to the feel of hand-produced lettering. The type is by Rikako Nagashima, who is herself featured in the book.

MdN stands for Macintosh designers Network, and is the name of a Japanese graphic design magazine and website. Google does a pretty decent job of translating the website copy; it seems to cover a lot of interesting stuff. More info about the book here.

Jaw-dropping typographic linocut

An insane amount of work must have gone into this, Mark Webber’s 1.5m x 1.8m linocut map of Paris, hand-rendered in type. Sometimes people’s dedication to a project is just mindbending in its relentlessness!

Giant Paris linocut, at Creative Review