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As my time with Hachette/Little, Brown comes to a end in 5 days, I am beyond sad that I have to leave such a wonderful company. Where else can you find a publisher whom has such a social impact despite the fact the the company is half the size of the other 3 BIG houses. On my commute today the man on my left was carrying a copy of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eatting Animals (whether he was reading it or just carrying the awesome green cover for a cool factor, I do not know) and seated next to me was a woman reading a copy of The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. (Which I loved) Of course the books are great but a big plus is the people. I have never enjoyed working with as many people as I did these last 7 months. The Yen people are awesome, the LB kids are cool and people just say hi to one another in the halls. Sure getting up in the morning at 6:30 was a total hassle and standing next to people on the train who might have forgotten to brush their teeth is not a great way to start a morning but it was a great day nonetheless.
Hachette, I will definitely miss you.
Oh what a wordy post. Going to brighten it up with pictures of some books from Hachette’s imprints. 
Yen Press
Little, Brown and Company
Little, Brown and Company For Young Readers
And more.
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As the New Year approaches, I always buy myself a little schedule book/planner to tell myself to be more organized the coming year. And every year it fails because I always lose my schedule book only to find it again 6 months later all grimy and sticky. This year I’ve found several designs that I’ve fallen in love with so much that I won’t lose them no matter what. These are all beautiful South Korean designs from various companies. They range from simple to beautifully elaborate.
PICO CHOCO PLANNER
Sample Pages Inside:
It is available for sale here
THE PLANNER FOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS by Secondary Diary
Simple, graphic, gorgeous. This planner was meant for graphic designers. The outside is simple and comes in 12 different colors so you can choose your favorite. The inside is easy to navigate and clean with pockets in the back to store your important little pieces of paper.
This beauty is available in all different colors in this etsy shop
ALICE IN WONDERLAND PLANNER in leather case
This is so beautiful. Every page has illustrations from the Alice in Wonderland story. It would be sad when the year ends and you would have to leave this behind and get a new one. This style also comes in Wizard of Oz and Le Petit Prince. These are all available on Ebay. The Alice one is here
And last but not least, this is a design I’m lusting after but I can’t find for sale here in the States
Barilla Circus Planner in Tin Case
So pretty!!!! I want this so badly. From the color of the pages to the circus illustrations, I am in Love.
But sadly, I can’t find a copy. Instead I settled for this little one because it features so many cute illustrations inside
It is available here
Will you get one?
Happy Holidays and a Happy Early New Year! I hope everyone had a good one. I’ve been stuffed from the Holiday food and now slowing down, I’ve become sick. Booooo! Not good. I have one week off from work and the first day into the vacation I’m sick. Why Mama Nature, Why?! So I started out only mildly woozy yesterday so I ran off with my bf to watch us some Avatar in 3D. Which was a great great movie btw. Other than that light mannish odor from the guy sitting next to me, it was fantastic movie. So as soon as the movie ended, I started having coughing fits again and felt very light headed. Not good. Especially since I was so moody and became a raging bitch to my bf who probably wants to disown me as a gf now… Anyways, after sleeping for 14 hours and some Sudafed PE I am now refreshed and feeling much better. Feeling so much better that I can actually blog here for once.
This here is a little bit of something I decided to make recently. Gift tags! I haven’t made gift tags before but I had 12 rolls of colorful ribbon sitting there crying to be cut up and made into something. So here they are. The ribbons are happy.
I redid my Strawberry girl; made her a nice little cape and some flower friends. I would die to have professionally printed postcards or note cards with these designs. But I’m tight on cash now that students loans are closing in on me so that’s a dream that will have to wait for later. You can find these gift tags for sale here
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designing books 9-5 = lack of new posts & words
hello there sir. ladies.
new designs. soon to grace delicate little notecards and little handmade sketchbooks.
my friends and I are forming a collaborative to help one another in this economy.
Be sure to show some love when it kicks off. It’s gonna take some time, but keep watch.
sometimes im just tired of drawing cute.
Drew this the day before halloween but quickly abandoned it because I literally couldn’t look at him anymore.
stupid muave dinosaurs.
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This is a old video aired last year for the Summer Olympics in Beijing. The music and art are done by the Gorillaz, the people behind the addicting songs Clint Eastwood and Feel Good, Inc. And the Gorillaz have done everything I dreamed of doing myself and I love them for it. Journey to the West/Monkey was a story I wanted to illustrate myself since my senior year in high school. And 5-6 years later, I haven’t done it yet. The short animation movie is paired with beautiful music and song especially during the 0:30 mark when Guan Yin 觀音 begins singing. This definitely is a big motivated. But first I should read the novel in entirety so I get a better feeling for the story.
A quick look at the books for sale, I have to say, I’m sorry, the covers are ugly. Just by looks at the cover, I can imagine the paper quality is of a stark white crisp paper that will make you want to put the book down. It is a blinding white and the type is probably size 11 serifed font that reminds you that you are reading a assignment novel and not one you read for pleasure.
There are quite more boring covers available online. But I’m afraid I might be put to sleep while I’m uploading them and I dont want to waste my laptops battery life as I slowly drift off. So, what inspires you?
Thanks to Durian Dave over at http://softfilm.blogspot.com/ for linking me to this
Here is another video done by Jamie Hewlett (whom does the vocals for Gorillaz) who does a live action rendition of Monkey. Hmm..The Gorillaz seem to have a thing for Journey to the West. Kudos to them for keeping the story alive.
Shared via AddThis
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I am not motivated to write.
I’m too tired.
I’ll think of something a little later.
Last Friday was suppose to be my last day of work. But luckily, due to a wonderful miracle I’m staying at my job for a extra month. It’s not a miracle really, its very much due to Ed Young. Over the summer I had the pleasure of meeting him twice to work on his new book and he is so down to earth, witty and funny. Getting involved in Ed’s book was purely by accident though…
Nearly 2 weeks ago I was just finishing up a project and going out to pick up the print out for the project when I see a man standing outside looking quite a bit lost. He had a portfolio in his hand and it was a strange sight because even if artist come in to the building, they rarely wander to my area of workspace. So as I start approaching, he asks me for directions to the editors office and I gladly give it to him. Only when he slightly turns to walk away that I see his visitor pass. And on it says ED YOUNG and my hearts starts to freak. After he left, I literally paced outside my room for a good 3 minutes not knowing what to do. So I somehow ended up next to the Senior Designer’s desk and I start blabbering about how I just met Ed Young. I must have been making a commotion because the senior art director comes over and tells me to come along to the meeting. And from there, I’ve been involved with the project ever since. I can’t wait to see the results of the book though I’m sure I won’t be there when it comes to completion. I personally can’t wait to see and get a bound copy of the book. The contents of it, I won’t say but its something that I can very much identify with.
(T_T <— I tried to make the crying face with the letters but obviously it would only work with a sans-serif font. )
Ed’s other works are a mix between painting and collage work. His most recent book Wabi Sabi is just so beautifully made and reached the NY Times best seller list. If you haven’t gotten a chance to look at it, It’s a great resource book for designers, artists, and lovers of the beautiful.
Click on the picture to buy your copy from Amazon.
Check out more of Ed Young’s work at www.edyoungart.com
And on a ending note, I’m so sad the summer is coming to a end. Summer has always been my favorite season. And every year I have a active imagination of how I will spend it. But it never ends up the way imagined. And now another year is going to end. How incredibly sad.
Filed under: graphic design | Tags: books, comics, manga, new york city, review, vampires, witches, yen press
I’ve never been a big fan of manga/anime. The only thing I’ve ever become obsessed with was simply just Sailor Moon. Which every little girl at some time or another loved during the 90’s. So that doesn’t count. Especially since I never read the manga.
But I’ve recently discovered the enchanting and wonderful stories in which manga holds. Last few weeks were a time of having my nose to these little books speeding through the storyline and being so sad when the story seems to end on a cliffhanger. Comics and manga are definitely a under appreciated medium in society.
I’m hoping to have a “Manga of the Week” post to motivate myself to blog more which I often neglect.
So this week’s Manga is ….
Svetlana Chmakova’s NIGHTSCHOOL. Published by Yen Press
The Design
For one, the cover is absolutely beautiful. What I love about this cover is the fact that you can see the brush strokes of the artist in the hair and in the cityscape behind the main character. The character design is absolutely wonderful as well. The purplish highlights in the characters hair and clothes compliment the logo of the book and the sky in the back. Sneaking in towards the center of the book are colored pages which show more of the beautiful art while the rest of the book is in the traditional format of black and white pages. It’s a nice little breaker for the book.
My only criticism of the book is the use of typography for the text for the back cover. They used Herculanum which has a certain look to it. Fitting to its name, it looks like a emulation of Roman or even Greek typography on architectual structures. But, it also does give off a slight mood of fantasy and wonder so it seems fitting for the inside thought bubbles and Headllines. For the description on the back cover though, they should’ve used something that is a text font. Herculanum itself is a display font as Headllines, not meant for text copy. Is it readable? Sure. Why you complaining then? Because for the aesthetics of the book which is beautiful in itself, it would’ve enhanced it greatly if the font choices were different. The other thing thats bothering me is that the type wasn’t fixed so that there are no hypenated words at the end of the paragraph. I think if a different font was used, the hypens would’ve deleted themselves.
The Story
“Where do demons get their diplomas?” The night school of course. “Schools may lock up for the night, but class is in session for an entirely different set of students. In the nightschool, vampires, werewolves, and weirns ( a particular breed of witches) learn the fundamentals of everything from calculus to spell casting. Alex is a young weirn whose education has always been handled through homeschooling, but circumstances seem to be drawing her closer to the nightschool. Will Alex manage to weather teh dark forces gathering?” via little preview text on back of book
This story I believe shouldn’t be categorized as simply a girl or boy manga. It appeals to both audiences because its full of funny moments and mystery about each character. Its full of fantasy and makes you just crave more of the story. There are witches, vampires and vampire hunters in the story so theres plenty going on. I won’t give too much away I strongly suggest picking up a copy. I couldn’t put this down so it says a bit about it. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have gone past the first 5 pages.
Please do not go and read it on illegal copies online. That not only hurts the publishers, it also hurts the artist who work so long through so many revisions to get their work into a finished book. Please support the works of the artist. To buy yourself a copy please visit Amazon
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I’ve been collecting little trinkets leading me into the world of the old China and it’s glory days. Especially those of the Shanghai calendar girls and the diva’s of those seductively beautiful songs. Everytime I come across a little treasure, I would always wish I could go back and time and live during a Golden Era where everything seemed to be a better quality. Unlike nowadays where you have girls who call themselves Mango whom sing about Apples and Oranges.
After searching the web a bit more extensively today I’ve come across a awesome blog who dedicates its time to finding vintage images and linking the great songs for people like me to enjoy. My heart jumped with glee when I saw all these gorgeous images from the 60’s and earlier pop up.
The site’s name is http://softfilm.blogspot.com/ and made by someone named DurianDave which is a awesome name within itself.
image via http://softfilm.blogspot.com/
(found via google search)
I especially love collecting these ad’s. They’re gorgeous.
I love these images! It beats all those cheesy superstar calendar’s they give away nowadays with some female singer standing before a fake landscape or car. And they’re not even all that vocally either…
And as a beautiful ending, listen to Chang Loo’s rendition of a old Hokkaido fishing song in mandarin
