books

Posts tagged
with books

Design

The PNC Christmas Price Index

It’s been weeks if not months since I’ve seen a truly engaging Flash-based website that I’ve felt the desire to explore as the designers intended. So this crazy interactive site for the 27th PNC Christmas Index completely blew me away and goes to show that Flash definitely has its place for some online experiences. So just what is the PNC Christmas Index?

PNC is the third largest bank in the US and each year, for the last 27 years, they have compared the prices of the gifts in the song “12 days of Christmas” and compared them to the years before.

The brief was to make a pop-up book out of the price index. A straightforward brief with a lot of room to be creative. The solution we opted for was a full 3D render with a linear but very much interactive storyline. We wanted to give a very simple interaction but give full control and therefore possibility to see the book fold in and out.

The result is a funny mix of a childish and very lifelike pop-up book filled with highly valuable financial information.

Check out the full experience PNC Christmas Index site. The creative director behind the project was Pelle Martin, and you can see lots of sketches and behind the scenes work in his portfolio. Very nice work.

Design

Exhibi-Table for Books

Love this slotted book table design by Lu Chieh-Hua and Cheng Tzu-Hao. The Exhibi-Table is designed to help share and recommend newly-arrived books in libraries. Seems like it might be especially successful in schools and universities. Or my living room.

Art

Carved Phone Book Portraits

Portraits carved from phone books by artist Alex Queral. This is just about the only good use of a phone book I can think of.

Taking an ordinary phone book, Alex Queral carves a face into this object of so many faceless names. With the book, a very sharp X-ACTO® knife, a little pot of acrylic medium to set detail areas and a great deal of talent, Queral literally peels away the pages like the skin of an onion to reveal the portrait within. Once the carving is complete, he will often apply a black wash to enhance the features and then seal the entire book with acrylic to preserve the work. However, he never loses the line registration; and the book remains quite pliable.

(via coudal)

Design

When Bookshelves Attack

There’s been a virtual onslaught of innovative bookshelves this week, so I thought I’d do a quick recap of what I’ve seen. Colossal has not been immune to really great bookshelves.

Some clever new shelf concepts from Shay Carmon and Ben Klinger, of Israel-based Studio Ve. More info and images over at core77.

 

German designer Miriam Aust has devised a modular method of displaying old, unused books by creating boxed frames that scale to individual books. Extra space can be used for more storage. (via design boom)

 

The Trick and Cave bookshelves from Sakura Adachi. (via paul over at dudecraft who is a gentleman and a scholar)

 

Bookshelf/coffee table designed by Shay Alkalay. The slats serve as both bookmarks and storage, while the spines of the book form the top of the table. (via sight unseen)

 

And lastly the delightfully vertical Stair Case shelf by Danny Kuo. (via doorknob)

Any other hot bookshelves I’m missing?

Design

A Rainbow Flipbook by Masashi Kawamura

This 72-page flip book by Masashi Kawamura creates the illusion of a rainbow as you flip through the pages. Order from Stereohype and get a free 1″ surprise badge. (via picked by six)

Illustration

Dave Eggers’s Book of Illustrations: It Is Right to Draw Their Fur

Dave Eggers has just published his first collection of illustrations, It Is Right to Draw Their Fur.

Printed in time to coincide with a gallery show in San Francisco, this is Dave Eggers’s first collection of drawings. Most of these works are of unusual mammals, most often accompanied by slogans with ancient, heroic, or just plain odd overtones. This 14″ x 19″, full-color package is a combination of 26 large-sized prints and an accompanying booklet.

(via quips & cool hunting)

Art Photography

Rune Guneriussen Photographs Surreal Outdoor Installations

Rune Guneriussen shoots these amazing installations in locations around Norway. My mind has just been stabbed repeatedly with awesome.

Editor’s note: this makes our 300th post. I’ve never done 300 of anything before so this feels pretty good. Thanks everyone for reading!