Books: Coyote v. Acme by Pentagram

In his never-ending quest to capture the Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote has been a faithful customer of the Acme Company, whose products-Spherical Bombs, Rocket Skates, Spring-Powered Shoes-invariably fail him at the worst possible time. Pentagram’s Daniel Weil has reimagined designs for five of these gadgets, rendered as a series of highly detailed technical diagrams. The drawings were inspired by Ian Frazier’s classic humor essay Coyote v. Acme and accompany a republishing of the article for Pentagram’s annual holiday card.

Originally published in The New Yorker, Coyote v. Acme presents the opening statements of an imaginary lawsuit by Coyote against Acme for his personal injuries caused by the faulty devices, citing 85 occasions in which they “did cause him bodily injury due to defects in manufacture or improper cautionary labeling.” Our holiday greeting reprints Frazier’s essay as a mini legal brief with Weil’s drawings presented as supporting evidence. Weil carefully considered the design of each cartoon product, making sure the contraptions would functionally work.

So who is at fault, Coyote or Acme? Even when pressing his case, Coyote can’t seem to cut a break. Weil’s designs for the gadgets undermine Coyote’s legal claims with special safety features like “screw-in detonator” for the Spherical Bomb and a “weighted armor jacket” to be worn with the Rocket Skates. The look of the diagrams is inspired by the photo-realistic illustrations of the McMaster-Carr hardware catalog. But Wile E. skims over the fine print. As Weil tells Wired Design in a post about the project, “The Coyote, like most males, never reads the instructions.”

Pentagram Project Team, Product design: Daniel Weil, partner-in-charge and designer. Illustrations by Simon Denzel. Book design: Michael Bierut, partner-in-charge and designer; Jesse Reed, designer. Coyote v. Acme © Ian Frazier. First published in The New Yorker, February 26, 1990.

Coyote v. Acme, by Pentagram

Books: René Redzepi: A Work in Progress

How do you achieve greater creativity at the world’s best restaurant?

René Redzepi committed to writing a journal for an entire year to reflect on this question and the result is A Work in Progress: Journal, Recipes and Snapshots. Three books in one, a journal, recipe book and flick book, A Work in Progress recounts the day-to-day life at Noma – from the trials of developing new dishes to the successes that come with winning the 50 Best Restaurant award. While the journal is the book’s heart, it is supported by the recipe book containing 100 brand new recipes and the flick book of 200 candid images which provide a stunning, and often humorous, insight into the inner workings of the restaurant and its talented team of chefs. Reflective, insightful and compelling, René interweaves observations on creativity, collaboration and ambition making A Work in Progress of interest to food lovers and general readers alike.

René Redzepi: A Work in Progress, Journal, Recipes and Snapshots, Hardback & Paperback, 220 x 267 mm (11 x 9 1/8 in), 648 pp, 300 colour illustrations ISBN: 9780714866918, Published by Phaidon
Buy it here: Amazon

Cut-out Prints from OKOLO

Something between artwork, poster and illustration, this series of Cut-out prints documents some of the mid-century coffee and low tables designed by Gio Ponti, Gabriella Crespi, George Nakashima, Paul Kjaerholm and many others in very simple 2D shapes. It is our graphic homage to the formal mastery of the modernist design in a fresh contemporary graphic way.

Cut-out Prints, by Matěj Činčera, Jaroslav Moravec and Ondřej Přibyl, for OKOLO

Books: Hokusai Manga by Katsushika Hokusai

The legendary masterpieces of Hokusai-fifteen volumes in a single chunky book. Hokusai Manga is one of the masterpieces by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), a master of Ukiyo-e art, depicting ordinary people’s lives, animals, plants, landscapes and human figures, historical and supernatural, even demons and monsters, as if it were a visual encyclopedia, amounting to fifteen volumes. Hokusai Manga turned out to be very popular among every class of people, from feudal lords to the general public, and became a long time best-seller in the Edo period. This book selects pieces from each volume and compiles them into one charming book.
The original masterpiece spread throughout Japan and flowed into Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, where it had a striking impact on artists, including Impressionists Manet, Monet, Degas, and others. The artistic movement ‘Japonisme’ began in part due to its influence.

Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese artist and ukiyo-e painter of the Edo period, and best-known as the author of the woodblock print series “Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji”.

Hokusai Manga, by Katsushika Hokusai, Designed by Kazuya Takaoka, via: Cool Hunting
Buy it here: Amazon

Books: London Unfurled by Matteo Pericoli

London is divided and united by its river; one of few cities in the world to find its essence in two profoundly different, yet nearly touching, urban characters. So the Thames provides the perfect vantage point for telling the most comprehensive story of this complex city.

Arriving with little previous knowledge of London, Matteo Pericoli made an intensive 20-mile journey along the river, from Hammersmith Bridge to the Millennium Dome and back again. Over two years later, he leaves behind the most astonishing document of his journey: two 37-foot-long pen-and-ink drawings depicting the city’s north and south banks. Each drawing presented on one side of this beautiful single-sheet accordion-style book — is rendered with loving and essay-like detail, revealing a distinct profile of London in all of its diversity: a dozen boroughs, nineteen bridges and hundreds of buildings, including the Houses of Parliament, Tate Modern, Battersea Power Station and Millennium Wheel.

London Unfurled: Matteo Pericoli, with essays by Will Self and Iain Sinclair, Published by Picador, iPad Version, Buy it here: Amazon

Books: The Geometry of Pasta

If you like design and you like to cook, then The Geometry of Pasta will help in pairing the right pasta shape with the perfect sauce. There are said to be over 300 shapes of pasta, each of which has a history, a story to tell, and an affinity with particular foods. These shapes have evolved alongside the flavours of local ingredients, and the perfect combination can turn an ordinary dish into something sublime.

Published by Boxtree, The Geometry of Pasta pairs over 100 authentic recipes from leading chef, Jacob Kenedy (co-founder of Soho restaurant Bocca di Lupo), with graphic designer Caz Hildebrand’s striking black-and-white designs to reveal the science, history and philosophy behind spectacular pasta dishes from all over Italy.

The Geometry of Pasta, by Jacob Kenedy and Caz Hildebrand, Publisher: Pan Macmillan, Hardback 288 pages, ISBN: 9780752227375
Buy it here: Amazon

Books: Creative Characters: The MyFonts Interviews vol.1

If you enjoy the long-running Creative Characters series of interviews from the MyFonts newsletter, look forward to a new release of Creative Characters: The MyFonts Interviews vol.1, A collection of in-depth interviews with the most influential type designers in the business as well as up-and-coming young guns about the motives and methods behind the typefaces. The list of designers include Jim Parkinson, Underware, David Berlow, Alejandro Paul, Veronika Burian, Rian Hughes, Cristian Schwartz and many more. Focusing more on people and personalities, the book approaches the arcane world of the type designer through a series of interviews that reveal their passion and gives a real insight into the business. The book is fully illustrated with type samples and showings of graphic designs, sketches and sources.

Creative Characters: The MyFonts Interviews vol.1, Edited by Jan Middendor, Paperback, 28 x 21.5 cm, Pages: 192, ISBN: 9789063692247, Published by BIS Publishers,
Buy it here: Amazon

Books: Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking

Modernist Cuisine is a five-volume, set that is destined to reinvent cooking. The lavishly illustrated books use thousands of original images to make the science and technology clear and engaging.

A revolution is underway in the art of cooking. Just as French Impressionists upended centuries of tradition, Modernist cuisine has in recent years blown through the boundaries of the culinary arts. Borrowing techniques from the laboratory, pioneering chefs at world-renowned restaurants such as elBulli, The Fat Duck, Alinea, and wd~50 have incorporated a deeper understanding of science and advances in cooking technology into their culinary art.

In Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet—scientists, inventors, and accomplished cooks in their own right—have created a massive, five-volume 2,400-page set that reveals science-inspired techniques for preparing food that ranges from the otherworldly to the sublime. The authors—and their 20-person team at The Cooking Lab—have achieved astounding new flavors and textures by using tools such as water baths, homogenizers, centrifuges, and ingredients such as hydrocolloids, emulsifiers, and enzymes. It is a work destined to reinvent cooking.

“This book will change the way we understand the kitchen.”
— Ferran Adrià

“A fascinating overview of the techniques of modern gastronomy.”
— Heston Blumenthal

Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking, by Nathan Myhrvold, Chris Young, and Maxime Bilet, Hardcover, 2,400 Pages, Published by The Cooking Lab,
ISBN 9780982761007

Buy it here: Amazon

Books: Berliner Luft by Benjamin Tafel & Dennis Orel

A slightly different kind of traveler’s guide to the German capital.
Cult-style images of Berlin icons and objects worthy of becoming icons. Including Cavalry captain and riding games, Coziness Colony, Mariendorf trotting professionals, Zehlendorf glazes, boarding in Eden House, Erich Mielke’s house plant, hurdy-gurdy man and curry sausages on Alex, Neverland in Plänterwald, prêt-à-porter in Wedding, Dad’s old basement party room, Clärchen’s Knallhaus, massages with happy end, Kreuzberg bunker beans, Leydicke’s bitter orange schnaps, fetish in Spandau, Paradox Ball at Cafe Keese, Kreuzberg nights, KaDeWe and caviar. All of these new and unusual motifs–and more–in the idiosyncratic language of photographers Benjamin Tafel and Dennis Orel, with authentic commentary and observations on location all around the capital of Germany.

Berliner Luft By Benjamin Tafel, Dennis Orel, Published by Hatje Cantz, German, English, 256 pp., 168 color ills., 21 x 14 cm, softcover, ISBN 9783775726160
Buy it here: Amazon

Books: John Margolies, Roadside America

Before the advent of corporate communications and architectural uniformity, America’s built environment was a free-form landscape of individual expression. Signs, artifacts, and even buildings ranged from playful to eccentric, from deliciously cartoonish to quasipsychedelic. Photographer John Margolies spent over three decades and drove more than 100,000 miles documenting these fascinating and endearingly artisanal examples of roadside advertising and fantasy structures, a fast-fading aspect of Americana.

This book brings together approximately 400 color photographs of Main Street signs, movie theaters, gas stations, fast food restaurants, motels, roadside attractions, miniature golf courses, dinosaurs, giant figures and animals, and fantasy coastal resorts. In an age when online shopping and mega-malls have reconfigured American consumerism, stripping away idiosyncracy in favor of a bland homogeneity, Margolies’s elegiac 30-year survey reminds us of a more innocent unpredictable and colorful past.

John Margolies, Roadside America, Edited by Jim Heimann,
Hardcover, 31 x 25.7 cm (12.2 x 10.1 in.), 256 pages, Published by Taschen,
ISBN: 9783836511735
Buy it here: Amazon