Friends With You Have Powers!

I had to post this. Completely ridiculous in looks but fantastic in design. The firm responsible for it is involved in toy making, illustration, and fuse art. The book itself is padded and feels much like a squishy toy. But, it's definitely for adults even if it looks...kinda creepy?

Weeeeird Book. Weird.

Mushroom Girls Virus!

Crazy New York designer named Cheuk made this self-published book revolving around the themes of yes, girls and mushrooms.

Apparently the book is made with linen cloth and fully embroidered using gold threads. I think it was meant to look like a family heirloom or old photo album, or scrapbook. Needless to say, nobody was pulling this off the night before.

It's all ears, apparently.

The Ear Book!

The Alliance Graphique Internationale publishes some serious annual reports. By serious I mean fantastic. The designer's name is Jianping He, and he explains:

"The brief was totally open apart from the size of the book and the title "AGI New Voice". When I found out the title I immediately imagined an ear hearing this 'new voice,' so I tried to design a book with an ear. We alo focused all the layout and cover design on the word 'voice;' loud on the inside, but with a calm cover featuring an ear."

As the cover has an ear on the bind (see cool pic above), it was probably difficult to find a binding technique that would work. After doing some research, I found out that the book used an old traditional Chinese binding method - instead of being glued together, the pages were punched and then bound with yarn. Slick.

All Men Are Brothers.

This weird book features interviews and work of 108 of the best leading graphic designers in the world. The title comes from the name of a Chinese classic novel, which tells the legend of 108 Robin Hoods during the times of Zhao Zhen, Emperor Renzong of the Song dynasty (1010-1063 AD). The basis of the book was to compare the 108 'robin hoods' who attempted to set up a Utopian kingdom, and 108 graphic designers: designers intend to set up an ideal kingdom of graphic design.

The book is presented in a hard slipcase that has been wrapped with traditional Chinese paper and die cut with three holes in the forms "1" "0" and "8" The colour stripes on the pages are visible through the "0".

The typeface (don't ask how I know this) is ITC Officina Sans (got it :) ) and printed on 120gsm Antalis paper for the inner pages and 220gsm Conquerer Laid Black for the cover.

Interestingly, its only printed in China. And Germany.

To Begin an Archive...

Alright. I think right about now I should start writing a book about how ridiculous my schedule has been. I'm hoping that this post is coherent on 3 days without sleep. Let's go:

Check this out.

CUBE is a publication in a book form, first published in 1998, and obviously they spent a whole lot of money to make it. In fact the designer doesn't sell any issues whatsoever. He custom makes them and sends them to only to his closest friends. Definitely worth the effort if you can find a copy.