Giles Hoover

Photography and design for print production

Tag: photography

  • Beautifully Briefed 24.10: Content with Worthwhile Content

    Beautifully Briefed 24.10: Content with Worthwhile Content

    “Content,” that is, the feeling of satisfaction — contentedness — is a word I’d much rather use than “content,” that which is required of folks who produce material for their website/YouTube channel/social media feed/whatever. It’s a shame the world favors the latter over the former.

    Or does it? We’ll get to that — right in the midst of the other content that caught my eye in October, 2024.

    Adobe Content Credentials, Continued

    Adobe’s positive messaging continues, saying “[it is] dedicated to responsibly developing tools that empower creators to express themselves and tell their stories while helping address their concerns.” It even carried out a study to get some feedback from creatives on generative AI and one of the standout insights was rising concerns over unauthorised sharing of their work or misattribution with 91% of creators seeking a reliable method to attach attribution to their work.

    Bring on Adobe Content Authenticity. It’s a “powerful new web application that helps creators protect and get recognition for their work.”

    A screenshot of Adobe Content Authenticity website.

    In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, creators are understandably concerned about safeguarding and gaining attribution for their work and having more control over how it’s used. That’s why we’re excited to introduce Adobe Content Authenticity, a new, free web app that allows creators to easily attach Content Credentials to their digital work — helping you protect your work, show attribution and better connect with your audiences online.

    —Andy Parson, Senior Director, Content Authenticity Initiative, Adobe

    For now, it’s limited to a beta Chrome extension, with a wider beta opening to the general public in spring 2025. (I don’t use Chrome, but have signed up to the waitlist, and will update Foreword readers when I hear back.) Content Credentials are already available in Photoshop and Lightroom — provided you’re using the latest versions, which may require the latest OS.

    Three on Book Design
    PBS on del Rey

    I’d known the publishing house since . . . well, as long as I can remember. What I’d not known is the story behind the publishing house:

    Set aside thirteen minutes when you can — absolutely worth it.

    Multi-Panel Book Covers

    I agree with Jason Kottke: “Bento Books” is the term. A great example:

    Book design by Oliver Munday.

    Here’s the impetus discussing this latest book design trend, with many more examples.

    It’s Nice That: Book Design in Brazil
    Book design by Bloco Gráfico.

    Any foreigner entering a bookshop in São Paulo is likely to be impressed by the quality of the books on display. For a country with relatively few readers, few high quality printers and binders, and a very limited assortment of paper, the Brazilian publishing market shows remarkable graphic ingenuity[.]

    — Elaine Ramos, It’s Nice That

    Never mind the country, the great book design caught my attention: from The Great Gatsby, above, to the J.M. Coetzee series, Orwell’s 1984, even Melville — amongst others. A great read.

    Special Bonus #1: Life outside the internet . . . and physical books, please:

    “The whole internet social complex … and the way people use their computers to conduct life is doomed sooner than later,” said Justin Murphy, the founder of the media and education company Other Life. “The smartest people, the people who are the most cutting-edge, will increasingly live their lives outside of computers.”

    Whether or not that’s true — or even a potential — isn’t as relevant as an actual trend: physical book sales are up:

    Print, too, is on the rise, from books to magazines to newspapers. Print book sales had a pop with the pandemic in 2020, and have continued to maintain sales of more than 750 million units sold each year. Meanwhile, even though they’re cheaper, sales for ebooks are down slightly, which may be owed to the fact that younger readers, much like older generations, overwhelmingly prefer printed formats.

    — Zoë Bernard, Vox

    Flip phones, vinyl LPs, and . . . books: Read the whole article.

    See also: The Guardian: Bookstores are Suddenly Cool.

    50 Fonts for 2025

    CreativeBoom is out with their annual post on future type, “50 fonts that will be popular with creatives [next year].” Some of my favorites (links in captions):

    Editorial New, by Pangram Pangram.
    Nave, by Jamie Clark Type. (Bonus points for the great illustration.)
    Right Grotesk, especially the Casual flavor, by Pangram Pangram.
    Canvas Inline, designed by Ryan Martinson from Yellow Design Studio. Available through Adobe Fonts.
    Ssonder, from Type of Feeling. (Easily the most on-trend of my highlighted items.)

    An honorable mention goes to Gamuth Sans, from Production Type. See CreativeBoom’s 2025 popular fonts list here. (Note: some are available through Google Fonts, and thus free-to-use. Nice.)

    See also: Two more from CreativeBoom on the 2025 type scene: font trends and independent foundries.

    Photography that causes content
    Forest Fireflies

    From This is Colossal, we have Kazuaki Koseki, who describes himebotaru — fireflies — as “artists who paint light on the forest.”

    From the series “Summer Faeries” by Kazuaki Koseki.

    Artistry, all right. See more.

    Epson International Pano Awards

    The 2024 Pano Awards have been announced, with a wealth of great wide-angle shots for your viewing pleasure. Two of my favorites:

    “Storm Dump,” by Tom Putt. Taken near Wyndham, Western Australia.
    “Uprooted,” by Nickolas Warner. Taken in Moab, Utah.

    Epson’s rules are a little looser than some, but don’t diminish the sheer creativity displayed by the entrants. See coverage from PetaPixel or This is Colossal, or go to the source for the full list.

    Siena Creative Photo Awards 2024

    Just one favorite to highlight here, but what a favorite it is:

    “Storm on the Elbe,” by Anna Wacker. 1st Prize, Architecture.

    See some amazing sleeping bears — and much more — at the PetaPixel post or the full list at the Siena contest website.

    Architecture MasterPrize

    Few contests are more up my alley than this one, which inspires me to get back out there sooner rather than later:

    Kaktus Tower, Copenhagen, by Shoayb Khattab. See more from this series.
    “Fragments,” taken at the Nhow Hotel, Amsterdam, by Max van Son. See larger.

    Awesome. Meanwhile, the below caught my attention not due to the striking photograph, but the striking content — which, indeed, caused contentedness. Such a huge change to anyone who might recognize this former hulk, now beautifully refurbished and in a new park setting:

    “Michigan Central Station,” Detroit, by Jason Keen. See the full series here.

    See the post from PetaPixel or the full list of 2024 winners at the Architecture Masterprize 2024 website.

    Special Bonus #2: To close us out on this Halloween, the moon:

    Photograph by Darya Kawa Mirza. See more.
  • Beautifully Briefed 24.9: Falling Up

    Beautifully Briefed 24.9: Falling Up

    A long and diverse list this time, with a few thoughtful things and a ton of photography. Set aside a few minutes to get lost in links — and enjoy!

    Books and Values

    This article from the New Yorker is highlighted a little behind schedule — it’s from August (although, in my defense, I get my NYers second-hand) — but worth the read for the phrase “practitioners of bibliotherapy” alone.

    Illustration by Pierre Buttin. © New Yorker.

    Before we get into the meat of it, though, a primer on the growth of available titles in the United States:

    • 1939: 10,640 (est.)
    • 1970: 36,000
    • 2020: 1,000,000 (est., including ebooks)

    The New Yorker article lists this last figure as three million, but various internet sources dispute this; either way, it’s a huge number that no store could ever hope to stock. But … on to the important stuff.

    The central question:

    Amazon offers something like thirty million different print titles. The company has deals with purveyors of used and remaindered books, who are linked to on the site. It owns AbeBooks, the leading site for rare and out-of-print books. And there are many other places online where you can buy books, including barnesandnoble.com. So why does the world need bookstores?

    — Louis Menand, New Yorker, August 29, 2024 issue

    The New Yorker is kind enough to let you read a few articles a month without crashing into a paywall, so go find out the answer, appropriately enough, in their book review of Evan Friss’ The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore.

    Meanwhile, Nick Heer of the always-excellent Pixel Envy cites another New Yorker article on pricing for non-physical books — “The Surprisingly Big Business of eBooks” — and comes up with a few spending figures of note regarding the New York Public Library and Barack Obama’s title, A Promised Land:

    • $29,450, for 310 perpetual audiobook licenses at ninety-five dollars each;
    • $22,512, for 639 one- and two-year licenses for the e-book; and,
    • $5,300, for 226 copies of the hardcover edition.

    If you want to know why publishers so aggressively fought the Internet Archive on its model of lending out scanned copies of physical books, this is the reason. Publishers have created a model which fundamentally upsets a library’s ability to function. There is no scarcity in bytes, so publishers have created a way to charge more for something limitless, weightless, with nearly no storage costs.

    — Nick Heer, Pixel Envy

    You know what you can’t do with an ebook license? Put it on a shelf for re-reading in ten years’ time. Or resell it. In other words: control what happens to it. “[I]t is hard not to see publishers as the real villains in this mess. They are consolidating power and charging even legitimate libraries unreasonable amounts of money for electronic copies of books which the publishers and their intermediaries ultimately still control,” Heer writes.

    Exactly.

    Special Bonus #1: Nick Heer gets something else right, too, by noting the sharply divergent goals of social media platforms and his own wishes — indeed, those of what we would idealize as “normal people.” “Guided by Vices” is excellent. Check it out.

    Book Design: Kafka
    Cover design by Peter Mendelsund.

    Few subjects could more appropriately follow the above, so it is with a certain sense of joy that I highlight these fantastic new covers Frank Kafka’s works, brought to us by the incredibly talented Peter Mendelsund1“Get inside the mind of Peter Mendelsund, the pianist who went from Tchaikovsky to Tolstoy and became one of the best book cover designers working today, with editor Zac Petit’s interview in PRINT’s 75th Anniversary Issue,” with the link at the source article. via an interview with Steven Heller at PRINT:

    Cover design by Peter Mendelsund.

    The whole article, and especially, the whole series of title designs, are exactly why I treasure book design. Read on.

    Special Bonus #2: From Rolling Stone, an image reposted without comment (and absolutely not related to Kafka):

    Illustration by Victor Juhasz. © Rolling Stone.
    Colossally New

    This is Colossal, one of the very few sites elevated to “check daily” status and a frequent contributor to posts here on Foreword, has a new look:

    The new look of This is Colossal, September 2024.

    The last site, more than seven years old and designed by the great Armin Vit — he of Brand New fame — needed a refresh, mostly for technical reasons.

    Check it out. (And, separately, read the details.)

    Update, 4 Oct: More details from Firebelly. Great to see the progression of ideas.

    Update, 18 Oct: Part 3, “Crafting Colossal’s Whimsical Web.”

    SM[all] Majesté
    Photograph by DS Automobiles.

    I had to lead with an image there — even as concept cars go, wow. “DS’ tribute to the bewitching Citroën SM is the cure for concept car burnout,” The Autopian says, and I completely agree.

    The lights bleeding into the skirted rear wheels is, perhaps, perfection:

    Photograph by DS Automobiles.
    Photograph by DS Automobiles.

    Okay, it’s not even a Citroen, and the 1970’s are hot right now, but still, it’s an out-of-the-park home run from the staggering — perhaps even stumbling — juggernaut that is Stallantis. Read about it at Motor1 or Wallpaper*, or see one of these two YouTube videos from DS or YouCar.

    Special Bonus #3: Another design icon, the Volvo 240 series, celebrates its 50th birthday this year. (I learned how to drive on a 145, the immediate predecessor, and was surrounded by 240s in my teens. I remember them fondly.)

    A 1974 Volvo 245 in the perfect shade of blue. Fabulous.
    Photography Turns 200

    According to an article in French photography publication Réponses Photo, quoted on PetaPixel, photography turned 200 on September 16. While that’s surely a conclusion rather than documented fact, it’s worth remembering and considering the journey photography has taken over the past two hundred years.

    Indeed, one need only glance at the “phone” we all carry around to realize how democratized photography has become; those of us who carry bigger, more professional gear have become the exception — and our reasons for doing do more varied. (More on that soon.)

    Meanwhile, let’s celebrate with some of the latest and greatest photography from September, 2024.

    Tahiti Waves

    Via Kottke and This is Colossal, a great series of ocean photographs from Tim McKenna:

    Heaving Waves (Tahiti). Photograph by Tim McKenna.
    2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

    Via This is Colossal, something quite, uh, jaw-dropping:

    “Deadly Bite.” Photograph by Ian Ford.

    “The 2024 Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition broke its 60-year record with a whopping 59,228 entries from 117 countries and territories,” and is connected with the Natural History Museum in London. (See also the 2024 Bird Photographer of the Year, via the BBC.)

    2024 Astronomy Photographer of the Year

    “The Royal Observatory Greenwich, in partnership with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, announced the beautiful winners of its 16th annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. The images show some of the most incredible cosmic objects and events in the Universe,” PetaPixel writes. (Also noted via This is Colossal, just ’cause.)

    “Shadow Peaks of Sinus Iridum.” Photograph by Gábor Balázs.

    See all the winners at Royal Museums Greenwich.

    Not included in that — taken too late to be entered, I understand — is this stunning photograph:

    “Saturn’s Ingress.” Photograph by Andrew McCarthy.
    2024 Natural Landscape Photography Awards

    Last but not least, some fantastic photography in this newish contest, now in its fourth year, set up to “promote the best landscape and nature photography by digital and film photographers who value realism and authenticity in their work.”

    Some of my favorites:

    “Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada.” Photograph by Andrew Mielzynski.
    Guatemala Adventure Volcano Panorama. Photograph by Thomas Skinner.
    Nightscape, 3rd place. Photograph by Takeshi Kameyama.

    Via PetaPixel.

    Special Bonus #4: Phil Edwards brings us a history of one the most iconic photographs ever:

    • 1
      “Get inside the mind of Peter Mendelsund, the pianist who went from Tchaikovsky to Tolstoy and became one of the best book cover designers working today, with editor Zac Petit’s interview in PRINT’s 75th Anniversary Issue,” with the link at the source article.
  • Beautifully Briefed 24.8: Picture This

    Beautifully Briefed 24.8: Picture This

    A trio of miscellany, a trio of space photography, more than a trio of great black and white photography, and a single, very serious photography question for you this time — let’s get right into it.

    Summer of Fun Miscellany
    Intermezzo, Explained
    The UK cover for Intermezzo. Book design by Kishan Rajani. (The US cover doesn’t compare.)

    GQ UK has an interview with Kishan Rajani, a senior designer at Faber, and Pete Adlington, the publisher’s art director, “about how the Intermezzo design came together, the role of social media in modern book design, and how to make books ‘as pickupable as possible.’”

    The endpapers for Intermezzo (UK). I really like that they’ve sweated the little details.

    We can discuss “pickupable” as a word another time — your time is better spent, for now, reading the interview.

    WeTransfer Sold

    “Some of Bending Spoons’ most successful products are tools that serve creativity, therefore we are confident that this milestone will complement both businesses, supercharge our growth, and help us create even more value for creative industries at large,” says WeTransfer CEO Alexander Vassilev of the acquisition.

    I like and appreciate WeTransfer — unlike the corporatespeak above (but hey, we’re inventing words today … right?) — and hope that despite being corporatized, nothing substantive will change.

    PetaPixel: “The companies did not say whether or not all staff or leadership at WeTransfer would be maintained after the conclusion of the acquisition. That may come into question since Bending Spoons does have a track record of buying completed products, training its internal staff on their upkeep, and then releasing the original development team.”

    Crap.

    Update, 9 September, 2024: “Bending Spoons acquired file-sharing platform WeTransfer in July and has now laid off 75% of WeTransfer’s staff,” PetaPixel reports. “The Italian app company Bending Spoons has confirmed the layoffs to TechCrunch, which comprise at least 260 people based on WeTransfer’s employee headcount of around 350 people.”

    Adobe, Again
    The Adobe “World Headquarters” buildings in San Jose, California. Image via PetaPixel.

    Adobe (previously) recently sat down with PetaPixel to discuss the shambles where things stand — clearly, an attempt at damage control. PP published it … and got some feedback:

    Adobe couldn’t explain why it let its once excellent relationship with photographers and media lapse, only that it is sorry that happened. I do believe [their explanation], at least when I hear it from the people responsible for making the software. There is a big divide between the folks who code Photoshop and the C-level executives who are so out of touch with the end users. The thing is, it doesn’t matter what those people down in the trenches of development say or even how good Adobe’s software happens to be, some photographers just don’t like the feeling of giving money to the company because of the people at the helm.

    Jaron Schneider, PetaPixel

    The thing is: it’s less photography, really, than design. If you’re a photographer, how you get to the point of printing or publishing the photographs offers options in software — whether iPhoto, Affinity, Photoshop, or the Pixel 9 Magic Editor — Instagram doesn’t care, Zenfolio takes multiple file formats, and so on.

    But in design — that is, desktop publishing or especially book design — Adobe has a monopoly over the software used by the industry, full stop. I used to love working with their software. Today, not so much. (And for the record, it’s more than their fees, it’s the quality of the software.) It’s extremely frustrating and, at the moment, there is no alternative even on the horizon.

    Crap. (Again.)

    Extraordinary Astrophotography

    So, how many can place Kyrgyzstan on a map? It’s a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia, and, clearly, a great place to do some astrophotography.

    Star Trails Above Tash Rabat by Soumyadeep Mukherjee.

    PetaPixel highlights the work of Soumyadeep Mukherjee, who traveled there specifically for the purpose — and succeeded wildly. It’s awesome to see a country I’m not familiar with served so well. (My favorite, of course, is the short depth-of-field portrait — if you can call it that — of Yuri Gargarin, seen in the header image above.)

    Alternatively, This is Colossal points us at “Bisected by the Milky Way, a Stellar Image Captures the Perseid Meteor Shower Raining Down on Stonehenge“:

    Perseid Meteors over Stonehenge by Josh Dury.

    “Josh Dury, aka ‘Starman,’ is an award-winning landscape astrophotographer, presenter, speaker and writer from The Mendip Hills ‘Super National Nature Reserve’ in Somerset, United Kingdom,” his web site trumpets.

    The thing is … despite looking like he’s about 25, he’s earned it. Great stuff.

    Meanwhile, back at PetaPixel, “Photographer Aaron Watson, who goes by Skies Alive Photography, has seen many incredible things in the night sky. His latest sighting is a rare double ‘moonbow,’ a rainbow created by bright moonlight in precise conditions.”

    Double Moonbow by Aaron Watson.

    All three of these folks need special thanks for their patience. I have trouble standing still long enough to set up a tripod, let alone do long exposures under rarely-encountered combinations of time, weather, equipment and location — plus lots of good luck — in the middle of the night. Well done, all.

    “Majesty of Monochrome”

    The winners of the third annual Black and White Photo Awards have been unveiled, showcasing the best in monochrome photography across multiple categories.

    Monochrome Majesty: Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus, by Robert Fulop. Bronze Mention from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.

    Naturally, I gravitate towards architecture — and the winners (of the nearly 5000 entrants) demonstrate serious talent.

    Bench, by Colin Page. Finalist from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.
    The Double Helix, by Md Tanveer Rohan. Finalist from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.
    Windows by Manfred Gruber. Finalist from the Black and White Photo Awards 2024.

    See the winners — and especially, take in the finalists, many of which I’d personally judge to be winners in their own right — at the contest’s web site.

    Special Bonus #1: It’s time once again for the annual iPhone Awards, “a powerful testament to the art of storytelling through photography.” I especially liked this one:

    Bicycle Forest by James Kittendorf. 3rd place in the Cityscape category, 2024 IPPAwards.

    It’s a great photograph, certainly, but it was taken by a now-quite-elderly iPhone X — proof, once again, that it’s the camera you have with you. See all the 2024 winning photographs, in multiple categories and taken worldwide, here. (Via PetaPixel.)

    So … What’s Next for Photography?

    The Verge: “Anyone who buys a Pixel 9 — the latest model of Google’s flagship phone, available starting this week — will have access to the easiest, breeziest user interface for top-tier lies, built right into their mobile device.”

    A montage from The Verge, thankfully clearly labeled.

    Life-changing moments have long been captured using photography, from Moonrise to George Floyd. But, generally, fakes were the exception, not the rule. We’re, unfortunately, arming the folks who cry foul.

    Another montage from The Verge. Note the woods filled in behind the helicopter less convincingly than the accident, above — but how many are going to notice?

    It does this article disrespect to summarize. Just go read: “No one’s ready for this.”

    Special Bonus #2: Nick Heer, at Pixel Envy, articulates what needs to be said: “anyone can now radically and realistically alter an entire scene within minutes of taking a photo. [O]ur expectations need to change.”

  • Beautifully Briefed 24.7: Generated

    Beautifully Briefed 24.7: Generated

    This time, another automaker logo, some automotive and architecture photography, and the special bonuses that have all become a regular part of the Beautifully Briefed standard. But we’re going to start with some generated content.

    AI Book “Design”

    From the “We knew this was going to happen” category, we have the first — that I’ve seen, anyway — “let AI do the work” research paper suggesting that book design is something that can be automated.

    We have presented a novel approach to computationally design books. The presented system implements a generative design process which takes advantage of the scripting capabilities of Adobe InDesign to procedurally typeset books from content provided by the user. We have shown the ability of the system to (i) create book designs that consistently comply with a series of typographic rules, styles and principles identified in the literature; (ii) produce visually diversified books from the same input content; and (iii) produce visually coherent books with different contents.

    Design by “AI.”

    Let’s please remember that “AI” as the term is currently used is actually “applied machine learning;” in this case, specific rules within specific containers in a specific application. It’s a first step towards something, as most “AI” is in 2024.

    But it’s absolutely not the only step. It’s inevitable that the necessary subsequent steps will be taken, probably sooner than later.

    As usual where someone is seriously discussing replacing a human worker with a computer, there’s a pitch for the upside:

    The work presented in the paper may challenge the typical roles of both the tool and the designer. First, by automatically creating and suggesting design alternatives, the tool ends up playing a more active role in the design process. Then, by modifying and developing custom tools, the designer is no longer a mere tool user and becomes the author of tools tailored to specific needs. We believe this shift can be fruitful since it enables the exploration and discovery of new technical and creative possibilities.

    In other words, the designer is now responsible for creatively writing the rules then policing the output — like so many things in the machine-learning, or “AI” space — rather than the actual drudgery of directly designing the output. “Design great rules, get great design.”

    And there is room for this. Amazon, especially, is going to jump on book design generated this way; never mind those folks in China or India earning (a paltry few) dollars a day, the computer can do it better for less . . . . Poof! With no human interaction whatsoever, your book is ready to publish. Indeed, for some, the bar to publish has just been lowered made easier. Perhaps even Adobe, who trumpets “AI” at every turn these days, they may choose to take this up. (Probably for a surcharge to the already-high subscription pricing.)

    Let’s not even speculate about the major publishing houses for now.

    But like AI-generated anything, getting actual art requires hand-tuning the input by an artist. For what amounts to “slop” — see this fantastic PixelEnvy discussion — the generated approach to book design might even be appropriate. But for book design that’s artistic, cared-for, or even “just” thoughtful, you’re going to need a human for a long time yet to come.

    The paper is available on Cornell University’s arxiv under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 DEED license. (Via Hackernoon.)

    The excellent Odd Apples, which I’m sure I’ve highlighted before — but in a very human way, can’t find.

    Special Bonus #1: I had the occasion to recently flip through Pentagram’s book design section. Some seriously interesting, seriously artistic work. (See the Odd Apples listing specifically.)

    It could probably be argued that computers took book design jobs away, but….

    Special Bonus #2: CreativeBoom links to three free archives on Victorian illustration to inspire — or perhaps use creatively in a book.

    Untitled (Fiddleheads), 1928. Photo by Karl Blossfeldt.

    Special Bonus #3: The ever-great Kottke.org. points us at Public Work, “an image search engine that boasts 100,000 “copyright-free” images from institutions like the NYPL, the Met, etc. It’s fast with a relatively simple interface and uses AI to auto-categorize and suggest possibly related images (both visually and content-wise).” As Jason Kottke points out, not great in the attribution department, but good stuff nonetheless.

    Mazda’s New Logo
    Mazda’s logo as of 2023, seen on one of its cars.

    From the automotive logo thread (previously), we have to note Mazda’s new look, reduced from the current 3D-style grayscale to flat and black and white. This one gets some criticism from me: it lacks grace, pace, or space. (Hmph. That might be someone else.)

    Angry Bird, anyone? (Pardon the artifacts — this image is enlarged from a Japanese trademark post.)

    Then again, Mazda has not always been successful with logos. Anyone remember the 1991–1997 version?

    Mazda’s complete logo history.

    The 1931–1934 version lays the name over Mitsubishi’s logo, which was responsible for sales. The 1975–1991 version is the one I remember best, but that’s likely a youth/rose-colored glasses sort of thing. See Wiki for more information.

    Meanwhile, Mazda is trying to move upmarket right now, and the new “look” isn’t really in keeping with that. Curious to see where this goes. (Via The Autopian.)

    Mazda’s new electric concept, the Errata, sporting an interim, flattened version of the current logo. Wait, might have gotten something wrong there, too….

    Special Bonus #3: BrandNew points us at the 2024 Logo Trends report, the annual fun item from Logo Lounge that looks at what’s hot in this year’s crop of — you guessed it!

    Freely (Smiley category) and Droplet (Elliptic category), left, and Olá and Backcountry Wanderer, right, from the Sticker category. (Olá could be in the Smiley category, too.)

    Some of my favorites are above, but the whole report is worth a look. (Spoiler: more than flattening is on trend.)

    Auto, Auto+Arch, Arch
    Auto Photo Manual

    Via Wallpaper*, we have Auto Photo Manual, a new monograph from Benedict Redgrove that “explores the art and science of photographing the world’s most striking cars:”

    A very orange Lambo. Photo by Benedict Redgrove.

    Always a sucker for a Saab, especially this concept:

    The 2006 Saab Aero-X concept. Photo by Benedict Redgrove.

    Auto Photo Manual is a Kickstarter item that could use some love — stop by if you can. Wallpaper* has the full story.

    A Time • A Place (Vol. 1)

    Also via Wallpaper*, we have a “celebration of the European Car of the Year and changing perceptions of modern design, pairing the best buildings of the age with their automotive contemporaries:”

    London’s Camberwell Subamarine and the Mercedes W116. Photo by Daniel Hopkinson.

    “Through the lens of time, both [cars and buildings] have become highly symbolic of their eras and hindsight will allow us to trace the roots of each design to determine how it is viewed from a 21st century perspective,” says Holroyd, noting that over this period architecture underwent a stylistic retreat, just as car design became emboldened and more avant-garde.

    Great stuff in this new title, available now from The Modernist. Read more at Wallpaper*.

    World Architecture Festival 2024 Shortlist

    Via The Guardian, we have The World Architecture Festival’s 2024 shortlist, revealing projects from around the world spanning categories such as childcare, energy, transport and science. A couple of faves:

    The Chodge by DCA Architects of Transformation — interesting name(s), surely — in Whakamaru, New Zealand. Photograph by Simon Devitt.

    The live awards event will take place in Singapore from November 6-8. This year’s finalists represent 71 countries.

    Woven Passage to Cloudy Peaks by line+ studio in Shaoxing, China. Photograph by line+studio.

    See more at The Guardian, or the complete shortlist at The World Architect Festival.

    Special Bonus #4: This is Colossal brings us the drone photography of Eric Waider, shot in Iceland:

    As glaciers expand and recede, they have the capacity to grind rock so fine that geologists refer to the pulverized material as glacial flour. It slips down rivers and into lakes, carrying the otherworldly turquoise hue through a unique and resilient ecosystem. In Iceland, the blue-green color is complemented by rivers that flow yellow, thanks to sulfur from nearby volcanoes, or red from dissolved ferrous iron—also known as bog iron. Coursing over rock and black sand, the streams take on dazzling, rhythmic patterns.

    Photograph by Erik Waider.

    Brilliant. See his website (“Abstract Landscapes of the distant North”) and enjoy that series and more — including faves such as Ocean Blues and Glacial Macro.

  • Beautifully Briefed 24.5: On Into Summer

    Beautifully Briefed 24.5: On Into Summer

    This time, we welcome the start of summer with a selection of photography and book design items — with, as usual, a couple of bonuses. Oh, and a computer item with its own “bonus.” The Summer of Joy starts now.

    SteerMouse

    Like many who spend a ton of time mousing, my production Mac sports an aftermarket pointing device: a Logitech MX Master 3S. It’s a great mouse: ergonomic, covered in button options, and with a freewheeling scroll wheel that makes both design and surfing a joy.

    Unfortunately, Logitech’s software doesn’t live up to the hardware’s promise. I’m certainly not alone in thinking this way, but like many, I’d resigned myself to living with it . . . with one glaring, continually-irksome exception: over the years, they’d actually removed a regularly-used feature.

    There’s something significant missing from the available options. (Logitech.com screen capture.)

    That’s right — there is no way to reprogram the two main buttons. They’re a single click (left) and a command/control click (right), whether you want ’em that way or not. Most of the time, I don’t.

    It’s fine for surfing, sure, and for other applications as well. But for book design, not so much. The right button has to be a double-click. That way, word, sentence, paragraph and section selections are readily available through a combination of first- and middle-finger clicks. Sure, they could be assigned to the side buttons (4 and 5, above), but if you’ll forgive me mangling an analogy, race drivers don’t try to get their feet on the door handles when clutching.

    Thankfully, while sitting in a tire shop the other day — speaking of driving — I was making the wait more palatable by listening to Accidental Tech Podcast, wherein Steven Hackett’s post on Logitech software was briefly mentioned. And the clouds parted.

    Okay, sure, it was technically unrelated. But he’s trying SteerMouse — and that’s all the recommendation I needed:

    It may not look as flashy, but it’s the content that counts. Kudos.

    My double-click is back! Quality independent software, highly recommended.

    Special Bonus #1: From another chapter of less-than-ideal software, Adobe continues to flub the landing. PetaPixel has been on their case in a significant way, with Adobe Says AI is the New Digital Camera, Adobe’s CEO is Just Not on the Same Wavelength as Artists, Adobe Throws Photographers Under the Bus Again: ‘Skip the Photoshoot’, and ASMP Calls Out Adobe for Its ‘Shocking Dismissal of Photography’. Whew.

    A Couple Library of Congress Photographs

    Speaking of PetaPixel, they’ve posted a story on someone retiring from what seems like a great way to spend a career: “The Prints and Photographs collection in the Library of Congress number more than 15 million images. Maintaining the archive is a big job and a retiring librarian has picked her favorite pictures after working there for 34 years. [Read] Jan Grenci’s final blog post.”

    Even the cats know the refrigerators contain plenty of food at the Casa Grande Farms. Pinal County, Arizona. Photo by Russell Lee, 1940.
    Two pigeons on a ledge with a view of the Chrysler Building in the background. Photo by Angelo Rizzuto. June 1957.

    The LOC’s Picture This has a plethora of great posts, and 15 million photographs is a great way to pass a rainy afternoon (or two). Enjoy.

    Special Bonus #2: From the archives comes another PetaPixel post on Getty’s Open Content Program, with its 87,000 free-to-use photographs: “Add a print of your favorite Dutch still life to your gallery wall or create a shower curtain using the Irises by Van Gogh — the possibilities are endless,” Getty explains.

    Kirkus: 20 Books that Should Be Bestsellers

    Kottke points us to a Kirkus Reviews post, 20 Books that Should be Bestsellers. Some good book design here:

    Both of the above have been added to my “potential best covers” folder (without designer attribution, alas); the former for what I’d call “the quintessential 2024 style,” and the latter for the quintessential book cover purpose: fantastic type treatment and compelling imagery combined with the-question-that-has-to-be-answered. (“The seven-hundred-year-old bones of Saint Nicholas […] weep a mysterious liquid that can heal the sick,” Amazon explains.) Good stuff.

    There’s also this, which isn’t quite up to the above but still interesting:

    …with its box o’ quotes on Amazon:

    Nice.

    Special Bonus #3: Chip Kidd has been promoted: “VP and art director at Knopf and graphic editor at Pantheon.” Few are more deserving, as the long list of accomplishments on his Wiki page attests.

    A couple of faves from “Good is Dead,” a selection of book covers he’s designed:

    Cover design by Chip Kidd.
    Cover design by Chip Kidd.

    And, of course, Naked, in this post’s cover image. Kudos.

    Special Bonus #4: One the subject of great designers, this film on Charles and Ray Eames was a winner. (It’s from 2011, but was new to me — and hopefully you, too.) Watch when you can:

    YouTube won’t allow me to embed this, unfortunately — click the link above to view.

    Special Bonus #5: The lede-of-the-day award: “Do all book covers look the same today? Euronews Culture goes under the dust cover with those that design them.”

    The interesting thing here is a discussion of risk — ’cause, of course, in today’s culture, a book cover alone can result in a title getting cancelled banned — revolving around things, um, yellow:

    One of my favorite covers of 2023, still without a cover designer attribution. (Darn.)

    Special Bonus #6: Penguin Books reveals the Cover Design Award 2024 shortlist, a contest for non-professionals to take a crack at Penguin greatness. (Via CreativeBoom.) My favorite:

    Cover design by Charlotte Gill.

    Update, 27 June 2024: The winners for the Penguin item, above, have been posted. CreativeBoom covers it.

  • Beautifully Briefed 24.4: April Snow(ed Under)

    Beautifully Briefed 24.4: April Snow(ed Under)

    This April has been busy — meaning that I’ve not marked as many items for this column as usual. (I generally keep a browser tab group going throughout the month with items that could potentially be added, then weed them out/down as posting time gets near; usually, I aim for four or five diverse items.) This month, a great young Egyptian photographer and some details on what goes on, er, under the covers of book design.

    Karim Emr, Photographer
    Infinity, Karim Emr, 2021. The print is 64×64 inches(!).

    Just look at that — awesome. The moment it appeared on Kottke, it got marked for posting. It’s fantastic to see a familiar locale taken with a fresh perspective, proving once again that no matter how many cameras exist in the world, it’s what you do with it that matters.

    This is great, too:

    “Water, Water, Water,” Karin Amr, 2021. (Forgive the color banding; that’s my fault, not the photographer’s.)

    I didn’t realize that was flooded at first — the desert plays many tricks. For more, check out his Instagram or order prints at 1stDibs.

    The Design of Books

    You’re reading Foreword, so it’s safe to assume at least a passing interest in book design. So this one’s a natural to highlight:

    New title by book designer Debbie Berne

    Professional book designer Berne debuts with her first self-authored (and designed) title that seemingly anticipates every question people curious about book production might ask, as well as many they probably hadn’t thought about. . . . This title illuminates all that goes into producing and designing a book.

    — Library Journal
    Interior highlights from The Design of Books.

    From crop marks to the editorial workings, a worthy read for those in need of better understanding the process, those in the process (you’d be surprised: it’s more than authors and editors), and, as the author — and the LJ — say, “other curious readers.” Recommended.

    Special Bonus #1: The above is courtesy of another Kottke post, which has a comment regarding the redesign of the Book of Common Worship for the Church of England. It’s long and detailed, but it you have a minute: An account of the making of Common Worship: Services and Prayers for the Church of England. [PDF]

    Special Bonus #2: HarperCollins, one of the biggest publishers in the world, has something to tout: saving trees through “eco design.”

    It’s painfully clear which is easier to read: a change for the better . . . ?

    Fast Company reports on this, although to be honest I’m not sure it’s an improvement — while it’s impressive that, “so far, these subtle, imperceptible tweaks have saved 245.6 million pages, equivalent to 5,618 trees,” perhaps the startling statistic there is that a single tree can produce nearly forty-four thousand book pages. (Along with some bark mulch, presumably.)

    In any case, the VP of creative operations and production at HarperCollins — apparently an actual title — is proud of their “learnings.”

    Doctor? No, Book Designer

    The AIGA Eye on Design‘s book design category, always full of gems, highlights the career path of another book design professional, Jason Ramirez:

    One of the first in his family to attend college, he studied biological sciences and later religious studies at the University of Rochester, and after graduation he began taking night classes in typography, color theory, graphics, and web design. At nearly 30-years-old, he applied and was accepted into Parsons School of Design, where a course with cover designer Gabriele Wilson opened up a world of possibility.

    —Laura Feinstein, AIGA

    He’s done well:

    Cover design: Jason Ramirez

    A great read on the how’s and why’s of five worthy book cover designs when you have a moment.

    Special Bonus #3: CreativeBoom profiles another book designer, this time Leah Jacobs-Gordon, a freelancer in England.

    Cover design: Leah Jacobs-Gordon

    Enjoy your spring!

  • Beautifully Briefed 24.3: Bloomin’ Breadth

    Beautifully Briefed 24.3: Bloomin’ Breadth

    The end of March here in Middle Georgia means flowers aplenty, and usually with that, some photography — but I’ve not yet had a chance. (Stay tuned.) I have, however, been saving up links o’ interest: fonts, books, photography, and new(ish) car logos. Let’s go!

    Kottke Meets 2024

    Starting with one of the very few places that is still around from Foreword’s old days, the always-interesting Jason Kottke:

    2024 marks Kottke.org’s 26th year on the ’net.

    Great new looks for great content, with better Quick Links — the previews are ace — and incredibly-appreciated gift links to places like The New York Times and The Atlantic. If you haven’t been in a while, click and enjoy.

    Fab Spring Type

    With “a plethora of captivating new typefaces,” CreativeBoom celebrates spring with 11 new faces to tempt, inspire, and bring joy:

    Arillatype.Studio brings us a thousand glyphs of greatness.

    Zanco, with its bell-bottom style; Seabirds, inspired by 1930s book covers; Module, a “fluke side hustle;” and Graffeur, improvised from gaffer tape and glimpsed in this post’s header image, are all great. My far-and-away favorite, though, is At Briega, “inspired by the concept of hybridisation” and shown above.

    See ’em all here.

    Literary Three-Fer
    M.C. Escher’s Lesser-Known Works
    “The Drowned Cathedral,” a 1929 woodcut.

    “Unique perspective” never does justice to someone whose name defines the term. See some never-before-seen images alongside old favorites in a new Escher book highlighted at Hyperallergic.

    Multidimensional Libri

    “Experimental books are flourishing, [a]nd the evidence is seen” in this Daily Heller from PRINT: a traveling exhibition on three-dimensional books, all published titles.

    Oh, those Italians. Read on.

    Book Design Snobbery
    Hoover vs. Atwood — no joke.

    “Don’t get held back from the simple pleasures of reading,” argues Natalie Fear at CreativeBloq, “not everything needs to be minimalist.” Justification for commercialism or a common-sense explanation for the bookshelves’ current look? You decide.

    Photography Three-Fer
    Winners of Monochromatic Minimalism
    “Black Pearl” by Sascha Kohne. An honorable mention for the magazine, but a winner for me.

    Some incredibly good stuff here — but perhaps more importantly, did you know of Black & White Minimalism Magazine? There’s no end to today’s continued diversification, methinks.

    “Traveling through Costa da Morte, Galicia. 600m above sea level where the mountains separate the Cantabria sea from the Atlantic Ocean,” explains third-place winner Alexandre Caetano.
    Aging Facades of France

    “Shuttered blinds, peeling paint, and aging doors don’t usually indicate an invitation, but for French photographer Thibaut Derien, the fading facades of long-closed shops are well worth a stop,” This is Colossal says.

    Sony Photography Awards: Architecture
    The Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias (City of Arts and Sciences) in Valencia, Spain: “Hemispheric,” by Eng Tong Tan, Malaysia.

    ArchDaily‘s coverage of the annual Sony awards shortlist announcement was an insta-click.

    New Bull: Now Flat. (And a BMW.)

    Lamborghini practically defines flamboyant. So it’s worth a link when their logo gets less interesting:

    Old logo, left, new, right.

    Late at following the industry trend of flat-is-better, because, well, Volkswagen. (Okay, I undersell. Perhaps.) Read the lack of news at Motor11Motor1 also has a decent roundup of new car logos, from 2016-present, which underscores the “flatness” trend. or The Drive, where they manage to convey the brand’s use of the phrase “digital touchpoints.”

    I don’t know whether this will make any more sense in a few or even many months — which is relevant because of BMW. Four years ago, one of the industry’s design leaders expressed strong this new style, and I didn’t get it. But it’s worn better than most, and superlatively on occasion — check out the logo’s use on the Vision Neue Klasse X:

    Rather than a standalone, plastic part sitting on the paint, it’s etched into the finish. Man, I hope that makes it into production.

    Neue Klasse: do like. Bull? No so much.

    Update, 2 April: BrandNew, itself sporting a new look, has weighed in on the new Lambo style, calling it “not good.” (FYI, BrandNew is a subscription, quite possibly the best $20/year someone interested in design can spend.)

    • 1
      Motor1 also has a decent roundup of new car logos, from 2016-present, which underscores the “flatness” trend.
  • Beautifully Briefed 24.2: February Favorites

    Beautifully Briefed 24.2: February Favorites

    This time, book design times two, book cutouts, album covers, and a reflection on my 2023 photographs. It’s one of those Februaries, so let’s leap into it.

    Jodi Hunt’s Great British Design
    Screen print by Kate Gibb, lettering by Jodi Hunt, and photograph by Adaeze Okaro.

    You might recognize the above book cover from my 2023 Favorite Book Covers post, a fantastic series of choices that speak to all colors while definitively saying, “Black.” It’s Nice That has a short post talking about Jodi Hunt, who designer that cover — and more.

    Design by Jodi Hunt.

    The screen printing is prominent here, too, and the interaction between that and title are, to borrow a Britishism, “ace.” And the below, with its slightly haunting image treatment (and that great text, lower left), also earns kudos:

    Design by Jodi Hunt.

    Great design, deservedly highlighted. See the other examples here.

    The original Book Design
    Ernest Lefébure, Embroidery and Lace: Their Manufacture and History from the Remotest Antiquity to the Present Day (1888), with binding created by May Morris

    Before there was book design, or even graphic design — that is, when books and pages were thought of as art instead of design — folks were still coming up with great book covers. The Grolier Club, “America’s oldest and largest society for bibliophiles and enthusiasts,” has a wonderful exhibit of cover design . . . made up exclusively of antiques.

    Lynd Ward, Gods’ Man: A Novel in Woodcuts, 1929, and Madman’s Drum: A Novel in Woodcuts, 1930.

    One of the most memorable artworks […] is a sumptuous but comparatively delicate volume, a 1643 book of psalms created in London. Atmospheric exposure usually turns white silk-bound editions tan and brown, but this cover is a shiny cream color. The polychrome silk and gold metallic threads, which wind around one another to form a colorful floral pattern, maintain an eye-catching vibrancy. The only sign of the book’s age is the oxidized silver “stumpwork,” a type of raised embroidery that in this case resembles beading.

    — Elaine Velie, Hyperallergic

    The quote above refers to the book in this month’s cover image, second from left, and is but one where what you see isn’t necessarily what you think it is — it’s more complex, more interesting, made with what the artist had available in the day. Great reminders, all, that book design has a much longer history than what we think of when we hear the term.

    Check out that Hyperallergic article, another on This is Colossal, or, if you’re near NYC, go to the exhibit at the Grolier, 66th and Park. If, like me, you’re not able to visit in person, give them props for also posting the exhibit online.

    Books Manufacture Realities

    “Meticulous incisions and methodical folding allow scenes to arise from aged books and color swatches in Thomas Allen’s paper cutouts,” This is Colossal notes — but a picture is worth a thousand words:

    Timber by Thomas Allen.

    The vintage paperback work happened by complete accident. I was cutting into a pulp novel one afternoon with the intent of removing the illustration completely when I noticed that if I left some areas attached, folded the parts carefully, and looked at them from a single vantage point so that everything aligned, they created the illusion of 3D pop-ups. Everything snowballed from there.

    — Thomas Allen, via This is Colossal
    The three-hour cutout: Shipwreck, by Thomas Allen.

    Here’s his desk — whoa:

    Test cutouts in Allen’s studio, via This is Colossal.

    The article is a must-read. Awesome stuff.

    The Article’s Great — but the Headline is the Point.

    “Virality over Creativity.” Few things summarize the last few years more — it’s always about getting eyeballs, not about truth or quality. It’s satisfying the algorithm. Because, of course, these days, media is social.

    Real or AI?

    POV, a new series of articles from It’s Nice That examines, in this case, creativity and AI in design for the music industry. “If an artist isn’t putting a piece of themselves and their experience into the work,” it asks, “why should anyone care?”

    All valid questions, yes. But it’s the headline that provides another potential word of the year: virality.

    The times we live in . . . .

    Some of my Favorite 2023 Photographs

    I’ve updated my photography page with my favorites of 2023, including these two:

    Blue Against Blue Against Blue, 943 Ellis St.

    The above, taken in Augusta, is architecture that doesn’t make me feel blue, while the below, taken on the main street in Sparta, does:

    Bulb Moment, 12745 Broad St.

    A couple of reflections: I didn’t get out as much as I did in 2022, and regret it, and have somehow pretty much eschewed both black-and-white and effects (film grain, light leaks, etc.), and kind of regret that, too. Both things to do differently in 2024.

    That said, six years after investing in a different style of photography, I’m settling in — and looking forward to the future. I hope you are, too.

  • Beautifully Briefed 24.1: Optimism, Hopefully

    Beautifully Briefed 24.1: Optimism, Hopefully

    In this installment, Honda’s new(ish) logo, the Travel Photographer of the Year 2023 winners, and the Macintosh turns 40. Plus, one more thing. But first:

    My Favorite Book Covers of 2023

    In case you missed it, the annual favorite book covers post is up — all 78 items (plus some extras). It’s best viewed large, so click and enjoy.

    Honda’s New Logo: Not a Zero
    Not a zero — an “H.” Clever(ish).

    As car manufacturers go, Honda’s tiny. As a result, they’re way behind on the electric push: they’ve got some hybrid stuff, a hydrogen fuel-cell item only available in California, and a new battery vehicle built by GM. Not where you want to be in 2024.

    So they’re trying to make a splash. And to their credit, they’re doing it in an attention-getting style. Introducing the Honda Zero series, starting with the Saloon:

    Futuristic indeed.
    There’s no mistaking this for an Accord — but then, that’s the idea.

    And the Honda Zero Space Hub:

    Not minivan, Space Hub. (The no-rear-window thing is becoming a trend, alas.)

    Other Zero Series cars will follow, and of course, being concepts, details are scarce. Both concepts, however, highlight a new logo for Honda’s EV effort:

    Yeah, not earth-shattering. (And distinct from the Zero-series logo, above, which does not seem to appear on the cars — only marketing materials.) Here’s a history, for reference:

    It’s worth noting that the non-electric cars will retain the current logo they’ve used since 2001. Read more at Motor1 or The Drive. (The latter has more on Honda’s Zero cars, too.)

    2023 Travel Photographer of the Year (Contest)

    Disclaimer up front: it’s another pay-to-enter photography contest, which seem to have proliferated. The problem here is the outstanding quality of output — perhaps I should just get over it and move on.

    The rules of this one require both prints for final judging, no composite images, no AI, and a RAW file to check results against. All of which mean, to me at least, a higher level of achievement in order to enter. Okay.

    Shout out to the BBC for bringing this year’s winners to my — our — attention.

    Travel Photograph of the Year 2023 overall winner: AndreJa Ravnak, Slovenia

    Slovenia is a beautiful country, and AndreJa Ravnak’s winning portfolio of photographs absolutely reflects both that and its hard-working agricultural nature. But there’s more:

    Nature, Wildlife, and Conservation Portfolio Winner: Martin Broen, USA

    A “ray of sunshine” joke here . . . .

    Leisure and Adventure Winner: Andrea Peruzzi, Italy

    Certainly a lesson in how not to enjoy the wonderful city of Petra, in the Jordanian desert — but an attention-getting photograph.

    Landscape and Environment Portfolio Winner: Armand Sarlangue, France

    Seriously amazing stuff: moody, dramatic, and yes, fluvial morphology. Nice.

    See more at the Travel Photographer of the Year website. (Also via PetaPixel.)

    The Macintosh Turns 40

    1984 seems like so very long ago — and let’s face it: 40 years is a long time. Indeed, these forty years of technological progress has been unrivaled in human history. But the Mac is not only still with us but better than ever.

    A Mac Plus, circa 1986.

    There are a stack of articles that’ll retrace the history, tell a story, cite unusual examples of the breed, or even come up with the original press release:

    We believe that [this] technology represents the future direction of all personal computers,” said Steven P. Jobs, Chairman of the Board of Apple. “Macintosh makes this technology available for the first time to a broad audience–at a price and size unavailable from any other manufacturer. By virtue of the large amount of software written for them, the Apple II and the IBM PC became the personal-computer industry’s first two standards. We expect Macintosh to become the third industry standard.

    — Apple Computer, January 24, 1984

    My first Mac was the one pictured above: a 1989 Mac Plus, with an external 20MB (!) Jasmine hard drive. (I even still have the case, although mine was a black Targus item.) It didn’t last long, though, because I’d been bitten by the graphic design craze and soon traded it for a Mac called a Quadra, with its separate 256-color monitor.

    A preview of the future: 2000’s PowerMac G4 Cube.

    Such was the pace of technology those days: that one was replaced with another, then another. (Including one of the Macs pictured at the top of the post. Bonus points if you know which it is.) I did not have the G4 Cube, pictured above, because by then I was rocking a tower and scoffed at Apple’s first attempt at desktop miniaturization — not to mention the inferior quality of the first generations of flat screens.

    All-in-ones were — and remain — the domain of Apple’s iMac.

    But less than ten years later, the computer had become part of the flat screen, and these days, I’m still using a 27″ iMac. Sure, its days are numbered, but I love its ability to get huge book and photography projects out the door with a minimum of fuss — all in a simple, elegant package with very much more than a passing resemblance to the original Macintosh.

    Here’s to another 40 years, Apple. Congrats.

    Special Bonus: There are few folks more “Mac” than John Siracusa, who has penned a thoughtful piece on AI: “I Made This.” (Via Pixel Envy.)

    One More Thing: Word of the Year, 2023

    From none other than Cory Doctorow: “enshittification.”

    Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.

    — Cory Doctorow, Pluralistic, 21 January 2023

    He’s specifically referring to TikTok, and cites Amazon and then Facebook as further examples, but oh, so many, many other items apply. I’ve not read something that represents where we sit — in America, sure, but beyond — at the start of 2024.

    And this year promises to be a doozy.

    “‘Monetize’ is a terrible word that tacitly admits that there is no such thing as an ‘Attention Economy,’” he writes. And yet, “monetize” is where business, education, and perhaps society is at. Ug.

    The whole thing is fantastic and very much worth a read. But, “[n]ow that [they] have been infected by enshittifcation, the only thing left is to kill [them] with fire” might be taking things a bit far. Let’s hope — and work — for a better solution. For all of us.