ROUGH CUT

Beautiful identity and business card–screen print on unbleached paper–designed by the Manchester, UK design studio, Music.

SUFFERING & SILENCE

To create a seminal, transcendent, literary work is testament to gifts that remain elusive to would-be writers. To do so by shedding light on the dreary subject of synthetic pesticides is very nearly miraculous. The biologist and writer, Rachel Carson, fortunately for us, was miraculously gifted: possessed with both a brilliant scientific mind, and the uncanny ability to distill ecological data into a work of poetic grace.

Silent Spring, published in 1962, documented indiscriminate pesticide spraying and its disastrous effect on wildlife, and has been called one of the great non-fiction works of the 20th Century.  But perhaps more fundamentally, Rachel Carson, herself battling the ravages of cancer, demonstrated the undying power of intelligent, beautifully-crafted prose–and its ability to expose a grievous wrong, illuminate a nation’s mind, and subsequently, ignite a movement.

Illustration:  Carin Goldberg

VIEW FINDER

Celestial beauty from Kate Steciw.

BRIGHT IDEA

With a nod to tonight’s Earth Hour, a poster finalist for the 2009 Greenpeace Design Awards.

GLOWING WORDS

Neon art by Kent Rogowski, via Jen Bekman gallery.

GROUND RULES

A limited edition print by British graphic designer James Langdon.  It quotes the English landscape architect and child advocate, Marjory Allen, who championed the building of playgrounds as necessary social and creative outlets for children being raised in urban England.

SALTY LANGUAGE

I couldn’t miss this refined Getty Image photograph amidst the noise on Yahoo’s home page–accompanying a story on the push for salt reduction in food.

ENGLISH ROSE

A cover of Times 2, a daily supplement for the London Times, designed by Research Studios.

SELF PORTRAIT

Simple, clever wordplay from More Interpretations.

POKER FACE

Some stark and lovely typographical compositions for a deck of 54 cards–featuring 54 different typefaces.  From Hat-Trick Design.