BLACK FACE

An austere, Bible-like elegy by the Swiss design team of Dimitri Bruni & Manuel Krebs.

SUNNY SIDE

Vivid booklet and packaging by Experimental Jetset for a lecture addressing the subject of the sun in pop music.

PALE BLUE

An exhibition catalog cover from a 2008 show at the Aspen Art Museum.

DOUBLE D

A selection of inspiring D’s from Daily Drop Cap and Baubauhaus.

DRAWING ROOM

Despite their dependency on computers, some designers still find expression in drawing the old fashioned way.  Here, a lyrical pencil drawing by the industrial designer, Pierre Charpin.

FATHER TIME

My father would solve Sunday’s New York Times crossword puzzle in pen, without ever needing to correct a single letter. From him, I inherited a love for words, an obsession with newspapers, and the compulsion to write. I did not, however, inherit his effortlessly elegant penmanship or his ability to create a nearly flawless, hand-written page of commentaries–hand-written even though a typewriter would have saved him time.  Time, of course, moves on, and the keyboard has long since taken over as primary writing implement. But the vestiges of some lives will still attest to an undying love affair with pen and paper. Old habits, like strands of DNA, die hard.

STARDUST

Maybe only David Bowie (circa 1976) is capable of making a mug shot look this stylish.

SONGBOOK

A spread from a 1949 edition of the 19th Century French poetic novel, Les Chants de Maldoror (The Songs of Maldoror).

SOLID STRIPES

Identity for the Nuremberg branch of Die Neue Sammlung, Germany’s leading museum of industrial and product design.

LITTLE LOVE

A postcard design from the Dutch studio,  Experimental Jetset, in MOMA’s permanent collection.