INK SPOT

The British designer Daniel Eatock found a singular way to personalize each copy of his monograph, Imprint.  He marked the spine of every book with his thumb print, and has a video to prove it. Now, that’s a lot of ink.

FINE PRINT

        

Ink posters and Modernist interiors appear to be a picture-perfect combination.  The UK-based team makes simple, graphic screen prints designed specifically to be affordable, accessible wall art.  “Some of our work is deep and meaningful and some of it—well—isn’t.”  Deep or not, it’s fine art.

iPAINT

Along with the rest of us, the great David Hockney has been seduced by the iPhone.  “I lie in bed and send illustrated art lectures to friends and also my own iPhone paintings. I like to draw flowers by hand on the iPhone and send them out to friends so they get fresh flowers.”  

CROSS BEARERS

Logo Design Love has a nice compilation of logos that feature crosses.

FINAL FOUR

The four finalists for Britain’s unfailingly irritating (or does it only seem that way?) Turner Prize have been announced.  Roger Hiorns, whose best-known work, Seizure, is pictured above, is one of the four, and a slideshow of all the finalists’ work can be viewed here.  The winner will be announced on December 7.

HOLE MARK

The New York City Opera’s new “black dot” (or black hole?) logo, designed by 2×4.  According to 2×4‘s Susan Sellers, “Opera deals with darkness and schizophrenia, and in a time when we’ve been so deluded, that directness is reassuring.”  Hmm.

MEXICAN GOLD

Robert Capa, a founding member of the Magnum photo agency, chronicled the Spanish Civil War before leaving Europe for America in 1939. Three cardboard boxes containing thousands of negatives of that war by Capa and fellow photographers, unseen for 70 years, were found in Mexico City last year.  The International Center of Photography has been painstakingly archiving the contents of the “Mexican Suitcase,” and a major exhibition is planned for 2010.  For now, though, the New York Times has a brief preview via a slide show of 14 revealing photographs. 

ALPHABET CITY

Character is a Finland-based company that turns discarded commercial signage into single-letter, illuminated object d’art.   The signs are dismantled and retrofitted with LED lights and power cords–and shown off to haunting effect on their website, thanks to some beautifully imaginative photography.