Month: September 2007

Agapanthus

closeup of agapanthusI’ve been looking at Chinese latticework designs recently and thought some of the patterns would adapt well to a letterpress print. The designs are clean and simple, and greatly enhanced with color. I had already selected a colorway for this pattern when I noticed that the agapanthus in our front yard were almost finished blooming. I always love the spikey blue flowers on long skinny stalks, and decided to ditch my original plan and use the blues and greens from the fading plants.
This is the first in a series of prints based on patterns. It’s a bit different from my other broadsides as it doesn’t have any text. You can see the whole print here.

Marking Time

Publikum calendarFor the past several years, the Pacific Center for the Book Arts has sponsored a year-end show of calendars created by members. The theme the first year was “marking time.” That first year I started to design a calendar but got stuck trying to figure out what “marking time” meant for me. I dislike the rigidity of calendars, but I’m a notorious list maker — just as rigid as keeping a datebook I guess. So the second year I incorporated my list-making habit into my calendar entry with a diary for readers. It’s a slim little book that lets you record and rate the books you read. Maybe not traditional, but it does mark time.
By last year I had stopped worrying about the marking time business and was ready to do something that looked more like what most people think of as a calendar. I wanted to incorporate letterpress into my design, but I didn’t get started until November. So I designed and letterpress printed a flat 5″x7″ card with a quote on the top and the months on the lower half. This card motivated this blog — my adventures designing broadsides.
This year I’ve started earlier with the idea of a calendar that sat on a desk or table, in a propped open jewel case, with one page per month. And it would include some haiku that I’ve been writing. But first I had to get very distracted by some other interesting calendar designs, none of them in English. The Publikum Calendar, published by a Serbian design company, is glorious (there’s more about it here). And this sprial calendar appeals to my notion that time is continuous rather than discrete day-to-day chunks.