Noisy Decent Graphics

Worker bee, the symbol of Manchester

This is the floor of Manchester town hall. It’s a grand neo-gothic building built in 1877. The floor is a mosaic of worker bees.

There are worker bees all over the city. I never really noticed them until Malcolm Garrett pointed them out to me.

They are everywhere once you start looking.

Yesterday Manchester Evening News published an article asking Why is a bee the symbol of Manchester?

Because it represents “the city’s hard-working past, during the Industrial Revolution. Textile mills that were commonly described as ‘hives of activity’ and the workers inside them compared to bees.”

Wikipedia has more “Seven bees are included in the crest of the city's arms which were granted to the Borough of Manchester in 1842.”

Here's a new one that got added this week.

A good symbol for a good city.

Picture from here.

 

BINR; Paula Scher: Works

I’ve only had this book a few days so it’s no surprise I’ve not read it. In fact, I’ll never read it. That's the point of this blogging series.

This is a good book. Simple monograph of Paula Scher put together by Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy who both know Paula well.

I like Paula and her work a lot. Her output is vast and the book reflects that, page after page of bold, vibrant, energetic graphic design. I flick through it in the video below and I think it’s the longest video in this series. Some lovely work in there. Nice big pictures.

There’s an interview by Shaughnessy, he’s good at that sort of thing so I would imagine that’s good too.

They also discuss some of the projects in depth and where Paula has worked with a client a long time, like Public Theater, that format looks like it works really well. As ever Paula has strong opinions and isn't afraid to state them.

Any graphic design that isn’t by Paula, like the cover and the chapter pages, I presume were designed by Tony Brook and Spin. They are lovely and fit the subject without getting in the way. The book is too heavy to read, like all good design books.

Here's a video of me flicking through the book. Excitingly this one has sound.

Paula Scher: Works from Ben Terrett on Vimeo.

You should probably buy this and you can from Unit Editions.

Part of a series; Reviews of books I’ll never read.