On Friday, I received my much anticipated copy of Ruud Linssen’s Book of war, mortification and love in the mail. Published by one of my favourite typefoundries, Underware, the book, which consists of a collection of personal essays on the concept of “voluntary suffering”, also acts as a type specimen for their Blackletter typeface Fakir.

The book is beautifully designed and crafted, which is not a surprise given the quality of Underware’s work. I was pleasantly surprised by how well Fakir reads as a text face though, since I had always considered it a bit of a playful display typeface. Even more impressive is how well it sits in such a serious and sombre context, accentuating the darkness of the essays with its jagged edges.

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To make up for the negativity of the previous post and the recent lack of activity on this site, please enjoy this series of lovely murals by Steve Powers in Philadeplhia. Much love!

As a little bonus, have a listen to this hauntingly beautiful session from Bon Iver.

The following is a rough transcript of the presentation (in franglais) I gave last week at Pecha Kucha Night MTL. For those that are unfamiliar with the event’s format, presenters are asked to present 20 slides, commenting on each for 20 seconds, resulting in a fast-paced 6m40s presentation. More details about the event here.

01. This is my desk. The organisers asked me to focus on presenting process work tonight, and I think it’s equally important to always look at context, so here’s my desk, my after-hours working environment, and over the next few slides, I’ll explain a bit about who I am to further contextualise what I’m going to be presenting.

02. Je suis un designer graphique avec des tendances anarchiste. Ça veut dire quoi avoir des tendances anarchistes? Pour moi ça veut dire que je crois fortement dans la collectivité non-hierarchique, je m’alinge avec des luttes minoritaires, et que je suis un romantique sans espoir. Par contre je ne suis pas un member du AIGA, mais je trouvai l’illustration assez drole.

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A few days late, but I thought it would be a nice idea to mark the end of what ironically always feels like the longest (and darkest) month here in Montreal with a long and chunky post filled with inspirational images selected from all my various feeds. Hope you enjoy the collection, and if there’s a modicum of interest, maybe I’ll make this into a regular feature.

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The latest redesign of the design content site Thinking for a Living is turning web paradigms onto their side. With mobile standards in mind, an intuitive and simplified navigation, alongside a very refined approach to web typography, I have a feeling that this site could really change how we design for the web. Built with XHTML/CSS and jQuery, the site is delivered through WordPress but feels nothing like it…

It’s a site I’ve often visited for their quality content and design coverage, which is generally more in-depth and better written than most design “blogs” out there (yours truly included). Now it’s even easier on the eyes and provides a really fluid reading experience. Way to go guys. Hopefully this thoughtful, holistic, and detail-oriented approach to design serving content catches on.

Read about the redesign in the first issue here.

I quickly whipped up these poemcards to promote the upcoming issue at expozine. Click on the image above to view the individual cards. Just a little taste of things to come.

A while back I mentioned a series of art posters I had designed to promote and raise funds for 2356. So finally, here they are! If you’re interested in purchasing one or more and supporting the cause, please drop me a line. Size is in and around 12″ x 18″, printed digitally on matte archival stock. More designs will be coming soon once I get the new studio set up (pics of that will be coming soon too!).

Purely positive inspiration from Eric Smith and friends.

Some great news for web designers/integrators who truly care about good typographic standards (I know there are some of you out there!). My former co-worker Stephane Curzi introduces Baseline, a designer framework that beautifully translates classical typographic standards to the web. Baseline is elegant, flexible and robust and it’s available as a free download that contains CSS files, a Photoshop document and a full set of HTML templates.

Its initiatives like these, with their minute attention to detail, that will finally make the web worth reading. Good work Stephane!