Sadly, a magazine ends. Farewell to I.D. The oldest design magazine in the country, it was 55 years old. It was one of the few design magazines I wrote for, at least when Julie Lasky was editor. Julie and several other editors wisely jumped ship last year amid increasing cuts in staff and budget. I reconnected with editors there recently and was in the middle of writing an article on the trend in the creative use of paper in art and design. I haven't heard from them in a while, and this would explain why. I can already hear the e-stampede of mid-article freelancers sending their ill-fated I.D. stories to AIGA's Voice and Design Observer; I will likely be one of them. I always loved the elegant layout of I.D., how all that white space increased the importance of what they included. Now, it's all white space.... Hopefully they'll archive all back issues online.
People have been asking where they can buy my books. It varies a bit. You can always check my website, type my name into Amazon or Powells, or even email me directly. Otherwise, here's a quick list of links for each book.
1. There's Nothing Funny About Design ($18-25): Amazon, Powells, Barnes & Noble, Princeton, Chronicle. It's even in some bookstores, like Barnes & Noble.
2. American Home Life ($12): new copies at Powells, from me, and from the publisher; other copies through resellers at Amazon.
3. Johnny Red ($7-16): Amazon, Powells, the publisher, and me.
4. What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years? ($20): Powells, and me here and here.
5. Opium Magazine: current issue 9 and back issues at Opium; Opium 3 at Amazon; back issues 3, 5 and 6 from me.
6. Unbound ($25 or $4.99): This is the book on the future of the legal industry, with info here; purchase it through the publisher; at Amazon in hardcover or Kindle; can also get a signed copy from me.
7. The Dead Bug Funeral Kit ($20): there are only five left, available through me.
8. American Mutt Barks in the Yard: Emigre 68: This is pretty much sold out. New and used copies are at Amazon. They are expensive. A few pages of American Mutt are reprinted in Emigre 70, a best-of collection (see post below). That's at Amazon and Emigre.
9. We Were Ugly So We Made Beautiful Things ($7-8, Kindle $2.50): Amazon, Powells, Barnes and Noble, Word Riot.
10. The Leap and Other Mistakes ($10-35): I took this out of print way over a year ago, but for some reason you can still find new (and of course used) copies at Alibris, Amazon, and Barnes&Noble. I don't get any royalties for these, so I don't know what's going on.
11. Other stuff, like the Writer's Specimen, Picasso Plates, postcards, posters, and more, can be had through me at my site.
Tonight, December 1, a ring surrounded the moon. Turns out it's common. Moonlight (sunlight bouncing off the moon) is refracted by ice crystals in the atmosphere, which focuses the light into a ring.
It's crazy lovely that my contribution to Emigre, American Mutt Barks in the Yard: Emigre 68, sits atop the stack on the back cover of the new Emigre 70. It's the "Look Back" issue, a 512-page best-of volume of Emigre magazine. It's an amazing book (it's on my gift list), and it's surreal that my little bright-blue book is right there on the back. (An excerpt is in the big book, too.) I think my Emigre 68 is like the drum solo when the rest of the band takes a breather and gets a drink before they come out and close the concert with the anthem of Emigre 69, the last issue. Then, in the darkness and the applause, the band returns for the grand-finale encore of Emigre 70, a remixed crowd-pleaser of greatest hits. Put 70 on your gift list.
