In August-September ’08, I was lucky enough, along with my illustration partner Olivia Edith Fuente, to have a show with the Melbourne-based Sarah Beetson. Her work is amazing fresh and as delicious as 2-D as possible. Here is a link to more of her work.

Check out Néojaponisme’s collection of “fanshee” (“fancy”) Japanese lettering in their Moji Salvage collection.

This style of lettering is mainly found on signage for cafés, “snack bars”, cake shops, and assorted 1950s-1990s service-oriented businesses across Japan. It is intended to be sophisticated, but just as often comes across as tawdry in the contemporary context.

Similar in tone to the “moderne” lettering that Ed Fella rendered in Detroit in the 1960s and 1970s, ファンシ lettering/characters are an exciting and little-explored branch of the global family of lettering.

Idea Magazine is hosting a lecture on the work of Swiss typographer and design educator Emil Ruder on Valentine’s Day in Tokyo. More.

Entrance is limited to 120 folks. ¥700 admission. Aoyama Books Omotesando flagship store.

What better way to beat the winter doldrums than to participate in a music swap with other audiophiles around the country? A friend of mine in San Francisco, Amie Leeking, proposed a winter mix cd swap among 6 friends of hers. One mix is new songs we like, and one is old classics/personal favorites. In February, I am receiving 10 mixes from mostly strangers, from NYC to SF to Tennessee, a sure way to both learn about new music, and combat the mid-winter blues that accompany some of us here in Portland, OR. For my mix I’m including songs by Santogold, the Antony, Hercules and Love Affair, the New Bloods, and Chromatics.