Books & Magazines
-
Edinburgh Civic Survey – 1949
I stumbled across this civic survey and plan for Edinburgh from 1949 whilst on a city break up there a couple of weeks ago and had to buy it. This huge book (280 x 360mm & 111 pages) is full of the most incredible post-war maps of the city.
Prepared by Patrick Abercrombie and Derek Plumstead for the Town Council, the book contains detailed data for traffic, health, education, recreation, population density and so on, beautifully depicted in a series of maps, charts and diagrams. This page for example, shows the distribution of authority (red) and non-authority schools (black) in Edinburgh.
Each dot on the map represents a pupil, solid for secondary and outline for primary, also colour coded to indicate whether they attend an authority or non-authority school.
This page compares pre-and post war traffic accidents.
The supporting text concludes “from the number, size and colour of the symbols it is at once apparent which are the most dangerous points in the road system where accidents occurred in 1937 and recurred in 1946…
…while the coloured portions of the segments indicate the number of times an accident occurred at any one of these points during the two years.”
The typography is a treat…
…as are the compasses that sit at the foot of each map under the key…
…the illustrations…
…the historic street plans (this one dates from 1819)…
…and the detail in each of the 25 fold-out maps.
The greatest surprise though, were the 3 biggest maps that were hiding in a sleeve inside the back cover.
The biggest one is a land use survey of the whole of Edinburgh, at a scale of 1:5000 its over a metre wide. This’ll be framed and on my wall at home before too long.
Edinburgh is full of really interesting second hand bookshops. This book was found at the back of Edinburgh Books in West Port. I recommend paying them a visit if you’re ever in town. Full set of photos on our Flickr.
-
Applied Works in print
We’re very pleased to have received two books featuring our work recently. The first, ‘The Graphic Design Exercise Book’ by Carolyn Knight and Jessica Glaser (below), published by Rotovision, includes work for Save the Children, Spiritualized, Friends Reunited, Miguel Mera, Giles Revell and Dealerward.
The second is ‘Motion Graphic Design – Applied History and Aesthetics’ by Jon Krasner and published by Focal Press, which features our title sequence for Amulet Films’ short film ‘Moth’ and one from the archives – my first project after leaving college in 1997, a title sequence for ice hockey series ‘Inferno’ (below).
-
Rework
I have a pretty long commute to and from the studio each day, with an hours uninterrupted train journey each way, and when I’m not asleep I usually pass the time by reading something (so expect a few more book related posts to appear here). My last two train rides have been filled by a book called ‘Rework – Change the way you work forever’, not the kind of title that would normally feature high up my list of future reads. However, two things attracted me to this book – the conflicting reviews I’d read, and the authors – they’re the key people behind 37signals, the development company responsible for project management software called Basecamp – an integral part of our working day at Applied Works.
There is much I like about the book, and having worked with a few start-ups over the years, I think many would benefit from adding this to their bookshelf. In broad terms the message throughout is to reject as the only option, some commonly held notions of what it is to be professional or successful in business – or put another way, have the confidence to do it your way. I also like the over-arching theme of making things more simple – the book itself has been edited down to a two hour read (and I’m not a quick reader), which is a great example in itself of the effectiveness of being concise.
As with any ‘advice’ themed book the only sensible approach is to try out those aspects which are well suited to your particular situation – it’s not a blueprint for conducting business. And there are many aspects of business tackled in the book, all with catchy titles and illustrated statements, eg. ‘Meetings are toxic’ and ‘Resumés are ridiculous’. But if I had to pick out passages that I particularly identify with, they’d have to be ‘ASAP is poison’ and ‘Go to sleep’.
-
We Are What We Do
We’ve recently been introduced to We Are What We Do, a movement that inspires people to use their everyday actions to change the world. They’ve published two books, the bestselling ‘Change the World for a Fiver’ and the just-released ‘Change the World 9 to 5’. They’re lovely books and enormously worthwhile to boot. They can be purchased at a wide range of bookstores and online at www.wearewhatwedo.org
