Designblog

Walking down the alleys in search of an appealing set of words proved itself being quite misleading, design-wise. Leaving me with the absurd yet strongly totemic ‘Independent animal west coast gives’.

I like to complain about the library’s limited scope. Tell about leaving the small glass room, heading to central Amsterdam’s libraries and bookshops, consciously neglecting a couple of very nice surprises, all of which I found sitting on the Z chair facing the catalogue computer.

When in doubt, turn to a search engine.

Independent, 2 entries: 705.8-cat-184 and 707.8-sie-1.
Animal, 6 entries: 702.4-jet-1, 593.0-muy-2b, 593.0-ell-2 (not to be found), 772.9-bra-1, -war-9 and 772.9-cat-59.
West Coast: No entries.
Give, 2 entries: 772.9-lam-1 and 777.6-cat-291.

Fitting within the given design field are two sober monograph-esque books: Lindfors: Rational animal: Selected projects from Stefan Lindfors’ first 15 years as an artist and Given: jewellery by Warwick Freeman, plus two more thematic publications: Domestic animals: The neoprimitive style and Perception and lightning as formgivers for architecture.

Of all the attempts to make these four books one—reference/number compilation, chance, arbitrary choice, sophistic attempts to relate one to textile design or sign language—the one I find most exciting on this Thursday night is graphic compilation. I’m humbly trying to keep in mind the cover of Wire’s On Returning, a clever mix-up of the band’s three first album covers Stuart Bailey coined as a rare artefact of valid graphic design (or something alike) in a semi-old (#11) Dot Dot Dot issue.

cat.nr: 772.9-bra-1 + 772.9-lam-1 + 772.9-cat-59 + 777.6-cat-291

keyword: independent