destroyer · ken

July 21, 2017 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

I've sent some packaging to press for Destroyer at Merge Records. Destroyer is Daniel Bejar's project who some people know from The New Pornographers. I've always been a big fan of Destroyer, and one of my first design projects was a record for him, so this was a nice return. The new album, ken, is really good. I'm really terrible at describing music, but Tinseltown Swimming in Blood is an on-repeat song for me, it's really catchy and a little New Order-y. I really liked the whole album.

The digital file isn't quite getting the grey here: it's a really beautiful, cloudy pale grey that we set as a Pantone, so it will be laid down as a nice solid and not a dotty screen.

I'll put up some rejected sketches here, too, because I always like to see other designers' sketches. To source artwork, I went through a lot of old theatre set textbooks at the university near me. The one we used on the cover is by Per Schwab for ‘After the Fall’ by Arthur Miller
at the National Theatre, Oslo, 1965 (Photo: Sturlason). It is one of my favourite parts of designing to do research and this was one of the nicer ones to research.

black & bitmap

July 5, 2017 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

This is a post for one of my classes with tips on (a) managing black ink and (b) using bitmap tifs. I briefly mention PDF settings at the end.

roman orthography & syllabics

July 2, 2017 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

Wild Berries; Pikaci-Minisa; ᐸᐠᐘ ᒋ ᒥᓂᓴ; Pakwa che Menisu

In working on book design projects with Cree text, I found some information hard to find just by googling and sometimes I felt confused. I'm going to share my notes for anyone who, like I did, needs a bit of a primer to get oriented. This is partly a place to send my typography students as a step to further resources when we cover non-roman orthography and emerging typographic practices in class.

There are lots of great resources for anyone who would like to get a better understanding of the Cree language, which I'll put at the top of the post. I am not an authority on Cree, and only hope to provide some context for designers from outside the community who would like to prepare to work with Cree text.

My perspective here is as an English-speaker and a typesetter, and someone new to Cree. Arden Ogg & Dorothy Thunder have both taken time to answer questions from me over the past few years, and I'm really grateful to them for their time.

The specific text examples I am using here are mostly from books by Julie Flett set in several Western Cree dialects, because they are projects I've worked on, and where I learned a lot of this information. This post will be looking at Cree set in roman orthography and in Western syllabics.

pinclips for hanging

November 23, 2016 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

These clever little pin clips are good for hanging paper art without damaging them. Ask for them behind the counter at Paper Ya in Vancouver or order a box from Japanese Paper Place in Toronto. Claire from our Windy Art department gave me this tip (she's a great crafter and knows all the tricks).

the red wheelbarrow

November 18, 2013 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens

— William Carlos Williams, Spring and All, 1923

ink lab

November 3, 2013 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

mixing table in the ink lab, hemlock printers

little you

April 16, 2013 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

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This weekend Auggie & I went to a launch for Little You, a new board book byRichard Van Camp and illustrated by Julie Flett. It's a beautiful book, and very heartfelt and sweet. The book is put out by Orca Books and designed by Orca's head designer, Teresa Bubela. (I think she made a great choice in inviting Julie to illustrate this book, it's turned out to be super lovely, so well done her, too.) Collage Collage has prints from the book for sale as well, though I don't think they are yet up on their web site for viewing. The kids made collage crickets and fireflies with masses and masses of googly eyes and ate pink-iced moon biscuits! Smash hit all around.

how to

February 4, 2013 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

How To by Julie Morstad is back from press and it looks amazing. I feel so lucky to have had the chance to design this project. Julie Morstad's work gets stronger and stronger. It's inspiring to watch her body of work grow. Auggie loves this book and even read it to me. I love the simplicity of the theme and of course the illustrations.

la rampa

January 21, 2013 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

A few years ago I designed a series of magazines for La Rampa publications. These were large format travel, culture & lifestyle magazines featuring beautiful photography by Chantal James (also the editor-in-chief). Now that it's so easy to publish online, I've put the full magazines up on issuu: Haiti Cherie, Cuba La Perla and Brasil Vai com Deus. I put these up on request of the publisher.

bookstand ♥♥♥

January 8, 2013 Robin Mitchell Cranfield

This morning I saw this pin and followed it to this interview with Claire Cottrell and discovered bookstand. I am in love.

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One of the books (sold out) on bookstand is a flower with love which is one of my favourite bruno munari books. I found it at the public library before I actually knew who bruno munari was.