I had the pleasure of once again publishing a piece for the Read & Trust Newsletter this morning – of which you might be interested in signing up for – which triggered my thinking that it’s probably OK if I actually share some of my previous work I’ve submitted for it. Maybe the statute of limitations has run out on one or two of them and you can get a taste of what you just might be missing out on. Hope it doesn’t get me a seat on the bench.
Here is a piece I did late last Spring on the topic Quality vs Quantity. Instead of doing a straight written piece on the subject, I chose to go a different route and describe my thoughts on quality vs quantity in sketch form. As you can tell, I work with a mouse and a keyboard for a living, not a pencil and paper. I also followed Shawn Blanc by a week on the same subject and by my rough calculations, he was most definitely the winner.
If you’re on the fence about subscribing, I’d encourage you to give it a go. I’m definitely the weakest link in the chain.
Nothing says, “I’m ready to settle in for a viewing of The Devil Wears Prada or 29 Dresses,” like a bag of popcorn. My arteries know that quality should win out here but if you think I’m settling for some weak, butter-free, half-bag of kernals, you are sorely mistaken. I’ll take the jumbo-mega-super-large bag with extra butter. It’s the only one that comes with free refills.
I mused my love for An Illustrated Guide a few months ago but sadly it’s been a bit neglected since then. Figured I’d steal their thunder and post one I found this week at the library for Cohen who initially didn’t want to check it out but has since requested it back-to-back-to-back on a number of occasions.
Iggy Peck, Architect
Both the illustrations and the story are good in this one. Four thumbs up (Dad and Cohen). Recommended ages 4-8.
Yes, it’s a post about more illustration-type stuff. No, that’s not the sole focus of this online journal but one more consecutive post might push us over the edge.
An Illustrated Guide is a fun little single-serving blog I’ve been following for a bit that serves as a mini book-review of illustrated childrens’ books. Both the concept and execution are simple and well done. It’s definitely one of those, ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ type ideas.
Each book is categorized any number of ways: digital, junior, wordy, etc and shortly described to give you just enough to consider picking up a copy for your little ones. My favorite part is the recommendation they provide at the end of each review, things like:
The perfect book for the royalist.
The perfect book for the hipster child within.
The perfect book for a pint-sized Sherlock.
The nerd in me also digs the fact that they used a little -webkit-transform coding magic as you rollover the book covers as well. In most browsers you’ll probably see the image rotate a bit but if you’ll pull it up in Safari or Chrome you get the full effect. Nerd dads unite.
Definitely an easy (and resourceful) tool to throw in your RSS feeds for those of you with little ones.
PS. While your kid will probably enjoy any of the books you get them from a site like this, their enjoyment of them would be one-hundred fold if you decided to sit down and actually read it with them. Just FYI.
Cleaning out my ShoveBox last week I stumbled across a link1 I had thrown in there a while back for Lotta Nieminen. Originally from Helsinki, Finland and now residing in the greatest city on earth, Lotta’s skills are impressive across the board but her illustration style is what caught my eye. Some of my favorites below:
Swiss graphic design firm Pixelfarm produced these fun little illustrations that should please most fans of The Office. Now if they could help get the writing on the show back up to season 3 levels I’d be really happy. Click through to their website to see the entire cast.
