New Victionary book about retro design and how it’s appearing in contemporary graphical work. Looks good as both inspiration and a reference tool.

Emerged today as the perfect marriage between old and new, retrospective designs are deemed to be an inevitable phrase in the design cycle when designers begin to look back and find inspirations for new graphic styles in the depressive pixel age. Some think these designs has cheered the digital era with the lost enthusiasm for new findings and the future, others reckon it as a tribute to the prominent art and design movements between 1920 and 1990. Taking a trip down memory lane, Flashback unveils how the epoch persists to be an enduring spring with a bold and pronounced application of colour, shapes, typefaces and illustration works in contemporary graphic art.

Good looking new book called Colour Mania from the folks at Viction:ary!

In a world where everything dances in a veritable kaleidoscope of colours, few of today's uni-colour design has successfully manifested the intrinsic expressive qualities of colours across a variety of design disciplines and genre, including corporate identity, exhibition themes, promotional campaigns, packaging, book designs, illustrations. Arranged in a spectrum of ten colour sections, Colour Mania compiles a simple yet powerful collection of designs that draws on the essence of a range of tints and shades, as well as a rainbow tone that combines every one of them. For a more personalised flavour, the title is available in ten colours for the readers' own choices.

The only thing better than having a few days off and pouring over beautiful books in the family living room? Saving money and having your choice of artistic topics to choose from. The Hong Kong-based viction:design team is offering 20% to 40% off select viction:ary titles, including the visual illustration-focused Fashion Wonderland and the spatial design book When Space Meets Art/When Art Meets Space. If their books about collaboration in visual communication are still available come the end of ‘08, they could make a good houseguest gift when the next holidays roll around.

Our favorite minds at Viction:ary have been busy. Earlier this year, they released Printwork, that showcased different designers demonstrating their printing techniques. Now, they’re about to release Musikgraphics, a book that claims to visualize the rhythm of music. And no, hallucinogenics aren’t required (though they might help). For the 288-page book the editors pulled together images and photographs from a variety of record covers, concert posters, and music packaging across many genres of music. You’ll have to make up your own soundtrack.

This spring, Victionary returns with Printwork, a softcover book that allows 50-plus designers to showcase their printing techniques across 248 pages. The newest edition of our favorite look book seeks to promote those designers who prefer to put a unique mark on their own work, instead of using the tired printing options most often available. While the publication itself does not appear to integrate revolutionary production values, it does offer plenty of items that may spark inspiration — such as or picking up the phone and hiring one of these artists for your own project.

Favorite JS booksmith/art publisher Viction:ary has a few new titles that you won’t find at your local Barnes & Noble, which are well worth your cash/credit spendage:

• Simply Material is a visual compendium of media to use as your canvas. Can you liberate the art from concrete or harness the awesome potential of epoxy resin?
• Fashion Wonderland sounds like a fairly pretentious theme park, but contents of this book are pretty arresting. Tons of designers have contributed the illustrations and art they take their aesthetic cues from.
• Illustration – Play puts the spotlight on 23 international artists and their unique illo medium. Paper cutting, stitchery, hand knit, fabric piecing, origami, patchwork, and more are represented.
• Type Addicted is a thorough read for the font aficionado; see how real typographical artists slice up the Roman alphabet.

Related: Viction:ary Archive

I don’t know what’s more charming about [Art]ifact, the latest book from Hong Kong-based art publisher viction:ary, that it seems like a legitimately great coffee table book of full clever reuses for household items, or that its description on viction:ary’s website may have been done with Babel Fish. Let me elaborate on both points. First the book: subtitled Re-recognizing the essential of products (see second point), [Art]ifact presents some re-purposing (a deflated basketball used as a fruit bowl) and some re-imagining (half of a bathtub turned into a chair). I enjoy these ideas and I think 312 pages of them would be great to have in my living room.

Now, the bad copy writing. Here’s the first sentence of the book’s description: “Obviously, it is about innovative product design that dare to go beyond the conventionality and bring a total havoc to our perception.” I’ve seen some bad Chinglish in my day, and this is by no means the worst, but it may or may not add to many enchanting qualities of the book itself. You be the judge.

Related: Our viction:ary Archive

Logology, the latest title from the folks at Victionary, was just announced. The 288 page leather-bound book is packed full of both case studies and literally dozens upon dozens of examples of breathtaking identity design solutions from graphic designers around the world. Various styles, forms, and concepts of logos are presented in 3 main categories: Typography, Icon and Illustration Contributors include everyone from Adhemas Batista to Zion Graphics– this looks to become a fantastic resource for inspiration.

Often times when you get a book as a gift, you smile nervously, file it away into the book shelf and never glance at again. That’s not likely to happen with the books pictures above– so here are our picks from the vaults for best “books as gifts”, from political to die-hard design, there’s something in here for everyone.

• The Best of Technology Writing: Technology is a pervasive part of our daily lives, and increasingly so. It seems as though with each passing year, technology engulfs another portion of each of us. It is an evolution for which I am… Continue Reading

• Gorrilaz: Rose of the Ogre: As soon as the ‘Clint Eastwood' video came out in 2001, I was impressed by the Gorillaz– in my mind, they really are the pioneers of the visual integration of digital arts into the musical… Continue Reading

• Victionary: Zoom In Zoom Out: Zoom In Zoom Out, the latest book from the folks at Victionary, explores design from a couple of different perspectives to create what appears to be a seriously… Continue Reading

• Stingermania: This is a new and entertaining book called Stingermania by Jan Willem Wennekes, known for his fun and wacky illustrations. Wennekes studied Artificial Intelligence and Philosophy… Continue Reading

• Vintage T-Shirts: If you read this blog a lot, you probably know that we are big fans of great t-shirts. I would wear a t-shirt every day if left to my own devices–I like to think of them as comfortable little canvases… Continue Reading

• World Changing: I've been a WorldChanging blog reader ever since I learned of them through my first invitation to the TED conference last year (I wasn't able to make it, but can't wait for this year's lineup). They just released their first book… Continue Reading

• Rojo Books: Barcelona based Rojo just released a couple of their newest design and art Books. These ones are explained as: Lolo-Blanco, Sakristan-Heads or Tails, Juju's Delivery- The Dead, the damned and the children… Continue Reading

• Talk Back: Anyone who has spent any amount of time in NYC would have noticed the hundreds of thought and speech bubbles strategically placed on advertisements around the city–that's The Bubble Project… Continue Reading

• Real Dutch Design: This year's edition of the Dutch design book is so real that the publishers added the word ‘Real' to the title. Real Dutch Design 2006/2007 is quite possibly the most comprehensive reference for anyone… Continue Reading

• Help, It’s Broken: Are you rendered useless when you're faced with unassembled furniture? A leaky faucet? Broken lamp? If this sounds like you, I've got the book for you that I saw floating around the… Continue Reading

• Freewave: Oooh fonts, designs, goodies, I totally love the concept of Freewave. It's a book and DVD packaged together full of cutting edge design that “allows immediate access to graphic design… Continue Reading

Zoom In Zoom Out, the latest book from the folks at Victionary, explores design from a couple of different perspectives to create what appears to be a seriously hot book. They went through works from what they thought to be the best contemporary designs, and divided them into three parts: Design, Concept, Format and Visual impact. From editorial, identity, promotion and package design standpoints– this book was built to inspire; it’s 288 pages representing the work of literally dozens of artists worldwide.

Victionary recently launched these two new excellent looking titles, Nice To Meet You (left) and Neighbourhood (right). Nice To Meet You is somewhat of a reference/inspiration book which helps tell the secret on how to design a business card to draw others’ attention and make sure it doesn’t end up in the waste basket– the book contains hundreds of examples from literally dozens of artists worldwide. The second book, Neighbourhood is a book by Rinzen, an Australian design collective. The book is a collaborative project to bring artists from around the world together by giving each participant cloth ‘toys’ to paint, stitch, accessorize and restructure. After each piece is restructured, they’re photographed and the toys (parts) are passed on to the next artist to construct.

The newest Victionary publication is all about the most thrilling and inspiring tattoo graphics from designers and artists around the world. The book concentrates on 3 main areas, spread throughout 432 packed color pages: The individual design of tattoo icons and patterns, in your closeup detail pages and finally an interesting excercise to reveal how artists play around with reproduced tattoo graphics on human and animal bodies. It also comes with a handful of fake tattoos to play with and apply safely.

Victionary recently announced their latest release, called “It’s a matter of packaging”, the fourth installment in the Amatterofdesign Series. The book is divided into three sections: Visual, Touch, and Idea, and features the most interesting packaging work from nearly sixty designers around the world. Also, the book includes interviews with Giannis Kouroudis from K2 Designs, Sayuri SHoji from Sayuri Studio and Tom Lancaster from Stylo Design.

Graphic Poetry is a book of “modern poetry” from around the globe–but that’s not all. International designers, and illustrators, have taken the challenge of creating a “visual response” to each of these written poems, their ideas take up spreads throughout the packed 160 page book. More than 50 designers produced original artwork for the occasion–and the foreword was written by Paula Carson, editor of Creative Review. The project was published by Victionary, and the project looks very well executed.

Branding, corporate identity and the corporate design process has long been something I've been intrigued by. The designers at Victionary have several great books that spark the imagination and inspire with an awesome collection of real world images. “It's A Matter Of Identity” is the 2nd book from the folks at Victionary. It’s a brand new series specifying in visual communication which aims to pinpoint the up-to-the-minute work on Corporate Identity from an international perspective, consequently showcasing the true world trends. Included is work from over 50 design forces in total, plus four inspiring interviews. What a brilliant collection—they also have Amatterofdesign’s take on Editorial Design and Promotion.