Your turn #2

Celtic book design

In the Book of Durrow (bottom) each Gospel begins with an Evangelist's symbol - a man for Matthew, a lion for Mark, a calf for Luke and an eagle for John. The next page is a carpet page, followed by the initial page. The first letter of the text is enlarged and decorated, with the following letters surrounded by dots. Parallels with metalwork can be noted in the rectangular body of St Matthew, which looks like a millefiori decoration, and in details of the carpet pages. There is a sense of space in the design of all the pages of the Book of Durrow. Open vellum balances intensely decorated areas. Animal interlace of very high quality appears on one page. Other motifs include spirals, triskeles, ribbon plaits and circular knots in the carpet pages and borders around the Evangelists. The Book of Kells (top) is the high point of a group of manuscripts in what is known as the Insular style produced from the late 6th through the early 9th centuries in Ireland. One characteristic of these medieval manuscripts is horror vacui, a design principle of thelogical connotations.

Banksy mural sells for 208,100£!

I thought this was of interest for you graphic designers: A street mural in West London by British maverik, graphic designer, "art terrorist" and provocateur Banksy, sold on eBay for a whopping $407,000, after a total of 69 bids. To top it off, the vendor estimates that the cost of removing the painting could be close to $10,000, which would have to be paid by the buyer (Via Juxtapoz).

Your turn #1

Hi. I've posted some of the main "design" developments for sections 1-6 of our textbook. For your 150-word comment, you may pick any one of the seven posts below. Let's emphasize historic design aspects, which is our main pursuit here. In addition to your main comment, you may add comments as responses to other comments (discussions are always a plus!). If necessary, I may interject and make a suggestion here and there. Please, don't sign in with an alias. Remember, you have until next Wednesday night to input your comments. Good luck!