Oops. October's been a whirlwind month. Between deadlines and a new team setup in the studio and lots and lots of days off for the Jewish festive season, my weekly link list has had to take a back seat. But here we are, back on the Observed wagon, with a bold type-driven identity, amazing wildlife photography, new music, old music origin tales, and Moby Dick as a Mole.
Photography: Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards 2014
The British Natural History Museum has announced the winners of its annual Wildlife Photographer of the Year Awards, featuring some spectacularly good images. Take some time and browse through the galleries, and marvel at the skill, creativity and fortune of the photographers, and the sheer wonder and beauty of the natural world.
Design: Two-coloured bilingual type- and pattern-driven identity
Hong Kong-based design studio TGIF did a great job on the visual identity for Traditional Culture Transformation and Legacy Day, featuring custom alphabets and pictograms, and bright textured patterns, all rendered in a bold red-blue-and-white palette.
Audio: John Roderick on Systematic
The best part of any Roderick on the Line episode is when he tells Merlin, 'Did I ever tell you about the time…' because he's such a wonderful storyteller, so easy to listen. So when Brett Terpstra invited him onto his show, Systematic, a discussion of how his music career got started turned into Part I, Part II,, Part III and, last week, Part IV. It's full of anecdotes and insights, and a great backstory to fill out bits and pieces he often mentions in passing on Roderick on the Line.
Audio: alt-J's new album, This Is All Yours
Fellow alt-J fans in my Twitter stream have been tweeting very excitedly about their new album in the last few weeks. I'd heard the three singles they released in the build-up, but didn't want to get too excited until I'd had a chance to listen to the full album a couple of times. And now that I have, I'm happy to say I approve whole-heartedly. There's a lot of good stuff going on in this release, and it's a worthy successor to their debut album, one of my favourites of the last two years.
Reading: China Miéville's Railsea
Adventure, post-apocalypse, Moby Dick, steampunk, pirates, trains, legendary quests, and moles. Deadly, gargantuan moles. China Miéville clearly had a lot of fun writing Railsea, resulting in a fun read, full of his trademark playful prose, linguistic tricks and ridiculously thorough fictional worlds and cultures.