Liquid Treat

With summer approaching, we're freshening up our fonts. Among our favorite recent releases is Raniscript, designed by Stephen Rapp. Think of it as a jaunty French ronde-style cursive by way of The Darjeeling Limited. In fact, Rapp was inspired in part by vintage matchbooks advertising another memorably named Indian train, the Flying Rani Express. What began as a bold take on 19th-century script lettering soon took on a life of its own, notes Rapp of Raniscript. "Having an old world feel, it makes me visualize faded shop signs from India written in English." Ideal for posters and packaging, the full-service font includes old-style figures, fractions, swashes, and ornaments that evoke a stylized subcontinent.

Looking for some creative stimulation at your home or office—and a more interesting take on the typical wallcovering? Drop the Sudoku and try your hand at the "Wallpapergames" dreamed up by Paris-based design collective 5.5 Designers and produced in France by Lutece. The "Labyrinthe" design is a giant maze printed on a white background that invites colorful wayfinding. Grab some Sharpies and a few friends (select both the writing utensils and people with care), and soon you'll have created a unique pattern. The more verbally inclined can opt to cover the walls with a giant word search, but you might want to wait until they produce an English version. For now, all the hidden words are en français. Zut!

As your stack of summer reading grows, we suggest adding to it an issue or two of Open Manifesto, an independent, self-funded, and self-published journal of critical writing on graphic design culture. Each issue tackles a single theme—such as propaganda, identity, and coming later this year, myth—to explore how graphic design influences society, and vice-versa. Past contributors have included stars from the design world (Paula Scher, Peter Saville) and beyond (Noam Chomsky, Alain de Botton). Founded in 2003 by graphic designer Kevin Finn, Open Manifesto is produced in Brisbane, Australia on the aforementioned shoestring budget, so the greatest challenge is locating copies stateside. It is now available on amazon.co.uk and well worth the international shipping costs.

Rebranding a legend is never easy, particularly when that legend is a famed Parisian cabaret that has inspired everyone from Toulouse-Lautrec to Baz Luhrmann. But the John Brightman Agency was up to the challenge, and took on the project of rethinking the identity of the Moulin Rouge as a global brand on the eve of its 120th anniversary. The Paris-based agency has just revealed its new Moulin Rouge logos (one for licensing, one for corporate), and we're offering our most enthusiastic félicitations. They're the perfect mix of wit, whimsy, and windmill. And the logos are just the beginning. "We also worked on the foundations of a new artistic approach for Moulin Rouge visuals, campaigns, and publicity material which is to be developed very shortly," says François Gatault, a member of the Brightman team. The moral of this story: approach even the most daunting task with a can-can do spirit!

We love a beautiful book cover, but our conventional shelves are of little assistance in showing off our favorites. Enter designer Stephen Bretland, who created Picturebook, a simple wooden frame for holding and displaying a favorite book. It came to be after Bretland read a newspaper tribute to the work of graphic designer Germano Facetti, who helped to revolutionize book design in his post as art director at Penguin Books. Bretland began collecting Penguin titles with Facetti-designed covers (rarely paying more than a couple of dollars for each one). "A couple of months later I had 50 to 100 paperbacks with beautiful covers and no way to display them," he explains. "So I designed this product." Picturebook, which retails for around $20, is also open on the sides, adds Bretland, "so you can still read [the book] or swap it for another."

Shaky stock market got you down? Feeling creatively blocked? Whipsawed by Grecian lawlessness and Icelandic volcanoes? Spend some quality time with the Motivator, a simple online application from Big Huge Labs that allows users to create customized motivational posters. Beginning with a Successories-style template, you select the orientation and colors, supply a photo, and craft up to three lines of "motivational text" that will appear underneath the title of your choosing. The resulting images can make for chuckleworthy alternatives to standard evites, office decor, and, for those in need of a bit of anti-procrastination motivation, Mother's Day cards.