Magic Potion

Mr. Big-Shag. Chomp. Betcha’ Life. Rambo Black Flak Bubble Gum. Nice Mice. The distinctive packaging of these candies and hundreds more might be lost to the ages if it weren’t for the Candy Wrapper Museum (CWM), a project of supreme sweet tooth Darlene Lacey. “I began collecting wrappers in 1977 with an eye toward the unusual, ironic, and aesthetic, although I also collected ‘classic’ but more mundane wrappers for posterity's sake,” she writes on the CWM website, which features highlights of her collection accompanied by witty captions. And while the wrappers endure, the candy itself doesn’t hold up so well. “One thing I learned the hard way is that no matter how chemically inert or unresembling food a candy product might be, it will eventually become molecularly unstable and turn into a hideous, sticky goo.”

The Sketchbook Project is back. For its fourth incarnation, the Atlanta-based Art House Co-op is building a publicly accessible library of sketchbooks. Participants are asked to donate their finished sketchbooks to the project, which will be exhibited in galleries around the country beginning in December. Anyone can participate. Just sign up to receive a bar-coded Moleskine, fill it with art, mail it back, and you’re guaranteed a place in the collection. Each participant will be randomly assigned one of about 30 themes for his or her sketchbook. The ultimate goal of the project is to create a permanent collection that will be browsable by theme, media, or location. The organizers anticipate opening the permanent sketchbook library location next year. Ready to sketch your way to immortality? Sign up by October 1 to participate.

Georgia and Verdana are getting a face lift. Commissioned by Microsoft in the mid-1990s as ideal for on-screen display, the typeface families were designed by Matthew Carter and hinted for screen legibility by Tom Rickner of Ascender Corporation. Now Carter, Ascender, and Font Bureau are working with Microsoft on a project to expand and enhance Georgia and Verdana for new applications, both on the screen and on the page. Look for new weights and widths as well as extended character sets. “The new additions to the font families are a natural and timely progression,” notes Carter. “They offer a wider range of typographic versatility… while remaining consistent with the originals.” The first of the new fonts is expected to be released early next year.

A new online database promises to help designers avoid cases of mistaken identity: The Identity Archives Project (IdAP) aims to be "the most complete online keyword-searchable database of logos and brand identity designs from around the world." Developed by San Francisco graphic designer Gabe Ruane, IdAP is a free resource that relies upon the contributions of designers and branding gurus. Active or antiquated logos, logotypes, icons, brand identities, brand marks, and corporate identities are all fair game, providing that they were approved by the client, have been used publicly, and are submitted by their creators. The key, however, is in the keywords, on which the value -- and searchability -- of the database will depend. Ruane advises those submitting designs to consider subjective and conceptual aspects, including the emotions a logo conveys, whether it's masculine or feminine, and what it represents. "Don't hold back!" He notes on the site. "The more info you can associate with the logo design, the better!"

Hate advertising? Make better ads. Filmmaker Doug Pray shows how it's done in the documentary Art & Copy. Now playing in select cities, the film spotlights influential advertising creatives such as George Lois, Mary Wells, Dan Wieden, and Lee Clow, and legendary campaigns, from "I Love NY" to "Got Milk?" But Art & Copy is no history lesson. "In my interviews, I stuck to emotions, creative motivation, and big-idea philosophies of the ad creatives rather than 'how-to' stories, industry-insider talk, or the politics of their clients' products, which is a different film altogether," notes Pray, who secured sponsorship from The One Club to realize the project. "By interviewing these icons, they became real for me, and I saw advertising as an art form with enormous potential -- when done well."

Print may be dying, but paper endures, whether cut, torn, shredded, scribbled on, or sculpted into elaborate art installations. David Revere McFadden examines the medium's creative possibilities and artistic achievements in a new book, Slash: Paper Under the Knife, out next month from 5 Continents Editions. The lushly illustrated tome highlights the work of paper-loving artists such as Olafur Eliasson, who in 2006 reproduced a cross-section of his house (at a scale of 85:1) on 900 sheets of laser-cut paper in a sort of anti-pop-up book, and Kara Walker, whose painstaking paper cut-outs explore themes of race, gender, and the shadier side of American history. Don't bother looking for Slash in hardcover; naturally, it's available only in paperback.