House Blend

Just in time for the back-to-school season, Penguin Classics will roll out a trio of timeless tales with a 21st-century twist. The publishing house recruited graphic artist Ruben Toledo to bring his signature à la mode elegance to the covers of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Part of the Penguin Classics Deluxe Editions line, the books will be published later this month. Penguin has previously enlisted the likes of Art Spiegelman, Chris Ware, and Roz Chast to illustrate Deluxe Classics covers. One of our all-time favorites is Charles Burns' striking carcass cover for a 2006 edition of The Jungle, muckraker Upton Sinclair's slaughterhouse exposé.

Want to recreate your grandmother’s flowery tablecloth or put your own spin on a classic Alexander Girard print? Head to Spoonflower, a Web site that allows users to print their own designs on fabric. Launched last year out of an old sock mill in Mebane, North Carolina, the site has rapidly attracted a crafty fan base of 15,000 users. The process is simple: upload a file (JPG, TIF, or PNG), select from multiple placement options, and check out. Prices range from $5.00 for an 8” x 8” swatch to $32.00 per yard of upholstery-weight cotton sateen, and designs are printed (using eco-friendly, non-toxic pigment inks) within five business days. Textile design veterans and amateurs alike can enter the "Fabric of the Week" contest, which is voted on by fellow Spoonflower users. Winning designs are offered for sale as limited-edition fabrics at Spoonflower’s Etsy shop.

Three designers and a racecar driver walk into an airplane hangar... no, that’s not the start of a joke but the beginning of an ambitious project to develop a typeface inspired by the iQ, Toyota’s new “microcar” that seats four and occupies a mere 118 inches. With the help of a seasoned driver, an overhead camera, and the iQ’s incredibly tiny turning radius, designers Pierre Smeets and Damien Aresta collaborated with software developer Zach Lieberman to record and map the iQ as its color-coded wheels traced letters and numbers on the floor of a vast hangar. The result is iQ Agility, a playful typeface that looks inspired by handwritten letters from our sixth-grade French pen pal. The font is now available for free download, but those stateside will have to wait a little longer for the car itself: Currently, the iQ is only available for purchase in Japan and Europe.

What do you eat when no one is watching? That’s the question asked—and answered—in What We Eat When We Eat Alone (Gibbs Smith), a new book by chef Deborah Madison and her husband, artist and graphic designer Patrick McFarlin. Through stories and recipes that come to life in McFarlin’s whimsical watercolor sketches, readers get a taste of solo dining habits that range from standard (Tater Tots) to semi-bizarre (a leftover spaghetti sandwich) and the wonderfully ridiculous (Life cereal bathed in non-dairy coffee creamer). The book grew out of McFarlin’s habit of querying people whom he met while traveling on what they tended to nibble when no one was looking. “Some were ordinary, some quirky, and others credible and civilized,” he notes of the diverse responses, all of which are united by their ripeness for illustration. Confessed one person McFarlin surveyed, “I pour sardine juice on to cottage cheese while standing on one foot in front of the refrigerator, not putting down the other foot because there’s been a meat leak from the vegetable drawer.”

What do marshmallows smell like? “Joyfulness,” according to Hong Kong design collective Silly Thing, which has collaborated with retailer Colette on a marshmallow-scented candle now available for purchase at the expertly curated Parisian lifestyle boutique. Even design fans without a taste for s’mores are advised to have a look, as each limited-edition candle comes tucked inside a box designed by graphic artist Eric Elms. A longtime Silly Thing collaborator, Elms evoked the fluffy sweetness of marshmallows with hues of cotton-candy pink and a cartoony drip pattern, all of which make for a candle that smells -- and looks -- good enough to eat.

Set aside this summer's mass-marketed pop offerings and broaden your playlist with a zine that sounds as good as it looks: The Journal of Popular Noise, founded by graphic designer Byron Kalet, is an “audio magazine inspired by the traditions of pop music, printed periodicals, and the delight of a finely crafted artifact.” Translation: a twice-yearly, limited-edition trio of 7” vinyl records tucked inside a letterpress printed holder that folds out to reveal a poster containing information about the journal, the musicians, and the compositional process. The new spring/summer 2009 edition, featuring spoken-word works by Andrew W.K., Ian Svenonius, and Walker & Cantrell, ships next week, just in time to bring some old-school sparkle to your Fourth of July celebration.