Installing Kima Ten Years with Wendy Yao at ICA LA. Looking back at the earliest days of the imprint—Kima 1 was printed in my living room in Highland Park, a combination of hand silkscreen with inkjet print on one of those free HP printers given to college students with the purchase of a laptop. Ooga Booga has been the main stockist of my work since I was a student, and I thank Wendy for the many years of support, both retail and otherwise.

Proofing the building banner for the next works on paper exhibition at the Hammer Museum. The late Armenian Egyptian photographer Van Leo created numerous wordmarks, studio collateral, and newspaper advertisements for his professional practice, in a similar variation and breadth of typographic personas to his self portraiture. The exhibition identity is based on archival documentation of this ephemera.

Sagabon: Libretto for the Noh Play “Yokihi”, Hon’ami Koetsu (1558–1637). Some of the first books printed with movable type from Japan’s Edo period (c 1615), seen on my last trip to the Honolulu Museum of Art. From the exhibition didactic: “Since the inclusion of Chinese ideographs would have made such typesetting prohibitively complicated, the books are written entirely in phonetic characters.” The covers are beautiful mica powder printed karakami of flora with tipped in titles.

“Everyday Life” playlist and interview for Beijing-based platform and interdisciplinary space puuush, founded in 2020 by Yue Zhow and Lihua Yu to promote cross-cultural dialogue and collaboration through music sharing.

Cherry is a new publishing project between Nathan Rickard and myself. Editions are photographic diaries by artists, family, and friends that document individual observations on daily life. Typeset in Jenson and hand stitched with a pasted ex libris.

Various experimental borders drawn from a limited set of custom ornaments. Made with Sir William Chambers in mind, designer of Casino Marino in Dublin and proponent of the jardin anglo-chinois.

Work in progress: custom drawn Optima capital swashes and experimental ligatures. It has been an enjoyable process to see the ways in which Hermann Zapf’s Roman capitals lend themselves to being combined and expanded with classical flourishes.

Always admire Gudrun Zapf von Hesse’s elegantly precise bookbinding and lettering work. Here in the 1950 publication of Briefe der Diotima, typeset by Hermann Zapf in Palatino Antiqua and bound by Gudrun Zapf von Hesse in a vermilion Moroccan leather with hand-stamped gilt lettering.

Invitation to a guest lecture I gave on Comme des Garçons advertisements for Harsh Patel's Graphic Design History course, UCLA Extension.

Every time I return to Lucy McKenzie’s Global Joy I have a new appreciation for its content—Aufon bootlegs, double-gatefold wall painting with Paulina Olowska—and spare Quirmbach design.

LG monogram cross-stitch in an antique French cotton tablecloth.

Alligator Maze Orchid by William Leavitt in the Hammer Museum store Ooga Booga pop-up.

Guama and Guakong met in the Philippines and immigrated to Hawaii. Guakong grew up on a copra plantation in Fujian province. Guama came from a well-to-do family in Manila.

The first proof of Eric Gill’s Perpetua italic, before changes in fitting. Illustration in Paul Beaujon’s essay Eric Gill: Sculptor of Letters printed in volume 7 of The Fleuron.

Our regret at the passing of the gracefully descending italic f cannot withstand the pleasure of finding at last a perfectly legible italic which uses serifs as a help to reading and not as decorative appendages. pb

Varvara Stepanova mahjong set, 1925. I first came across Stepanova’s work via her clothing design, which had an immediate appeal in its Constructivist abstraction and mass market approach to fashion production as a social and economic equalizer. source

By transforming an image into experience and scientific data, it becomes a formula for developing a new way of life. vs

Happy 60th birthday to my dad. Playlist for a surprise photo slideshow at the big event.

A favorite spread from Charlotte Cotton’s Photography Is Magic, a survey of contemporary photography and its parallels with close-up magic. Charlotte’s pointed and insightful thinking on photography as a medium and art form always illuminates for me new ways of seeing, and I am glad to have been a part of the making of this book.

Photography is a form of magic—or to put it another way, the photographic provides cerebral experiences for the viewer that are equivalent to magic. Just as sleight of hand facilitates, but does not fully materialize, the magical experience that resides in the dynamic of our own imaginations, so too photography—when liberated from a pedestrian definition as the sum of its mechanics and materials, its chemistry and software—can spark the occurence of magic in our minds. cc

Castlepollard, Republic of Ireland. Hometown of great great great grandfather James Leavy.

First wedding design request and it’s for my little brother. Congratulations Kyle and Maggie.

One of Harsh Patel's typographic studies. Silkscreened in Altadena and framed in Marina Del Rey, it now resides alongside my grandparents.

Mrs Wong’s window vinyl.

LKG postcard in Taipei, photo by Li Bai-zhi.

Chinese characters and their pictographs. Of the legends of Cangjie’s (c. 2650 BCE) invention of the Chinese writing system from pictorial representation, my personal favorite is his observation of the footprints of animals and realization that just the shape of the print could identify the animal. He could use the simple footprint shape instead of drawing the whole animal.

Hammer Museum study hall poster with Aalto table and chairs and Chinese-inspired style of linear perspective.

Oh! (2017), Ditch Projects solo exhibition poster in Tokyo, photo by Ami Watanabe. The poster was printed offset in a single Pantone color.