reading, virtually

Here are two newish Japanese design books, the first of which, on Swedish graphic designer Olle Eksell, my sister gave me for Christmas. I hadn't heard of Eksell before, but I must leaf through this book just about every day now. He has this home-spun folk modernist thing going on that's very similar to Charley Harper. I also find the Sweden/Japan design nexus really interesting. I had known that Scandinavian designers like Lotta Jansdotter have a huge fan base in Japan -- last time I was there, Kinokuniya Books in SF Japantown had a few Japanese-language books on her -- so it's nice to see earlier designers like Eksell finally getting a look in. The second reading experience features Hirochi Eguchi's World Paperback Design, which assembles cover illustrations from all over the world. You can find more info on Eksell here and Eguchi here. Have a nice flip through. bg