To continue with the academic project inspiration, check out Mikey Burton’s thesis project: redesigned classic book covers.

Mikey, who did the project while at Kent State, says this is:

An integrated branding campaign based around the illustrative reinterpretation of classic book covers directed toward junior-high-school students.

The design carries over to the spines and box sets, making for a visually stunning collection of must-read books that is directed at book lovers and design fiends as well.

More photos of the project are available on Mikey’s Flickr. I recommend also checking out his other work, which utilizes graphic design, illustration, and letterpress.

I love to play Scrabble and began a tradition of “Scrabble Sundays” when I was an undergrad student. What else do I love? Typography and fantastic design. So I was thrilled to see this academic project from Matt McInerny where he redesigned the Scrabble logo and packaging.

Scrabble redesign concept from matt.cc

You can check out the full redesign on Matt’s Flickr. Here’s what he had to say about the packaging redesign:

My design strips away the need for a box to hold your board and instead turns the package into the product. This new Scrabble board functions more like a book, featuring the logo and instructions on the outside, with a board on the inside that’s revealed as you open the package. [...] The new package is only about 10 inches tall, so it can fit comfortably on a bookshelf, no need to stack it on top of or underneath other board games.

I absolutely love the concept and execution of this, and can only hope that Hasbro hires Matt for a special edition Scrabble so I can add it to my bookshelf and weekly repertoire.

I am loving this typography set from Etsy’s afavorite that combines typographical wordplay with letterpress loveliness.

Typography Set from afavorite

From the description:

The series is based off some of my favorite & maybe even one not so favorite fonts. Playing on words & meaning while creating visual interest with typography. Perfect for any font savant, designer or typoholic.

The set is currently sold out, but the cards are still available individually in afavorite’s Etsy shop.

I’ve been finding inspiration in punctuation-related design lately, and toying with an experiment that applies punctuation to my personal brand. That is still in the works, but until then, here is some of my punctuation inspiration.

brackets + phonetic spelling via The Dieline

punctuation owl via ohhsweetnothing

punctuation inspired logo designs via Spyre Studios

Design Observer recently reprinted one of Paul Muldoon’s poems in their poetry section. It caught my eye because the poem celebrates the @ sign, which I use in my personal branding. I also love the way the words “Like a whorl of an out-of-this-world ear” trip off my tongue. Here is the poem, originally published in The New Republic.

Paul Muldoon
@

Like the whorl of an out-of-this-world ear that had been lent
to an oak-gall wasp by a tenth century Irish monk
who would hold out oak-gall ink against the predicament
in which he found himself…

Like the ever-unfolding trunk
of the elephant in the room that gives such a bad vibe
it vies with your old hippie girlfriend who once lent such weight
to any argument to which you feared she might subscribe,
including her insistence we abbreviate
our most promising rlshps…

Like the scrolled-down tail
of a Capuchin monkey drawing on its inner strengths
as it hammers short-sighted snail against short-sighted snail
that has nonetheless gone to extraordinary lengths…

Like the tapeworm swallowed by a hippie who was once fat
but is now kind of bummed out you’ve lost track of where she’s at.

Muldoon is a poet, a professor, and an editor. He has been called “the most significant English-language poet born since the second World War” by The Times Literary Supplement, and he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2003. Muldoon is a professor at Princeton University and previously taught at Oxford University. He is also the Poetry Editor for The New Yorker. You can learn more about Muldoon’s accomplishments on his website.