On mornings like this, when I struggle to shake off sleep, it helps to take a moment to just sit, slowly sip that first cup of hot coffee, and look at something beautiful. These lovely stop-motion videos by Ching-Wen Wu are a perfect start to the day.

Every cup of coffee contains its own soul, extracted from your feeling today. Every cup of coffee is like a magic show containing different journey and bringing the unending imagination and surprises. With a sip of coffee, you not only taste your own story, but also change your perspective of the world.

h/t @swissmiss

Taking a letterpress class is on my life to-do list.

via @designworklife

Readers know that getting lost in someone else’s world is part of what makes books so magical. LOVE Agency has taken that concept and turned it into a brilliant bilingual ad campaign for Mint Vinetu bookstore, using Frankenstein, Invisible Man, Hamlet, and Don Quixote.

When one reads books, he/she starts living it and identifies (or not) with main hero. These print ads for the Mint Vinetu bookstore, which sells lots of classics, focuses on the idea of becoming someone else. And provokes people to try on different personas.

Check out the other three print ads on the agency’s site.

Further inspiration: Corpus Libris, a blog + photo essay by Emily Pullen that explores covers and bodies

Behold the power of paper when combined with the talents of designer Kelli Anderson.

In the booklet-style invitation, a bit of paper-folding amplifies the sound of a sewing needle moving along the grooves of a flexidisc record. The hand-spun record yields a garbled, but scrutable listening of an original song by the couple.

Read all about the inspiration behind the project on Kelli’s blog. I also recommend checking out her portfolio, which is a clever and creative use of Google Maps.

The first time I read Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, I was a freshman in university reading a paperback that was in fairly decent condition considering it had probably belonged to at least a dozen people before me. This time I read the Kindle version, and when I looked back at the passages I had highlighted, I was surprised to discover that this one appears twice in the text—and I had noted it both times.

The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.

The first is when Mrs. Pontellier’s awakening begins and the quote continues thus:

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.

The second time these lines appear is just before the end of the story. The words that follow speak of what is to come while also calling to mind the scene where Mademoiselle Reisz compares Edna’s shoulder blades to wings, checking to see if they are strong enough to “soar above the level plain of tradition and prejudice”:

All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight. A bird with a broken wing was beating the air above, reeling, fluttering, circling disabled down, down into the water.

I don’t like to physically mark up my books when reading (which led to me sorting through piles of cheap, used student editions to find one without commentary in its pages), so I have to wonder: would I have noticed the symmetry with which Chopin begins and ends Edna’s journey if I hadn’t been using an e-reader? Furthermore, what does that say about me as a reader? I know that I read quickly, which can be both a blessing and a curse. I often have to force myself to slow down or even re-read passages to fully take in the language and balance and subtext. I was clearly moved each time I read those lines, but seeing the two passages electronically highlighted makes me wonder what I’m missing in the absence of close reading—and if my Kindle is helping or hindering my desire to get more out of each read.

Has it really already been almost a year since I first read Moby-Dick? It seems like just a short time ago I was wrapped up in Melville’s language and subsequently discovering Matt Kish’s illustration project, One Drawing for Every Page of Moby-Dick. Matt finished his whale of a project in January, and his artwork is being published this fall to coincide with the 160th anniversary of the novel’s publication.

Completely self-taught and refusing to set any boundaries for the kinds of images he would make, Kish used a wide variety of materials, including found paper, ballpoint pens, markers, paint, crayons, ink, and watercolors to create art inspired by lines from every single page of the 552-page Signet Classics paperback edition of Moby-Dick. A hallmark of the project has been his use of pages torn from old, discarded books. Layering images on top of existing words and images, Kish has crafted a work that aptly echoes the layers of meaning in Melville’s narrative. His approach is deliberately low-tech, a sort of counter-response to the increasing popularity of born-digital art and literature. Kish started the project in August 2009 and spent nearly every day for eighteen months toiling away in a small closet converted into an art studio.

Simply amazing. Wishlisted.

If I could bear to part with any of my Scrabble editions, I would try my hand at one of these creative and crafty projects. Until then, I’ll stick to creative ways to play Q and J.

Scrabble bulletin board via ReadyMade

Wooden Scrabble display racks via presentcorrect

This typographic pop-up book by Victoria Macey is swoon worthy.

An alphabet pop-up book, which displays the font Bodoni while telling a charming tale about a quest for the “Dees” that have been captured by the evil Dee Catcher. Written, illustrated and constructed by Victoria Macey.

See Bodoni Bedlam in action and be sure to check out Victoria’s portfolio for more stunning work.

1. Participate in a 5K.
2. Run 5K in under 30 minutes.
3. Visit the Ghibli Museum.
4. Watch a live cricket or rugby match.
5. Learn how to use a sewing machine and read patterns.
6. Go to an improv show.
7. Give a speech in Japanese. [June 2011]
8. Go vegan for one week. [December 2011]
9. Attend a professional conference/workshop. [August 2011]
10. Get my ears pierced again.
11. Make a rainbow cake.
12. Go to a club in Tokyo. [February 2011]
13. Stay in a capsule hotel. [February 2011]
14. Update my portfolio and blog design.
15. Add two new samples to my portfolio. [July 2011]
16. Buy new glasses.
17. Move Japan blog to own hosting and archive.
18. Read 50 books. [65/50]
19. Write at least 12 letters. [12/12]
20. Go to a pachinko parlor.
21. Read The Lord of the Rings. [March 2011]
22. Read the Foundation series. [June 2011]
23. Give up coffee for one month. [December 2011]
24. Watch 5 films from the Criterion Collection [6/5].
25. Eat kaiseki. [June 2011]

[P]ublishing, while far from dead, has not moved in one great big step from the world of ink and trees to that of pixels and tablets. Many small, sometimes halting, sometimes diverging paths are being followed, more or less simultaneously and with fascinating results. Digital publishing, it turns out, isn’t so much a second print run (as it seemed at first) as a whole other ecosystem, with a unique atmosphere, strange new rain patterns, and its own troubling signs of pollution and climate change. Diving into it means learning how to breathe all over again.

— Mandy Brown, Three

Further reading: The Elements of Content Strategy by Erin Kissane