Chronicle Books Blog

Lady Gaga recently named Def Leppard as an influence on her new album Born This Way. Unexpected? A little. Then again, the band has sold 65 million albums worldwide and has a legion of dedicated fans, so it isn’t too shocking that the pop superstar says her big choruses contain “Def Leppard-like” melodies.

Def Leppard is on our minds too. Their new live album, Mirror Ball, drops June 7th, the same day their worldwide tour kicks off. Plus, their new book, Def Leppard: The Definitive Visual History is hitting bookstores as I type.

Featuring a foreword by lead singer Joe Elliott, the book follows the band from the new wave of British heavy metal to their massive Pyromania and Hysteria albums, to the sustained power of their records and tours today. Included are more than 450 classic and unseen photographs from legendary rock photographer Ross Halfin, who has been shooting Def Leppard since 1979, along with stories and commentary by the band members and others.

To celebrate the book, we’re giving away Def Leppard: The Definitive Visual History and Mirror Ball on vinyl (available in late June) to one lucky reader. To enter for a chance to win, just share your favorite Def Leppard song in the comments section below by Tuesday, June 7th at midnight (PT). The winner will be selected at random.

Good luck!

Albee Dalbotten
Sr. Marketing Manager

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Paint by numbers are known for their kitschy subjects like serene flamingos, pastoral landscapes, and snarling clowns, but those are just scratching the surface. The really weird stuff is what I hunt for in my own collection. Skeleton wearing an eye patch? Got it. Kitten dressed up like a fancy lady holding a purse? Yep. William Shatner? Check. Mork ‘n’ Mindy? Of COURSE.

The offbeat subjects of vintage paint by numbers are what makes collecting them so much fun. Anybody can get their hands on a Parisian street scene, but the real challenge is to find a vintage San Francisco scene, or anything set in outer space. Are there actual aliens in the scene? Go straight to the bank and get a second mortgage. Even on Ebay, those paintings are hard to win because their unique character really appeals to connoisseurs with deep pockets.

When a small group of Chronicle creative types got together to discuss new project ideas, the concept for a new paint-by-number kit was born. We kept a classic flamingo image in the mix, but added a new twist on the kitten painting, and threw in a hamburger which, to our knowledge, is the FIRST paint by number hamburger painting EVER. Almost two years later, we had a workable format, five awesome “modern masterpieces” from the amazing Lisa Hanawalt, and absolutely no idea how to turn Lisa’s drawings into paint by numbers.

Armed with a Wacom tablet and a never ending supply of iced coffee, I set about tracing and painting and repainting and retracing and then repainting and then retracing the art digitally until we found a system that worked.

Our Masterpiece Studio will be out this summer! In the meantime, check out the online Paint By Number Museum to get inspired.

You take the Eiffel Tower, I’ll take the poodle with the vacant stare.

Michael Morris
Senior Designer

Earlier this week the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum announced the winners of the 2011 National Design Awards, which were established to honor and promote excellence and innovation in contemporary design. Noted art director, author, and educator Steven Heller is the recipient of this year’s Design Mind Award.

The Design Mind Award recognizes visionary individuals or firms that have affected a shift in design thinking or practice through writing, research and scholarship. Heller is the author and editor of numerous books with Chronicle, as well as with our fellow publishers Princeton Architectural Press and Laurence King Publishing.

“When I started editing design books at Chronicle,” says former editor Alan Rapp, “the reputation of one of our authors, Steven Heller, was already outsized. But as I came to work with the man, I was impressed by his generous spirit, wicked sensibility, and depth of experience and intellect—qualities that make him a dream collaborator.”

You can read more about the details of the award on UnBeige or the Cooper-Hewitt site.

Here is a gallery of some of Heller’s most recent books:

Born Modern: The Life and Design of Alvin Lustig

Art Direction Explained, At Last!

Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast

Stylepedia

Times Square Style: Graphics from the Golden Age of Broadway

Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the Wars

Design Studies: Theory and Research in Graphic Design

Patti Quill
Marketing + Publicity

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A three-pronged post today for all you paper lovers, covering the past, the present, and the future, although not in that order.

1. The Present: Lea Redmond’s adorable World’s Smallest Post Service is ready to set sail, appearing at book stores, craft stores, and gift shops near you. Tomorrow night, San Francisco’s Curiosity Shoppe is hosting a party to celebrate its publication. Lea will be there with her custom Post Service shop, homemade cookies, drinks, and plenty of WSPS kits to sell. Here’s a great post Curiosity Shoppe proprietors Derek and Lauren whipped up on their Smarts & Crafts blog about the event. I hope all you cats dig those mini packages as much as I do.

2. The Future: As previously mentioned, Chronicle Books is cohosting a design challenge with the online stationery community Minted. They’ve received hundreds of notecard designs for the challenge, and you can vote on which ones Minted will produce by logging on to their website here.

3. The (recent) Past: Last week, a host of editors, designers, and sales crew were in New York City for the New York Stationery Show at the Javitz Center.

We debuted our Fall 2011 gift line, with great new titles by Rifle Paper Co., enormouschampion, Suzy Ultman, and many more.

Designer Sandy Davis summed it up nicely: “It was my first time attending the show, and I was amazed by the amount of work shown! I was a little overwhelmed at first, but ended up having a great time meeting current Chronicle artists—like Jill Bliss, Hammerpress, and Rifle—in addition to discovering up-and-comers like Printerette, OneCanoeTwo, and Wildhorse. I definitely subscribe to my share of design blogs and scope out a lot of paper goods online, but there is something to be said for seeing the work in person. I still feel like I’m processing it all.”

On Tuesday the 17th, we held our annual Stationery Meet and Greet party at the Hudson Yards Cafe which, if a meteor had crashed into and vaporized the joint during said party, the stationery/Etsy and art/illustration world would’ve lost some serious, irreplaceable talent.

 
Photo on the right, from left: Jill Bliss, her ten-year fan Awonry (who she had never met in person before), Julia Rothman, Suzy Ultman

Thankfully this didn’t happen, and our pal Jordan from enormouschampion was able to leave safely and give birth to a little boy two days later. Congrats Jordan!

Jason Sacher
Associate Editor

On Monday morning a group of us attended a Lifeboard workshop. It was an inspiring way to start the week.

A Lifeboard is, to put it simply, a board onto which you collage images that represent your goals. It helps you articulate what you want in life, and then serves as a visual reminder to keep you focused on those goals—lofty, immediate, and everything in between. In a way, it helps turn your wishes into goals.

What’s the difference between a wish and a goal?

The answer is written pretty clearly on the pencils that come with Decoylab’s WISH and GOAL clipboards. The pencil that comes with WISH says, “Make my wishes come true” and the one with GOAL says, “I will achieve my goals.”

You can sit around hoping someone will make your wishes come true, or you can take action and actually achieve your goals.

Writing it down helps turn a wishy-washy wish into a concrete goal, and that goal into a reality.

After all:

(Anyone know who made the beautiful print above? I found it on Pinterest, but then couldn’t find who made it. Wish I could credit it properly!)

Kate Woodrow
Editor