Pickpocketed from the streams of Charlie Kate and Tara Lazar.

While hunting for a file I recently came across Tyler’s early design explorations for Bluebird, the name we initially chose for Storybird (but wasn’t available or for sale). If you like identity design, mood boards, and ephemera—scroll on.

Our starting point was to soak up ephemera from the ’30s to the ’50s to keep us focused on a slower, non-digital visual culture. We loved anything with a faded texture that suggested time and tactility. (Can I say “tactility” in a blog post and not sound pretentious?) Note: click the images for a larger version/detail.

We also explored book brands we love. Penguin for their cover system, Ladybug for their simplicity, and Eric Carle for his color and texture.

Tyler took all these inputs and began sketching several logo ideas. We were resolute on a logo and adjoining name rather than a wordmark. (I think we wound up with the perfect logo, but we’re still debating how to treat our actual name.)

Notice the two facing birds to the bottom right of the beetle on the left page? Those (rather angry looking) birds spun out into a crucial idea: using apostrophes as the sole ingredient of our logo.

Ah, our pudgy little baby. I love the trompe l’oeil—the whole bird facing right vs the bird head facing left. I was sold the minute I laid eyes on it.

PS. Speaking of laid, let’s not forget the eggs. (’Though we haven’t figured out how to use them yet.)

I’ll see if I can dig up the cover system sketches for a future post.

Jason Lankow and his team at Column Five have been killing it with Visual News, their aggregator of choice photography, illustration, animation, and visualization from around the globe. Not a day goes by that they don’t find something amazing to share. Kudos to them all.

Danny Cooke spends a day with Paul Collier at one of the UK’s remaining moveable type print shops. A lovingly crafted short with a most excellent credit sequence.

Portraits of photographers and their iconic images. Genius idea by Tim Mantoani.

Brooklyn design firm Hyperkat rebrands teaching for WNYC. Follow the link…

The senate will vote on SOPA Tuesday, January 24th.

SOPA stands to break the machinery of the internet by ruining the DNS system. That’s bad enough. But SOPA is also a censorship schema similar to those used by Iran, Syria, and China.

Why would Congress approve a bad bill? Because several senators are being paid by media corporations to make SOPA law.

To stop them, we need 41 senators to block the vote. That’s doable.

But you have to actually DO something.

Action 1: ask your senate representative to vote down the bill. Here’s how.

Action 2: petition congress. Here’s the automated form.

To be clear: this will pass unless we get senators to block it or threaten to not support the re-election of those who do.

Make 2012 the year you busted a bad bill and took back just a bit of power.

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Teachers: organize student/parent petitions and we’ll give you free memberships & downloads.

Bonus material: Here’s how SOPA affects teachers and schools.

Bastian Vance’s photographic take on Edward Hopper’s famous “Nighthawks.” Lots of other famous paintings=photographs over at Boooooooom.

British illustrator and designer Stephen Wildish challenges your 90s film moxy.