Berlin textures

[imomus]

The first four pictures are the various and lovely wallpaper textures to be seen at Wohnzimmer, an elegantly tatty café-bar on the Helmholtz Platz in Prenzlauer Berg. The last three are the spines of books seen in the Antiquariat section of the Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung on Karl-Marx-Allee. Like kimonos, these jackets use generic patterns but wrap them with an identifying, individualising "obi" (in this case the book's title on a white label). I sometimes wish I'd packaged all my records this way, so they built into a clashing but harmonious set of patterns on the shelf.

For more Berlin textures, check the new pictures on my Flickr account. (Tip: choose "All Sizes" to see tons of detail in glorious high-res, and "More Properties" to see all the technical stuff about the picture.) If you're more in the mood for text than texture, there's a new piece up today on Design Observer, Paper Spends More Time With Its Family, which develops some of the ideas in my recent thoughts on the links between computers and paper.

Plus: One year ago on this blog: Slow Life and Semantic Architecture.

Comments

[kineticfactory.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... perhaps it's time for a specially packaged Momus box set?

[jimyojimbo.livejournal.com]

I was going to set up an LJ Syndication of your Flickr photo feed as one doesn't exist yet and it would be interesting to watch, but thought, uh, maybe I should ask permission first. Sometimes the Internet starts to feel like looking in people's windows too much. Would it be OK? (I'm assuming Flickr only feeds photos you set as public anyway).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I don't mind, but does that mean people get big photo files on their Friends page? Sometimes that can be a hassle? Though I guess people would subscribe knowing that...

[jimyojimbo.livejournal.com]

Yeah I guess. I suspect a photofeed that just feeds links back to Flickr would be a very poor photofeed indeed. I'm just being selfish, I'm starting to use LJ as a big portal for practically everything I regularly read or look at.

[dobrovolets.livejournal.com]

Ah, the Antiquariat section at Karl-Marx-Buchhandlung--if I lived in Berlin, I'd be in danger of spending every spare minute and Euro there.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Momus.
reading Slow Life and Semantic Architecture feels like yesterday not a year ago. Yer slow life post has stayed in my mind all the while, and i have shared it with several friends in conversation. the slow life idea still feels as important as ever. yer blog is in my top 5 best things on the intraweb!
-RH

[frisjes.livejournal.com]

These wallpapers are beautiful..great patterns...i love wallpaper just bought in a shop in gent(Belgium)very nice wallpaper with flowers....

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

An album based on these patterns might be nice, a la Feldman's Persian carpets.

[(Anonymous)]

man, you should see RUSSIAN textures.

[ex-ebb439.livejournal.com]

This is lovely beyond words!

Insel-Bücherei

[(Anonymous)]

Those nice books are from the Insel-Bücherei series. I came upon one some time ago in Holland (where I live) and bought it. Then I started seeing them everywhere. I learned online that it's a rather respected literary series in Germany (and popular with collectors), spanning from 1912 to 1990 or so. The publisher's logo (a ship sailing in the waves) was redrawn by various big-name typographers, like Gill, Zapf and Tschichold. The covers are almost all lovely, like you saw. I was slightly disappointed to find out that each book didn't have a unique pattern, some were used multiple times. Ah well.

Enjoy,

Sam (sam[at]colorwash.nl)