You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t mentioned the Usual Error in a long time. There’s a reason for that.

I’ve been helping out instead. ;}

Not long ago I ordered three tomes on book design, and two came immediately in the mail. I’ve been waiting (for more than a week at least) in the hopes that I might read all three together in an appropriately syntopic fashion, a la Adler (and Scheele). This morning I had just decided, well, to hell with it—I’ll read the first two syntopically and add the third when it comes. So I headed down to the gym with my big heavy books, and without really thinking about it I stopped at my mailbox.

Guess what had serendipitously arrived for me!

So now I have three gorgeous books on design for publishing (plus a book about beautiful website design, for good measure). And I’m feeling pretty good about my spontaneous corner of the universe.

Our picks (Pace helped), in case you’re curious:

The Elements of Typographic Style (Bringhurst)
Book Design and Production (Masterson)
On Book Design (Hendel)

I noticed with no small amount of glee that the good dudes at 37signals had posted about antibiotic packaging this week.

I noticed this fantastic phenomenon about a year ago, on a different antibiotic with the same attention to design. I don’t know who designed this packaging, but they’re brilliant; no packaging or printed material I’ve seen in the medical industry (yet, to my recollection) matches this perfect layout, clear communication and ease of use. Matt even included a pretty picture. ;}

Would that everything to do with doctors was so simple to understand…