Boing Boing » paper

The Vulcan Salute and other Jewish-themed paper cut art

David Pescovitz — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:03:18 +0000

Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik creates exquisite paper cuts from recycled comic books. Much of his work incorporates Jewish mystical and cultural themes. Above, "Live Long and Prosper" (20" x 16", mixed media). Of course, Leonard Nimoy based the iconic "Vulcan Salute" on an ancient blessing gesture performed by Jewish high priests. If I had known Brynjegard-Bialik's work when I got married, I would have commissioned him to make our ketubah! Brynjegard-Bialik's solo exhibition, titled "You Did What To My Comics?," is up at the Peninsula Jewish Community Center in Foster City, California until March 19. Isaac Brynjegard-Bialik (via @nicejewishartist Instagram feed)

The Tweets of Rupert Murdoch, as letterpress greeting cards

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 19:16:47 +0000

Artist Michelle Vaughan's “100 Tweets” is a hand typeset letterpress project printed at The Arm in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

For “100 Tweets”, I spent months combing my Twitter feed in search of 100 comments which fit into the vision of the project as a whole. Because Twitter allows 140 characters, building a template for typesetting was a straight forward procedure. In the beginning, I collected snarky, throw-away tweets mostly centered on banal and mundane comments. This eventually evolved into a more personal project, as I looked for tweets which mirrored my own opinions and thoughts, but were well-executed by the author. “100 Tweets” also records pockets of time and history in short observations.
The process was laborious but satisfying.

Her first series of five 5x7 greeting cards were tweets by Rupert Murdoch from early 2012.

"The typeface is Perpetua and they are printed with various shades of Pantone reds and pinks on Italian Magnani stock."

They'll be available starting in February, 2013. (via @felixsalmon)

Peter Callesen's skeleton from a single sheet of A4 paper

David Pescovitz — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 17:48:13 +0000

Juxtapoz shares some startling new paper sculptures by Danish artist Peter Callesen. We first posted in 2005 about Callesen's exquisite papercraft sculptures from single sheets of A4.

What paper means in prison

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 20 Jun 2012 23:32:57 +0000

"The vast majority of altered paper is harmless. Some officials tend to look the other way when toilet paper is crafted into chess pieces (using an age-old prison paper mâchè recipe of toilet paper and water: wetted, molded, dried and wetted again). But where a rook and a knight have an innocuous purpose, the same manipulation of toilet paper can be used to make a deadly knife, called a "shank," which, it is said, can disappear with a flush" — Katy Bolger for The Awl.

Cambridge Quad Notebook: The Best Graph Paper

Cool Tools — Wed, 16 May 2012 14:36:56 +0000

Having just finished a year of math and science heavy coursework, I am confident in stating that the Cambridge Quad Wirebound Notebook is one of the best tools I've used all year. Notebooks may seem like a silly thing to get worked up about, but having used this day-in and day-out for a year I can attest that it makes a difference.

When I first started looking for a notebook I was astonished by how much variety existed (especially in the world of graph paper), and consequently how much vitriol crappy notebooks generate. Everything from paper thickness to perforation was a potential sore spot. After field testing several varieties it was immediately clear that the Cambridge Quad was the winner.

Why this particular notebook? It has the perfect weight paper that doesn't bleed when using a variety of pens (I'm partial to the previously reviewed Lamy Safari with Noodler's Bulletproof Black Ink, and the Pentel Sharp Kerry mechanical pencil). Its perforations make for clean tearing, but are strong enough that they never unwittingly lose sheets. At 70-sheets per notebook, it's not too big, and the wire spiral binding holds up throughout its life (which hasn't been the case for other notebooks I've tried). Another benefit is that there are no delineated margins or hole punches which makes this notebook lefty friendly (being right-handed I only know this through hearsay). Finally, the paper in the Cambridge notebook has a warmer tone which provides for a nice contrast while also making it simple to distinguish any of my assignments in a pile.

While in the past I've used the previously reviewed Whitelines graph paper (which is excellent and offers low contrast quad lines for scanning) I found it too expensive for daily use (not to mention that availability was really spotty in certain sizes). At the end of the day these Cambridge notebooks are good enough that I've stocked up in case they decide to stop production.

-- Oliver Hulland

Cambridge Quad Notebook
$5

Manufactured by Mead

Sample page:

Ignore my illegible scrawl, but instead take note of the warmer manila tone of the paper.

Know of a better tool, or have a recommendation? Submit a review or request!