Page One, a Singapore-based publisher, is looking for the most inspiring designs for their upcoming project, Hey! Mr. Postman. Here is the information from the publisher:

CALL FOR ENTRIES
Hey! Mr. Postman

With the popularity of Facebook and the proliferation of hi-tech gadgetry comes an unexpected phenomenon, the embracing of sentiment sent by snail mail. Today’s creatives are rediscovering the joys of the traditional greeting card to convey messages of gratitude or condolence, deliver well-wishes, invitations or announcements, or quite simply to say hello. But it is not a step backward. Reinventing its form in unexpected ways, artists and designers take fresh, often playful approaches to greeting cards resulting in wildly original work.

International art and design book publisher Page One is keeping an eye out for the most inspiring designs for their upcoming project, Hey! Mr. Postman (working title). Displaying unusual techniques, curious material and clever concepts, the work selected will belong in a league of their own, inspiring the community in the graphic arts and thrilling lovers of the ingenious and the imaginative.

The full-colour title will be published and distributed worldwide in the first quarter of 2011.

Interested participants can download the submission form at www.pageonegroup.com.

Submissions deadline is Monday, 31 May 2010.

Packed with sophisticated and aesthetic visualisation of complex information, Data Flow 2: Visualizing Information in Graphic Design, is the successor of infographics bestseller, Data Flow. The book features new possibilities for diagrams, maps, and charts and investigates the visual and intuitive presentation of processes and data.

BETC PARIS – Global Advertising Agency gives a detailed and comprehensive overview of past and present works done by BETC Paris. Starting out 12 years ago as a small creative outfit, BETC Paris has since established itself as France’s largest advertising agency. With big names like Air France, Evian, Peugeot, Louis Vuitton, Canal+, and Vichy as its clients, BETC Paris has built for itself an impressive portfolio in the past decade. It garnered ten awards for the most creative agency in France since its establishment and was more recently hailed as the most creative agency in the world. More info

Skandinavia (Graphic Design Worldwide), presents a showcase of the best graphic design trends and initiatives from Scandinavia. It is part of a series that showcases the freshest, most innovative, and often surprising new graphic design trends and ideas from around the world. More info

Have been wanting to make your own book? Indie Publishing: How to Design and Publish Your Own Book (Design Brief), is the step-by-step manual that will help you. Design principles such as scale, cropping, pacing, and typography are explored along with way on how to create effective title pages, tables of contents, captions, and more. The book aims to inspire readers with examples of print projects similar to those they might undertake on their own. Sample designs include a picture book, artist’s portfolio, exhibition catalog, poetry chapbook, novel, and zine. Important business aspects of independent publishing – from how and why you should get an ISBN number to creating promotional materials and using the internet to market your book, are addressed. This comprehensive, illustrated guide concludes with a portfolio of the most exciting examples of independent publishing from the contemporary scene. More info

Absorbing Roman poet Ovid’s tales of transformation in Metamorphoses and adding his own dash of art-historical figuration and contemporary pop culture, Mark Ryden broaches new terrain with The Tree Show. Arcadian Gothic” might hint at the nature of this new work, and fans of Ryden will find familiar preoccupations in these new paintings, drawings and sculptures–made since his first solo show in 1998–transposed to new pastures. Never reluctant to freight his work with layers of reference that range from Renaissance landscape and Neoclassical portrait painting to occultism and literature, in his latest works Ryden combines the arcane with pop-cultural images as ground from which to make his carefully executed leaps into fantasy. Ryden’s series includes depictions of oak trees consuming children, floating tree stumps with “seeing” eyes, imaginary wood nymphs and mythological characters who personify Nature herself. Ryden paints his characters with a masterful, porcelain glow reminiscent of Ingres and renders his trees with a care that evokes Audubon’s botanical illustration. Several of his paintings are presented in elaborately carved frames that project their narratives beyond the canvas.

Mark Ryden: The Tree Show offers reproductions of these paintings and sculptures alongside the fruits of Ryden’s research on the tree as myth–drawing from the Buddha’s Bodhi Tree to Adam and Eve, the Sephiroth of the Kabbalah and matters of ecological science. As such, this volume constitutes an enticing dossier on Ryden’s encyclopedic exploration of the subject and reproduces in its entirety this series centered around the arboreal world.

Sagmeister: Made You Look, the book’s clear red case and silver-gilded pages, seem contrary to the raw, handwritten style he is known for, already setting us up for a wild and very personal ride through almost the entire corpus of the 39-year-old designer’s work. Sagmeister once scratched words into his skin for his own lecture poster at Cranbrook, and this is the book version–sometimes enlightening, sometimes embarrassing, always self-conscious, and ultimately touching. The story is a conversation between Peter Hall’s text and Sagmeister’s handwritten commentary, a perfect and believable device for an absorbing dialogue. Self-indulgent as Sagmeister: Made You Look may be, Sagmeister lays himself open with idealism, irony, and humor, creating one of the most moving books about design.

Type Addicted (The New Trend of a to Z Typo-Graphics) not only presents a rich selection of experimental and inspirational typefaces and their applications, it also reveals the diversity of innovative approaches used by contemporary designers to set tone, add impact, reinforce brand identity, and lend character to print and design work in various disciplines. Solutions to any type of dilemma are sure to be discovered among the pages. Examples include work by up and coming names as well as renowned icons from around the world.

The Garden of Eye Candy introduces an international roster of artists – the fore runners of these Surrealist inspired creations – in a luxurious and exquisite box set. With contributions from Cabizbaja, Candybird, Dolly Didit, Jaime Zollars, Kennys Work, Kukulaland, Lisa Petrucci, Amy Sol, Melanie Florian, Mijnschatje, Noferin, Brandt Peter, Danielle Lamberti, Kokomoo, Majeakann, Mark Bodnar, Rmyers Art, Saul Zanolari, Luke Chueh and more. The Garden of Eye Candy introduces us to immaculate illustrations that enshroud the viewer’s perception and give flight to the imagination with each adventure and every character presented.