Batman: Death by Design (2012)

Chip Kidd is one of the USA's best graphic designers: his layouts and designs for book and comic covers have been consistently outstanding, and he remains one of my favourite artists currently working in that field. He is a self-avowed comic book geek, with a passionate love in particular for Batman. Death by Design is, as far as I'm aware, his first graphic novel. He wrote it, with artwork by Dave Taylor.

The book focuses on Gotham City's iconic train station, an architectural icon paid for by Dr Thomas Wayne and whose son Bruce (aka Batman) is now responsible for its demolition. Competing architects fight to produce the winning design for the station's replacement, while one woman personally lobbies Bruce to keep the original building standing. Enter a string of random industrial accidents, a mysterious masked man warning of disaster and Gotham City's notorious criminal the Joker: Batman is on the case.

Three links.

• Jon Morris has developed some striking trade dress for DC's Archive Editions, which currently boast a horrible pin-striped layout that looks pretty terrible. I'd buy these in a shot, but sadly they're not real. Yet. DC, pay attention!
• A group of independent cartoonists and comic artists are unofficially updating the art of the Index of the Marvel Universe. It reminds me of that indie-style issue of Generation X that Marvel let Jim Mahfood create some years back.
• This is a great article about Google's Daniel Russell explaining how to research more effectively using Google.

The Best TV and Film Title Design of 2011

I'm a big fan of title design for film and television, and it's something that's becoming a bit of a lost art. So many TV shows and films are doing away with lengthy title sequences. I think that's a shame, because a good title sequence gives you time as a viewer to sink into the intended mood of the piece, stop thinking about the outside everyday world, and prime yourself for a properly immersive experience.

My two favourite title sequences for last year are embedded below. For film, it's the titles to David Fincher's excellent The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. After that, HBO's Game of Thrones. They're both outstanding pieces of visual art in their own right, and match their respective works perfectly.

If there's a set of opening titles that you particularly like, from last year or even from decades ago, let me know in the comments.