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Superscale Typography Goes To School
Pentagram's Paula Scher, who has been exploring superscale typography in environmental graphics for urban environments and interiors, created a pair of murals for the new Queens Metropolitan Campus in Forest Hills, Queens NY, which houses a high school and middle school. The murals were completed as a commission for the Department of Cultural Affairs Percent for Art program, which encourages permanent artworks in public spaces. Each mural covers almost 2,500 feet; Scher originally painted the map of the NY metropolitan area at an 8x6 foot scale in three pieces; to enlarge the image for the mural, painter Michael Imlay, projected Scher's work onto a series of panels and repainted the enlarged image. Contact: www.pentagram.com

A Novel Solution For Fitzgerald
Six classic F. Scott Fitzgerald novels are getting a makeover—the covers, that is — to mark the 70th anniversary of the writer's premature death in 1940. Designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, a senior cover designer at Penguin, the new hardback editions aim to reflect "the elegance and glamour of the Art Deco period." The series features gold, silver and bronze-foiled Jazz Age patterns, and a detachable bookmark is integrated into each edition. The typeface used throughout is Penumbra Serif. Contact: www.penguin.co.uk

Beirut Picks Fan's Designs Out Of A Crowd
It was a graphic design student's dream when Paul Rice inadvertently designed the 2010/2011 tour merchandise for one of his favorite bands Beirut. Rice, a student at Limerick School of Art & Design in Ireland, says he was inspired to study graphic design in part because of his love of album covers. He set out to create posters and a merchandise design for Beirut based on his knowledge of the band's eclectic and folksy style, and then submitted it to Creative Review's crowdsource feed hoping they would be displayed. They were and, Rice reports, Beirut's record label contacted him and asked for rights to use the design for the band's 2010/2011 tour merchandise. "I was totally shocked but of course quite excited," he says. Contact: www.paulricedesign.com