optimism bias

i am in the middle of reading this book, but i wanted to lay everything out on the table and tell you that... i bought this book because of the cover.

BECAUSE of the cover.

of course, i also wanted to learn more about the reasons humans are the way we are, and take a tour of the irrationally positive brain. i mean, what a great phrase. on the days that my job boils down to menial retail and customer service, it is nice to know that there is irrationality in positivity sometimes. i will tell you all about my newly acquired knowledge on the subject once i've finished the book, but for now, i will just share the cover with you and you'll (hopefully) understand why it caught my eye and why i bought it, in a burst of irrational positivity:

see?
peter mendelsund, dudes. he's fast becoming one of my creative idols.

i know this is a post that is purely about my aesthetic taste + indulging my need to share such things with whoever stumbles upon them. but i thought it meet + right. and so.

one last thing—since we are on the topic of design, and a large part of the design for this cover is the font that is used...: i recently found this letter to comic sans dissenters, written by comic sans. you know how everyone is always picking on that poor font?

comic sans totally gets back at us for doing that. not that i'm going to start using comic sans now... but it has been rather unfairly maligned by us serif-lovers. via mcsweeneys, of course.

happy thursday!