Photography and design for print production
Book design in all its forms, from jackets and hardcover books to trade paperbacks, mass-market paperbacks (although rarely), and academic journals.
It took 850 days, 74 tubes of soy ink, fifteen colours, 660 masters, 690,000 sheets of paper, three fans, two digital Riso duplicators and four people to complete this 360-page book that focuses on one thing: the process of Risograph printing.
I have to admit: I hadn’t heard of risograph printing before — Wiki has a (very) brief intro — but the book looks like something very interesting indeed, along the lines of a Pantone catalog on steroids. Read more at Eye Magazine.
Although books as objects have been around for many hundreds of years, by looking at the history of the dust jacket, we can see how young the modern book design really is.
Book Riot has posted the interesting “The History of Dust Jackets: From Disposable to Collectable” for all of our entertainment, education, and general love-of-books reading.
(Check out their “Why are Books That Shape?” and “The History of Deckle Edges,” too.)
After reviewing hundreds of entries every year, the jury for AAM’s annual Museum Publications Design Competition awards only one publication with the Frances Smyth-Ravenel Prize for Excellence in Publication Design, recognizing it as the best submission overall. This year, the winner is David Levinthal: War, Myth, Desire, a publication of the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, New York, designed by Design Monsters studio. We recently talked to the book’s designer, George Corsillo,to learn more about the concept behind his prizeworthy design: a four-volume retrospective of the artist David Levinthal’s photographs which took two years to complete.
In fact, for all his acclaim in the field of book design, Mendelsund himself isn’t particularly fond of book covers, generally seeing them as an impediment that inevitably colors a reader’s perception of a book. “As much as I love book covers — I love making them, it’s fun — I don’t love the fact that there’s somebody between me and the text.”
These days, actually, the renowned book designer who never wanted to be a book designer tends to simply rip the covers off his books altogether. “If it’s a paperback, I’ll rip the cover off,” he says. “The books that are most important to me in my life don’t have covers on them.”
I didn’t know Peter Mendelsund’s name off the top of my head [Memory not what it used to be? —Ed.], but we’re sure familiar with his work, such as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and the Atlantic’s recent redesign. And what an interesting relationship with book design he has. Read more
Egyptian designer Moe Elhossieny talks us through why he launched his Design Repository and what he’s already learned about Arabic book design from the collection.
One thing I never read, if possible: ebooks. That said, in these strange times, they are what folks need — and, because these are strange times, it’s causing problems. Ars Technica has the story.
Martin Glaser, of I [Heart] NY fame — among many others — died yesterday at 91. Dylan covers forevermore! Here’s the Guardian with the news.
Update: Dezeen has a few items in their story, too.
Update, July 1: Dezeen has a great list of some of Graser’s more notable works (vodka excepted…;). See here.
Update, July 10: The Guardian‘s obit.
“The digital Letterform Archive has made nearly 1,500 objects accessible to browse online through over 9,000 high-resolution images,” Hyperallergic notes. Some good background here, too. Check it out.
“Book design has become more important than ever – but what makes an iconic jacket, asks Clare Thorp.” BBC Culture takes a look.
