From the monthly archives:

September 2009

Great Ideas — Art director and designer David Pearson discusses his publishing venture White’s Books with Peter Terzian in Print Magazine (above: cover for Emma, published by White’s Books; illustrated by Amy Gibson):

Due to the arrival of eBooks, many prophesied the death of the printed word, but we see it as an opportunity to turn the spotlight back on the traditional methods of book production and to luxuriate in the craft and tactility of the physical book and the printed page. It’s lovely to be designing with longevity in mind as we aim to create objects that will be retained and cherished by their readers.

David Pearson also discusses his work for Éditions Zulma and Penguin. I’m hoping to post a Q & A with David on The Casual Optimist later this fall.

Questions Should Be Answered – Dutch type designer Jos Buivenga, whose quality free typefaces (including personal favourite Fontin Sans) are available from his one-man font foundry exljbris, interviewed in the MyFonts newsletter. Jos’ new typeface Calluna (shown above) looks rather lovely.

The Future of Publishing? — Patrick at the Vroman’s Bookstore blog looks at what publishers do and how they might do it (or something different) in the future. While there is nothing especially new here, it’s an interesting post in part because it’s written from the perspective of a bookstore. The comments are worth reading too, if only for Ann Kingman‘s contributions and hilarity of a certain self-styled “agent of change” having the audacity to accuse someone else of oversimplifying (pot introducing kettle). All of which is a good, solid reminder that I have a related post in my drafts folder than needs dusting off… *Sigh*

And on a related note…

Reimagining the Book — Mark of index//mb is looking for people to help organise a conference on authorship in Toronto.

And just FYI: There is a good chance that this will be the last post for a couple of weeks. Work stuff + Life Stuff + Internet Fatigue means that I need a break from even the gentle rigours of irregularly posting here. Hopefully normal service will resume in October (for what it’s worth…).

Out.

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Sunnyside

by Dan on September 24, 2009

I just picked up  copy of Glen David Gold’s most recent novel Sunnyside.

Book Covers Anonymous gave the British cover — with a whimsical illustration by Adam Simpson — some love back in July, but I think I prefer this lovely elegant, and understated cover by Megan Wilson for the US edition published by Knopf:

You can see more of Megan Wilson’s work at her website, including these rather lovely covers for Vintage’s Richard Yates reissues:

Young Hearts Crying: Photograph by Richard Rutledge

A Special Providence: Photograph by John Rawlings

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Midweek Miscellany, September 23rd 2009

September 23, 2009

It’s funny how topics of conversation sometimes repeat themselves for no apparent reason. This week Romek Marber and his designs for Penguin have come up with sufficient frequency for me to take it as a sign I should post some links about about him: Eye Magazine has a great article about his classic design of [...]

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Designer Q & A’s Round One

September 22, 2009

Monday’s interview with Paul Buckley wrapped up the first round of my Q & A’s with book designers. I’ve been overwhelmed by the generosity of the designers who have participated in the series and I’ve had some great correspondence from designers and non-designers alike who have read the posts. I owe a lot of people [...]

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Q & A with Paul Buckley, Penguin US

September 21, 2009

Photo by Erika Larsen. Design by Paul Buckley It is not every day that I get an email from the Vice President Executive Creative Director of Penguin US, so it was something of a surprise when Paul Buckley sent me a note a few weeks ago about a book cover design mentioned in my interview [...]

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