In a great interview for Design Observer, UK publisher Laurence King discusses the future of design publishing with Mark Lamster:
Illustrated book publishers, and in particular art publishers, need bookshops to survive, especially the increasingly rare specialist ones where there are discerning buyers who understand art, architecture and design. I think that these need to be treated with a great deal of care by publishers because all too often they serve as shop windows for Amazon. They are more important to us than sales through them indicate. It would be great if they could use their reputations and expert knowledge to become competitive with Amazon on-line. But I dread the day when art publishers have to set up loss-making showrooms to exhibit our books, just because we went on being tough with the specialist booksellers. At the same time, booksellers need to reinvent themselves quite fast, which is obviously difficult.
Laurence King published Bibliographic: 100 Classic Graphic Design Books – one of my favourite visual books from the last couple of years — in 2009, and later this fall, they’re publishing a huge, long-awaited, monograph on designer Saul Bass. Can’t wait.
Full disclosure: Laurence King is distributed in Canada by my employer Raincoast Books.
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