Books, Design and Culture
Last Thursday The New York Times hosted an exhibition of rejected book jacket designs called ‘Killed Covers’. Fortunately for those of us who don’t live in New York they’ve also posted a gallery of 20 covers from the show.
(Pictured above left: design by Roberto de Vicq, Wetlands. Right: design by John Gall and Leanne Shapton, Autograph Man)
FF Spinoza — A nice looking new type family designed by New York-based art director Max Phillips:
With the goal of readability in mind, Phillips named the typeface after 17th century rationalist and lens-grinder Baruch Spinoza, a man whose job it was to help people see clearly.
The family is meant as an elegant workhorse, a classic text family with just enough individual character to hold its own in display sizes. It was inspired by mid-century German book faces like Trump Mediæval and Aldus, and by the types of Nicolas Kis. The forms are narrow and economical, with open counters. The line is firm and distinct. It has strong thick strokes and serifs to help it grip the page. Its intended virtues are firmness, clarity and modesty.
Interestingly, Phillips is also author of the Shamus Award-winning mystery Fade to Blonde, and co-founder of the pulp-infused Hard Case Crime imprint.
Sign Manual — The New Yorker takes a look at Helvetica and the New York City Subway System by Paul Shaw:
Though Helvetica was always the choice font for typographic synchronization, it was simply too expensive to ship over from Amsterdam, where it was made (back in the days of metal type, lead font plates had to be imported, a costly endeavor, since the plates had to be custom manufactured to fit American printing presses). In the early sixties (much like today) New York City Transit just didn’t have the money. Instead, the MTA used a similar font called Standard, or Akzidenz-Grotesk, which took nineteen years to fully phase out. It wasn’t until 1989 that the MTA officially ratified the decision to replace it with Helvetica in its “Sign Manual.”
The review is accompanied by a slideshow of images from the book.
Something Irretrievably Lost — Rob Young, former editor of The Wire magazine, talks about his latest book Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music with Mark Thwaite at ReadySteadyBlog:
[T]here will always be a tradition, running underneath the more visible forms of pop and rock music. At certain times it comes into focus and is a fairly hip reference point for various artists; at other times – much of the 80s and early 90s, for example – it’s practically invisible and/or unredeemable.
Right now we’re on an upswing, possible as an inevitable reaction to the huge leaps forward in digital and electronic music in the 90s; also because, when making or locating all sorts of music has become so easy and accessible, there’s a certain nostalgia for an indefinable organic quality to the production and a sense that music can be about more than purely formal concerns. This, I’m sure, is connected at some instinctive level with the destabilising effects of recent political developments here. It’s very noticeable that folk revivals tend to occur when people are afraid of something being irretrievably lost.
The Computational Process — Ted Striphas, author of The Late Age of Print, on the distinction between ‘“algorithmic culture” and “culturomics”:
I must confess to being intrigued by culturomics… Having said that, I still want to hold onto the idea of algorithmic culture. I prefer the term because it places the algorithm center-stage rather than allowing it to recede into the background, as does culturomics. Algorithmic culture encourages us to see computational process not as a window onto the world but as an instrument of order and authoritative decision making. The point of algorithmic culture, both terminologically and methodologically, is to help us understand the politics of algorithms and thus to approach them and the work they do more circumspectly, even critically.
And finally…
Just a reminder that the late and final deadline for AIGA’s reinstated 50 Books/50 Covers is April 21, 2011.
The New York Times movie critic A. O. Scott looks at the enduring appeal of The French Connection:
William Friedkin’s 1971 film was a fictionalized adaptation of the nonfiction book The French Connection: A True Account of Cops, Narcotics, and International Conspiracy by Robin Moore, first published in 1969.
“I was eager to be Judy’s model and to have the opportunity to work with a true artist. I felt protected in the atmosphere we created together. We had an inner narrative, producing our own unspoken film, with or without a camera.” — Patti Smith
Here’s a short promotional trailer for Patti Smith 1969-1976, Photographs by Judy Linn, mentioned briefly in this morning’s round-up:
(via @theBDR)
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A Swiss Typeface + 2 Italian Designers = New York City — Michael Bierut reviews Helvetica and the New York City Subway System by Paul Shaw for the WSJ:
Mr. Shaw is irritated with the widespread belief that the modern New York subway system has always been associated with the Swiss typeface Helvetica. This misperception was fueled by the attention the typeface received in 2007 on the 50th anniversary of its introduction, especially in Gary Hustwit’s “Helvetica,” a documentary survey of the astonishing ubiquity of a lettering style that appears over the entrances of American Apparel and Staples, on Lufthansa airplanes and New York City garbage trucks, on Comme des Garçons bags, and, yes, on New York subway signs. But the last, as Mr. Shaw shows, was not always so.
The Habit of Reading — Harvard professor Marjorie Garber talks about her new book, The Use and Abuse of Literature, with The Atlantic:
I don’t believe there’s a necessary divide between highbrow and lowbrow or whatever. I think that the habit of reading is intensely pleasurable and it’s also hard. The pleasure of it is partly the pleasure of detection, the pleasure of recognition, the pleasure of response… I’m very optimistic actually about the future of literature and literary reading—I’m far from despairing and I don’t actually feel that there’s a crisis. What we need is to continue to show the power of reading, the pleasure of reading—and, again, more people experience that than we are sometimes aware of.
Jessa Crispin, editor-in-chief of Bookslut, reviews the book for NPR:
In fact, it’s proof of literature’s strength and lasting value that a 19th century writer like Jane Austen can still speak to the contemporary love lives of her readers, and that a book like the Diary of Anne Frank can still cause a ruckus among protective parents. That fight over comic books? The same arguments were made about Shakespeare, because, it was suggested, Elizabethan drama wasn’t real literature. (Early debates also routinely happened over novels, ballads and books written by women.) People have been trying to ban books for ages, from the 18th century’s Fanny Hill and the court cases against Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Ulysses, all the way to Harry Potter. “[Literature’s] greatness… is enhanced rather than undercut” by these challenges, Garber argues. There will always be stubborn, scandalized readers trying to define what literature is, but the greats will endure.
From Head to Hand — A lovely essay by ceramic artist Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare With Amber Eyes, on Primo Levi’s The Wrench and being a maker, in Slate:
Here, at last, was a book structured round structure. It was a conversation about how you took one part of learning and took it to another job. This made sense of how deeply connected the hand and the head really are. It articulated for me the way that I would throw a dozen porcelain pots and look at them, affectionately perhaps but also with a dispassionate eye, and plan the next dozen. It understood how I knew when dipping a pot into a bucket of glaze or listening to the sound of the flames when firing my kiln that there is something out of balance.
And, above all, there was a feeling that Levi was not speaking for people who make things. He doesn’t explicate or translate technical terms. In The Wrench, Faussone’s voice is clear and unhurried, paced in response to the real complexities and real pleasures that he encounters. Alongside him is Levi with his “specific challenge: I have a double experience—a chemist in the world’s eyes, and feeling, on the contrary a writer’s blood in my veins.”
People Like Us — A profile of Coudal Partners on Signal vs. Noise, the 37 Signals blog:
Despite the varied efforts, one consistent theme for the firm is a sense of curiosity and playfulness… That attitude attracts kindred spirits. “In our experimental films, in our contests, in our blog postings, and the products we make, we are trying to satiate our own curiosity and interest,” he says. “And we just take it on faith that there are a lot of people who share those curiosities and those interests with us. And if so, they will buy our products and they’ll watch our movies. Maybe you don’t have to sell to everybody. Maybe there’s enough people like us.”
And finally…
Bass is Best — Steven Heller on the movie posters of Saul Bass, for The Atlantic:
Comments closedBass’s work is appealing for its nuance, and his keen ability for making subtle, abstract symbols speak louder than literal photographs. What makes the new Hollywood versions so unappealing is the inability to allow the viewer to fill in the blanks. When Bass worked for Hollywood studios he created a consistent identity for films, from main and credit titles to posters and ads.
Luc Sante, author of Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, has posted an amazing selection of vintage French photographic noir book covers at John Gall’s blog Spine Out.
On the Defensive — Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask, on teaching creative writing in The Financial Times:
When you teach creative writing, you are already on the defensive. People love to poke you in the chest and cry, “But you can’t teach writing!” This is precisely what I think about automobile driving but I let them rant while I rub the sore part where they poked me. I don’t know why people get so worked up about this subject. Nobody has asked them to teach creative writing or even to learn it. Apprenticeship, the sharing of history and technique, has always been a central feature of art-making. Yet people cling to a romantic idea of the self-made genius toiling away in a garret or napping undisturbed in a sleep module.
Books on Wheels — A really lovely article about bookmobiles from the Smithsonian Magazine:
Bookmobiles, the man said, had been a fundamental inspiration while growing up in rural Mississippi in the mid-1960s. The public library had been closed to blacks—but the bookmobile stopped right on his street, a portal into the world of literature.
The gentleman was W. Ralph Eubanks: today an acclaimed author, and Director of Publishing for the Library of Congress… “The librarians did not care that I was barefoot, and wearing a pair of raggedy shorts. All they cared about was that I wanted to read—and to help me find something I would enjoy reading.”
Eubanks’ story is just one example of the pivotal role bookmobiles have played in literary culture, and individual lives, for more than 150 years.
Strides at The Strand — Nancy Bass Wyden, co-owner of The Strand bookstore in New York, interviewed in The Daily Beast:
We have taken strides to grow with our customers and listen to their needs. When customers started requesting New York Times bestsellers, we started carrying new books and featuring them on tables in the front of the store; when customers started talking about the Internet, we got online; when Amazon and B&N.com became “competitors,” we partnered with them.
And finally…
The Trial — Judith Butler in the LRB on the implications of the ongoing and complex legal battle in Tel Aviv over several boxes of Kafka’s original writings:
Comments closedHad the works been destroyed, perhaps the ghosts would not be fed – though Kafka could not have anticipated how limitlessly parasitic the forces of nationalism and profit would be, even as he knew those spectral forces were waiting.
Stefan Sagmeister outlines the creative process behind his short film projects at 99%:
(via Brain Pickings)
1 CommentIn Influencers, a short documentary Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, New York creatives discuss pop culture trends and what makes a person creatively influential:
(via Kitsune Noir and others)
Comments closedThanks for the CBC Books blog for including The Casual Optimist in their list of 10 ‘Book Blogs We Appreciate’ earlier this week. It is always nice to be appreciated — I only hope I can live up to the billing… :-)
The Story of Eames Furniture — Written and designed by Marilyn Neuhart together with her husband John, who both worked with the Eames Office from the 1950’s until 1978, the year Charles Eames’s died. Published later this month by Gestalten, the book comes in two full-colour volumes with a slipcase.
The Future of the Future — William Gibson interviewed in The Atlantic:
I think that our future has lost that capital F we used to spell it with. The science fiction future of my childhood has had a capital F—it was assumed to be an American Future because America was the future. The Future was assumed to be inherently heroic, and a lot of other things, as well… I’m not going all Sex Pistols, shouting No Future!—I’m suggesting that we’re becoming more like Europeans, who have always retrofitted their ruins, who’ve always known that everyone lives in someone else’s future and someone else’s past.
Respect for the Users — Jay Rosen‘s inaugural lecture to incoming students at Sciences Po école du journalisme in Paris earlier this month:
The Web effortlessly records what people do with it. Therefore it is easy to measure user behavior: what people are interested in, what they are searching for, clicking on, turning to… right now. What should a smart journalists do with this “live” information?… [Y]ou should listen to demand, but also give people what they have no way to demand because they don’t know about it yet. In fact, there is a relationship between these things. The better you are at listening to demand, the more likely it is that the users will listen to you when you say to them: you may not think this is important or interesting, but trust me… it matters. Or: “this is good.” Ignoring what the users want is dumb in one way; editing by click rate is dumb in a different way. Respect for the users lies in between these two.
And finally…
Graphic designer James Patrick Gibson talks to Babelgum about his photoblog New Type York , an archive of images of typographic artifacts — signs, directions and building inscriptions — around New York City (via DesignRelated):
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Michael Cho‘s cover for the Best American Comics annual 2010 published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Fantastic.
Undefined — The Caustic Cover Critic interviews illustrator and designer Alice Smith:
After sketching ideas, I make compositions using inks and pens to bring collages together, the pen marks might have disappeared in the finished composition, but it’s the pen marks and the rough sketch that helps bring it together. I use old imagery for ethereal effect, playing with visual alchemy and nostalgia. And the quality of printing pre 1950s, photoengravre and proper litho is so much nicer than the pixel fuzz and dots of newer digital printing.
Alice’s portfolio is here.
Scraps of Paper — An interview with superstar designer Rodrigo Corral in Metropolis magazine:
[T]he parts of the process that are unique and special really come from the individual designer’s experience. I think about the people who might read this article, and assuming some will be design students or younger people just getting into book design, I have to say that in order to come up with ideas—which, aside from a solid understanding of typography and typographical context is the most important part of all of this—you have to have an understanding of what has come before and what is current. I’ve spent years in used bookstores and magazine shops looking, admiring, and collecting, and this is all a part of the “design process.” The things I have stored in my brain and all that is still out there to see and learn are all part of the process.
Bought and Discarded — Simon Akam explores the sidewalk booksellers of New York for More Intelligent Life:
What wasn’t clear was what it meant to have a big presence on secondhand stalls. Was it an honour for a book, or a slur on its author’s reputation? Which was more significant—the fact that so many copies had been bought by someone, or the fact that they had since been offloaded again? To add insult to injury, were the titles I encountered in droves lying on the stalls because today’s reading public chose not to pick them up, even at a much reduced price? I needed to find out whether the champions of my survey were much loved, or doubly scorned.
And finally…
The Road: Scenes From the Post-Print Apocalypse by Peter Kuper for the New York Times (via The Ephemerist).
Group Thinkery — Book-designing, tuba-playing Christopher Tobias has launched a new blog to discuss books, design, and publishing. Group Thinkery is also on Twitter.
I came across the stellar portfolio of High Design’s David High — which includes this rather brilliant cover for The Management Myth for W.W. Norton — earlier this week thanks to a tweet from the chaps at FaceOut Books. Go take a look.
Luck — In another one of those long, fascinating Agents and Editors Q&As from Poets and Writers that are always well worth your time, Jonathan Galassi, president and publisher of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, looks back at his career and comments on the current state of the industry:
One of the really hard lessons was realizing how much of a crapshoot publishing is—how you can love something and do everything you can for it, and yet fail at connecting it to an audience. Maybe you misjudged it. Maybe it didn’t get the right breaks. One of the hardest things to come to grips with is how important the breaks are. There’s luck in publishing, just like in any human activity… That was one of the hardest lessons: how difficult it is to actually be effective… Writing is its own reward. It has to be. I really believe that. This is a part of publishing that’s really hard to come to grips with. But publishers can’t make culture happen the way they want it to happen… We can huff and puff and pay money and advertise and everything else, but in the end, if the readers don’t come, we can’t do anything about it.
The lovely-looking limited edition, hand-made Done Walking With My Regular Shoes by recent graduate Stina Johansson. The cover design is screen-printed onto canvas (via DesignWorkLife).
Andy designing — The New Directions blog looks at the book designs of Andy Warhol:
Andy Warhol worked for New Directions as a book designer off and on for almost 10 years. Our editor-in-chief recalls James Laughlin telling her an Andy Warhol anecdote:
“He was a very strange looking man. But all the secretaries loved him because he would sneak little origami creatures on their desks when they weren’t looking. One time as he was walking out of the office he looked bashfully over at a secretary goggling at him and said ‘I like you. You’re so hirsute.’ Her reply? A very soft and giggly ‘thank you.’”
Personalization — Steven Heller talks to Rick Smolan about The Obama Time Capsule, a book that can be customized by the reader before it is printed:
I wondered if there was a way to create a book that wove together all these amazing images with each individual book buyer’s own story, photos and even their children’s artwork, so that every single copy was unique. I intentionally didn’t want to do a trade book edition because part of the goal was to have no books in warehouses, no print run, no books printed that might have to be later pulped and destroyed, no books shipped over by container ship from China or Korea (where all the big coffee table books are printed). The idea was to do the book of the future 10 years ahead of its time.
In this particular instance the customization of the book sounds a little gimicky to me, but possibilities it opens up seem pretty endless…
And lastly… Not being very quick on the uptake (what, you noticed?) I just came across the winners of The Strand bookstore’s Eye on The Strand photography contest. The Grand Prize was awarded to Josh Robinson for ‘Strand Shadows’ (above) and the contest exhibition, which opened on July 15th, will run through August 26, 2009 at the Pratt Institute CCPS Gallery, located at 144 West 14th Street, New York. I’m also rather fond of Cary Conover’s ‘Upside Down’ which took second place:
