Outward Bound
From limited edition typeset masterpieces and hand-drawn type to vibrant computer graphics, these four designers show the varied beauty of books.
Eighteen years ago, American author and columnist Anna Quindlan wrote, “I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mainly of building enough bookshelves.” Whether her children’s interiors now comprise walls of artfully arranged literature is unknown but there is indubitably something about the aesthetic of books that invites display. We surround ourselves with them; lines of spines on shelves and a whole category of books for accumulating on coffee tables. These designers are making books so delightful, you’ll need space on your shelves for at least a few more pieces of bibliophilic art.
Jenni Quilter
(picnic, lightning) press
Lugging a sewing machine and a suitcase of fabric around Sicily, Jenni Quilter would set up shop in hotel rooms to hem each page of her book Fabric which is laser printed onto curtain lining. “Letterpress purists would be horrified.”
Although not a purist herself, Quilter is an adept printer. Doctorate research on collaborations between writers and artists saw her turn apprentice, learning
to typeset and use a printing press. “I had spent most of my life loving books, but I knew so little about how to put them together.”
A writer and New York University lecturer, Quilter runs her own press (picnic, lightning). She publishes limited editions of her own short fiction and artwork, or collaborates with musicians, artists and even children, who drew the illustrations for Cottage Industries – with their eyes closed.
“I just like thinking about how a reader encounters a text. To me, that tacit partnership between a reader and writer contains a lot of potential in making art.”
Quilter’s books are undoubtedly works of art. Fabric’s pages are enveloped in tissue and nestled in a box with a hand-sewn letterpress card. “A hand-made book’s processes of production are so visible, that its preciousness is emphasised.” Not that she’s precious about her books. “They aren’t to be neatly tucked away or displayed behind glass. They are designed to be touched and read.”
Renée Lam
AUT Design graduate
“I was thinking about bidding on ebay for underwear.” Someone else was “wondering why my co-workers have much more exciting job titles than mine”. Renee Lam has archived for posterity people’s actual thoughts; crafting an intricate volume of inanities. A volume in three parts.
Lam’s documentation of human ephemera is her graduate exhibition project, uniquely classifying and depicting 100 respondents’ answers to “What are you thinking right now?” These pieces are exceptionally tactile; appreciation demands hands as well as eyes. “There is something deeply satisfying about running a beautiful stock between your fingers.”
Reminiscent of braille, laser cut shapes depict each thought according to its grammatical construction. A noun, for example, is a triangle. “When the loose leaves were bound together they created this beautiful depth through the alignment and misalignment of the different holes.” The second half of this book features the corresponding text.
Scrabble tiles spell out the myriad subject matter of people’s idle contemplations in the second book. They are “a metaphor for the perpetual change and reformation of thoughts that occur in the mind”. An old-school library catalogue box then classifies these now-familiar thoughts by emotion. Under Disappointed: “‘I’m shaming myself for watching so much Curb Your Enthusiasm.’ See also: Embarrassment.” Seems a bit harsh.
Vince Frost
Frost Design
In Ancient Lights, astronomer and space photographer David Malin presents spectacular images most of us can barely imagine. Manga Impact is a 500-page chronicle of the graphic novel style and Futuretainment tackles the consumer-led revolution of the media and entertainment industries.
Diverse titles united by the fact that the look and feel of each book are in the accomplished hands of the Frost Design team. Vince Frost, Creative Director of the interdisciplinary design agency, has worked on about 50 books in 13 years. He describes book design as taking content and massaging it into shape. “You give that book an identity. You shape it into something that becomes an icon, a product. A book needs to capture for the reader the energy and spirit of the original idea.”
Frost predicts that ebook readers – ipods for books – will take off, but doesn’t necessarily see digital publishing as books’ competition. “Things on the internet are made to download, to be temporary. With a book, every page, every dot, is considered. Books are made to last, to have a lifespan.”
Given that lifespan, Frost believes “it’s no longer right for designers or publishers to be printing without an understanding of where materials are coming from and what their effects are”. Recycled paper, vegetable inks, printing close to the distribution source: these are all considered in a book’s design. “When we work with publishers we insist they think this way too.” Penny Olson
Sarah Maxey
Sarah Maxey Design
Sarah Maxey is off to do a press pass for her latest book cover design,Vincent O’Sullivan’s Further Convictions Pending. For a lover of words and double entendres, this title held particular allure. “I’ve used one interpretation and drawn a lyrical, suggested brain. It’s quite bookish too, like it’s made out of pages.”
Good book cover design, says Maxey, is respectful to the content, without giving too much away. “It’s important it doesn’t interfere with the reader’s imaginative response to that content.”
Book cover designs only make up a fraction of Maxey’s work. Her hand-lettered typography work has adorned gallery walls, the Courtenay Place light boxes and William Safire’s New York Times column. She seizes any occasion to use the style in book design and cites her award-winning cover of C.K. Stead’s Dog Poems as an example of what she does best.
Here, a dog is made of words from one of the book’s poems. “I wanted to pair him with type that was ‘doggy’ in character – straightforward, uncompromising and brown.” Despite running out of dog before finishing the poem, Maxey knew she was done because of “lovely, happy accidents” like the pen blotting right on the nose and the word ‘claws’ forming the foot. So the poem ‘tailing’ off was an acceptable concession.
Subscribe to the latest design news delivered directly to your inbox every month...