Category Archives: Book Design

Book Design, On the Web, Type

Lots of Lettering & Font Fun

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BookPatrol mentioned a cool archive this weekend that features 100 Years of Alphabet Books. I wish I had all the time in the world to go through and look at these. Some of the lettering is worthy of framing.

Over on BibliOdyssey, this weekend,  a collection of over-the-top “holy smokes how long did it take them to make that back then” ornate letters and folios were posted. Some of the letters are so ornate that I wouldn’t know what letter it was if not for the tag line. I’ll remember this is how they used to do it, the next time I’m cussin’ a font designer for not setting the kerning correctly on a new display font and maybe it won’t seem so bad.

Book Design, News, Type

Type awards

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If you don’t enjoy typography or type geekery discussion, please move along, there’s nothing to see here.

Since the Quills are no more, I am going to spend my “award show tracking energy” to keeping up with the Type Directors Club annual competition. I have to say that I am in 100% agreement with the Superfamily winners this year! Awesome. Though I’m not a fan of the Display category winner, but then display fonts never really rank that high with me. And I am really digging the lowercase ‘y’ of Fondo.

I am, however, going to have to find a way to justify purchasing Tiina, just so I can use the italic face. Mmmmm, mmmm… that is one great slant!

{via ILT}

Book Design

the future of the “classics”

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Public Domain Reprints is a brand-spanking new non-profit has streamlined the next evolutionary step in book publishing. Basically you surf the net for any public domain title. The site says they have some 2 million books ready to print.

Once you have found your book, you submit it to Public Domain Reprints and they handle the hassle of submitting, typesetting, etc. with some online service like LuLu.com. Then you get your book, at cost (plus a $1 fee),in the mail. That’s it.

The cost “classic editions” is about to plummit. The only real value a publisher can now add to a book that’s been around forever is text design and cover design (though some may think a new ‘foreword’ or ‘introduction’ would be of value) . So it’ll be interesting to see what that is worth.

Would someone pay extra to have a better designed book? Or when it comes to the printing of the oldies, is it just the content (at the cheapest price) that they are after?

{via blogoscoped}