According to the booktrade gurus, 1986 was the year that “hardback books began selling like paperbacks”. I honestly had previously wondered when the publishing industry started down the road of ordering up millions of first run hardbacks, all set to sell at hardback prices.
Apparently it all started when Stephen King, Danielle Steele and Tom Clancy, started to put pen to paper, churning out books at a regular schedule.
I enjoy looking at type. I really enjoy looking at the typography used in logos (too much Papyrus out there) and book covers.
But when I need a quick fix and want to bask in the glow of cool creative type treatments I click over to Forget the film, Watch the titles. It’s a growing collection of title sequences from the big screen.
The theorist over at fade theorymentioned a great blog. Conversations in the Book Trade the three-month old blog is the latest creation of a screen-writer in South Korea and features lengthy interviews with a bunch of small-publishers.
I hope they can keep it up. It will be a fun one to see who else turns up in the months ahead.
I finally made it over to the Birmingham Library for the Book Arts Exhibit and I wasn’t disappointed. Lots of neat bindings and materials. But my faves, as usual, was the letterpress work. Most impressive. And a bunch of it is for sale too.
I posted pics after the jump. The name under each picture is the bookartist’s name.
Don’t forget to check out the book artist podcasts too!