Today's Extracurricular Reading
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Why There Are Pages and Why They Must Turn, by our personal hero, the poet and typographer Robert Bringhurst. If it gets you misty-eyed you can buy the letterpressed and handbound version (printed by Peter Koch, who is a legend in his own right) of this essay here If you haven't read The Elements of Typographic Style you should probably do that too. It is not so much a guide to book design as it is a meditation on the necessity of making beautiful things. It will change your life. We're not joking.
Posts
"Most of what we write and print, like most of what we say, has no such grand importance."
Not that the whole article isn't awesome, but that particular sentence was worth quoting. Thanks for sharing. :)
We are so not talking to you right now and NOBODY JILTED US THANK YOU. Some people are just waiting for EQUAL RIGHTS FOR EVERYONE.
1) Okay, is there some place (virtual or otherwise) where we typography and font nerds can go hang out together? We obviously need to get together more often.
2) Your 12:59pm comment here worries me... go watch this. You'll feel better.
We are so not talking to you right now...
Then I guess you won't be needing THIS. Sorry, my bad. I'll just cancel it.
Oooh, Lydia, I'll talk to you! For that box, I might even shut up for you!
Did we say anything about NOT NEEDING OUR DRINKIES? DID WE? NO WE DID NOT
Here's a question for you... what's best book design you've ever seen? So not the literary goodness of the wordies, but just the book as object. Cover, design, font, paper, binding, etc.
Laurel,
That is quite a tempting offer. If I say anymore, my husband (that I actually MARRIED...not just in my imagination) may get jealous. ;)
--
Rejectionist,
I'm sorry, I don't think you understand how the SILENT treatment works. TRY AGAIN.
--
Okay, I'm diverting to go on a slight rant here...
As of the time of this comment, there are 281 followers, and only 8 comments, 3 of which are MINE, and 2 of which is YOURS, the author.
WAKE UP, PEOPLE! READ THE BLOG THAT YOU CLAIM TO FOLLOW, AND READ THE EFFING LINKS! AND THEN, FOR THE LOVE OF BLOGDOM, COMMENT ... PLEASE!
As someone who runs a blog (among other internet entity-type things), I understand it can be quite discouraging when you put forth the effort to post something for the benefit of others and then get zilch in return. I know it's not the hot topic of the week (AKA HARLEQUIN DEMONS TAKING THE SOULS OF UNSUSPECTING ROMANCE AUTHORS), but it's still a good post.
Why am I so worked up? *shrugs* I swear I didn't get into that box. HONEST.
Rant over.
Ink, we saw several of the original Gutenberg Bibles in Mainz and they are pretty off the chain.
Lydia, it's okay, we are totally fine with peace and quiet on the internets. We get more discouraged by the comments than by silence sometimes, to be honest. Not on OUR blog, of course. And not that we are talking to you. Hee hee.
HA!
Guess I just needed to vent for a moment. Thanks for the soapbox. It shall be returned without a scratch. Promise.
And thanks for NOT talking to me. Good grief. TRUCE.
My son is eating corn straight from the can as his dinner for the next month straight so I could afford that. Enjoy.
----
Ink,
The book I'm reading now has an excellent cover, but I'm partial to BLUE so that might not count for anything. The inside is rather pleasant as well. I would provide a link, but I think this one is better seen "in hand." The font choice is SUPERB, and it changes when a certain character speaks, which I thought was rather impressive. Emphasized the creepiness by a HUNDRED-fold. (hehe. That one was for Eric.) Also, each chapter heading has an image set behind it (is there a technical name for that?), which garnered a smile from me the first time I saw it. WHAT CAN I SAY, I LIKE WEAPONS...You'll see what I mean.
Pick up A Darkness Forged In Fire: Book One of the Iron Elves, by Chris Evans. Love it.
Thanks for your post today...I needed to be reassured that people in publishing still love books (and I'm talking about REAL books), book design, and all the things I hold dear. Well, I work for a book printer...what can I say, I live and breathe books all day every day.
Now, Lydia, be patient! I've been at work all day and just got home and had time to read the link. (I downloaded it just before I had to run to not be late.)
That was an awesome essay. Parts of it brought tears to my eyes!
BTW, should the clueless amongst us worry about why you guys are bandying silence and alcohol?
Dear Loretta, Lydia got fresh with us in the comments section of Pimp My Novel, but everything is fine now that we added her to the industry blacklist.
Dear CKHB, that shit is AWESOME. The part around 6:32 where he starts really going off made us a little weepy.
Dear Matilda, we are only the assistant, but we are right there with you.
Loretta: You just don't know how to live. Silence and alcohol are both highly valuable commodities with and interesting supply/demand ratio.
The less silence you can get, the more alcohol you require. Fortunately, alcohol is available for purchase. Silence, however, is fleeting and fickle.
Post a Comment