Two from the NYTimes
One book-related, one not — but too important to me not to mention:
— A detailed and appreciated obit of Joseph Barbera, of Hanna-Barbera fame. That duo are responsible for some of my favorite cartoons, especially Tom and Jerry. RIP, sir.
— A fascinating look at those responsible for finding and returning looted art during WWII, the results of a new — and self-published — book on the subject. Check it out.
NYT's 10 Best Books of the Year
Hot on the heels of the last list comes the best of the best, according to the New York Times:
Check it out. (Nice graphic, too. Kudos.)
Posted by Giles, Friday, December 1, 2006, at 12:59 AM.
Posted to Book prizes | Books | Publishing
NYT's 100 Notable Books of the Year
The list is out.
It’ll be an interesting jumping off point for some cover discussions — as diverse as the books on the list. Fodder for the holiday weekend.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, November 23, 2006, at 3:21 PM.
Posted to Books
Just Wrong
Commute? Want to pretend you’re learned? Carry your iPod in a book. A Flickr usr came up with a nice DIY to mask your illiteracy.
Ouch. What a tragic ending to those 80 years! (And no “audiobook” jokes, please…;)
Posted by Giles, Thursday, November 23, 2006, at 3:00 PM.
Posted to Books | Technology | Whatever
Fun at the Georgia Literary Festival
Absolutely beautiful day Saturday here in Macon — perfect for the outdoor Georgia Literary Festival, which was a big success.
There were exhibitors set up along High Street, venues in area business and available rooms, performances in High Street Park, and lots of people of all walks of life enjoying the day.
Special thanks to Dr. Katey Brown for the opportunity to work on this great project — it was wonderful to see it turn out so well.
Posted by Giles, Monday, November 6, 2006, at 12:11 PM.
Posted to Books | Personal | Photography
NYT: Non-Bookstore Book Sales
Books are turning up in the oddest places these days.
With book sales sagging — down 2.6 percent as of August over the same period last year, according to the Association of American Publishers — publishers are pushing their books into butcher shops, carwashes, cookware stores, cheese shops, even chi-chi clothing boutiques where high-end literary titles are used to amplify the elegant lifestyle they are attempting to project.
What began as a trickle of cookbooks in kitchen shops and do-it-yourself titles in hardware stores has become, in recent months, the fastest growing component in many major publishers’ retail strategies.
“It’s a way for the book business to stay alive,” said Abby Hoffman, the vice president of sales and marketing for Chronicle Books in San Francisco, which sells most of its 350 offbeat titles each year to places like high-end grocery stores, children’s clothing stores and wineries. “Anyplace that sells merchandise is a place to sell books.”
When Starbucks got into the book business last month, it hitched its brand to Mitch Albom’s latest inevitable best seller, “For One More Day,” helping propel it to the top of the lists. But the shift in the business can more clearly be seen in the sale of lower-profile authors in lower-profile settings, where the right title in the right location can make all the difference for a book that might otherwise sink without a trace.
Is this the beginning of the end for bookstores? Lots of questions. The NYTimes article has more thoughts here.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, November 2, 2006, at 9:14 AM.
Posted to Books | Publishing | Whatever
NYT: Ode to Joy
Joe M. writes,
Saw this on NY Tiimes Web site. Cool stuff. [T]he book has been very influential in my life. Good Eating!
Seconded from here, Joe — I’ve had, and heavily used, a copy for years. Nice to see that the new edition has more emphasis on the original recipes, too:
The new edition — a sort of greatest hits of home cooking — raises the interesting question of whether a cookbook covering sushi to ham loaf is relevant at a time when the cookbook industry is so fragmented by microcuisines.
In 1997, the last time Joy of Cooking was revised, things seemed to have gone terribly wrong. Recipes from professional food writers replaced many of the book’s old standards, food processors whirred a bit too much and the voice of the cookbook became subsumed. […] The new edition brings back the old voice and some favorites — like tamale pie — but also adds some new recipes, like Mediterranean short ribs with olives, and enchiladas verdes. But mostly it is basics, many of them beloved.
What I’m not necessarily going to do an ode to: the new edition’s cover design. I’m not sure about the big, even overwhelming, red circle — the previous editons’ white covers suited me better. And what’s with the text at the bottom? Sheesh.
No matter the cover design, I’m still glad there’s a new Joy in town. Thanks, Joe!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, October 19, 2006, at 7:43 AM.
Posted to Book design | Books | Personal
NYT: Trying Again to Make Books Obsolete
David Pogue on Sony’s latest e-book gadget:
“The market for downloadable books will grow by 400 percent in each of the next two years, to over $25 billion by 2008,” predicted the keynote speaker at the 2001 Women’s National Book Association meeting. “Within a few years after the end of this decade, e-books will be the preponderant delivery format for book content.”
Whoops.
The opening paragraphs. Should say something — which I’d summarize as a big meh. Read why.
As if we expected differently!
Posted by Giles, Monday, October 16, 2006, at 6:16 AM.
Posted to Books | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Publishing | Technology
Frankfurt Book Fair
…starts today:
The annual Frankfurt book fair, the world’s largest, begins Oct. 3 and will focus on the flourishing literary scene in India, this year’s guest of honor country, as well as the rise of the Internet as a challenge to the printed word. About 70 of India’s most successful writers, including Amitav Ghosh and Kiran Desai, are scheduled to present their work at the fiveday event, which is expected to draw nearly 300,000 visitors to see some 7,000 exhibitors from 111 countries, Agence France-Presse reported. This year’s event will also focus on the boom in electronic publishing, and Google Inc. is expected to be in the spotlight, since its efforts to make extracts of every book printed available online have prompted concerns with authors and publishers over copyright.
For our many European readers, I hope you get a chance to go!
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, October 3, 2006, at 9:06 AM.
Posted to Books
British Library on Copyrights
From yesterday’s Ars news:
The British Library has the Magna Carta, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook, but it’s still not happy. Why not? Because it has the intellectual property blues.
The Library issued a manifesto today on intellectual property law in the UK and offered six suggestions for cleaning up the current mess, all of which attempt to strike a proper balance between the rights of creators and consumers of content. […]
Overall, the proposals are well-balanced, though parties on both sides of the debate will find bits to dislike. Copyright holders will dislike the restrictions on contracts and DRM, while those in favor of “open access” may be disappointed that the British Library advocates a “life + 70 years” copyright term. Still, it’s good to see an institution with the stature of the Library arguing for such a balanced set of proposals, and we hold out hope that the Library of Congress will one day advocate for many of the same proposals on this side of the pond.
Hear, hear.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, September 26, 2006, at 9:15 PM.
Posted to Books | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Writing
A Million Little Refunds
James Frey, the author who admitted making up portions of his best-selling memoir, “A Million Little Pieces,” and his publisher, Random House, have agreed in principle on a settlement with readers who filed lawsuits claiming they had been defrauded.
Neither Mr. Frey nor Random House are admitting any wrongdoing, but consumers who bought the book on or before Jan. 26 — when both the publisher and author released statements acknowledging that Mr. Frey had altered certain facts — will be eligible for a full refund, said a person familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the settlement still has to be approved by a judge.
The NYTimes has more.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, September 7, 2006, at 9:16 PM.
Posted to Book people | Books | Ethics | Publishing
Google Book Search Allowing Downloads of Some Books
From Ars:
When Google Print was first unveiled, it was clear that the site would become an amazing resource. It provided full access to books that were already out of copyright, but only if you viewed them online, one page at a time. What people most wanted, though, was the ability to download full PDF versions of the books, which they could read or print at their leisure and on their own machines. Oh, and they wanted Google to provide this free of charge.
Google went ahead and did it. Books no longer in copyright are now available for download from the Google Book Search site.
Wow. Google strikes again, in a big way.
Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO, joining Apple’s board is an interesting thing, too. They certainly have become the company to watch.…
Posted by Giles, Friday, September 1, 2006, at 12:36 AM.
Posted to Book sellers | Books | Computers | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Publishing | Technology | Writing
Arranging Books by Color
Rob writes, over at Design Observer:
I have never found the Dewey Decimal Classification system to be an accurate reflection of how books are organized in my own mind — or anybody else’s for that matter. Certainly I understand the DDC’s advantages when when it comes to large-scale collections, but if how we choose to organize our personal effects says something about who we are, then an arbitrary numeric system says very little about me.
[…]
Recently, I stopped by a design studio in my building called Thumb to see my friend Luke Bulman. He’d just reorganized his books by color, and I asked him why he did it. A few reasons that resonated with me, and helped to illuminate his logic.
Read the rest — an interesting post indeed.
Here in my office and library, books are organized according to subject, but not with any recognizable system. Type books are together, books about book design are together, then books about types of art, etc. It is, as Rob suggests, organized according to the way that works best for the user — me.
How are your books arranged?
Those of you with good memories will remember one subject of Rob’s post being mentioned here on Foreword back in 2004.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, August 30, 2006, at 9:45 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Books | Books, design, art | Libraries | Whatever
Interview with Penguin's Paul Buckley
…over at Hear, Hear:
No matter what you’re selling - a product, an idea or a skill - the presentation is just as important as the thing itself. Your customers will only do so much research (if at all) when purchasing your product, and when presented with similar choices, they will choose the one they feel most comfortable with. And that decision is most likely based on the packaging. Nothing illustrates this better than the experience of shopping for new books: before we even bother to read the description on the back of a book we have never heard of, we need to first notice the book and have enough desire to pick it up. And that decision is based on the book’s cover.
In this interview, Hear, Hear chats with an expert in book cover design - Paul Buckley, a veteran art director of one of the largest book publishers in the world, Penguin Group.
The interview will be published in two installments; the first went up yesterday (thanks for letting me know, Shawn!), while the next will be next Friday.
Some great stuff here, too, including a bunch of click-for-larger covers to get in to.… Hear, hear — nicely done!
Posted by Giles, Thursday, July 13, 2006, at 9:39 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Book people | Books | Business | Design | Publishing | Type and typography
Artist I'd Like to Work with Soon
Meet Els Overkleeft, a photographer and graphic designer from my old stomping grounds of Maine:
In addition to wonderful photos like the one above, Els uses a combination of photos and overlays on some of her work that’s just beautiful — check out many more examples at her web site. Check out the book she’s put together, too.
I especially enjoyed seeing some of the places I’ve known well in the past — it’s been too long since I’ve been back to Maine. Thank you, Els, for the mini-vacation down memory lane.
Posted by Giles, Monday, July 3, 2006, at 12:18 PM.
Posted to Art | Book cover photography | Book design | Book people | Books | Design | Photography
'Nuther Design Observer Must-Read
We get the word “koan” from Zen Buddhism, where in Japanese it translates literally as “a matter for public thought,” sort of an open-source philosophy for ancient times. Koans often demonstrated the inability of logical reasoning to produce enlightened thought, and, as a trained lawyer and insurance clerk throughout his life, no one knew the deadening effects of logic better than Franz Kafka. Writing was his escape, his meditation, and, fittingly, Meditation was the title of his first published work, released in 1913. While all 18 koans inside are very much worth enjoying, it’s the shortest of them all — the penultimate “Die Baüme,” or “The Trees” — that I’d like to read as a meditation on typography.
Read the rest. Nice article, Rob Giampietro.
(Check out Coudal’s Field-tested books, too, courtesy of DO’s Observed column. What a great idea!)
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, June 21, 2006, at 11:49 AM.
Posted to Book people | Books | Type and typography | Writing
Artists I Love Tonight
Craig Hamilton. I’ve been fortunate to work together with and, more importantly, learn from this amazing comic arts genius (Aquaman is among the many characters he’s worked on), and can’t resist the temptation to post his take on a Peter Pan cover:
It’s for sale, too; alas, my art budget at the moment is about equal to my font budget — which is to say, zero. Good news for someone out there, though.…
Meanwhile, there’s a comment on that page from Michael Bair. Who’s responsible for this:
Oooooooo. In layout, even! Love. Want a big-scale print of that, but it’s not for sale. Just as well.
Click on either illustration for a larger version, more information, and samples from both artists.
Next up on the comic arts front: a history. Too much I don’t know about an area of design with pretty astonishing depth.
Need more time to feed these obsessions. The curse of the curious, someone once told me. I’m sure I’m cursed daily on all sorts of fronts, so adding another to the list doesn’t seem so bad.…
Posted by Giles, Thursday, June 15, 2006, at 12:40 AM.
Posted to Art | Book design | Book people | Books | Books, design, art | Personal
Couple of (Photo) Quickies
Company in town, so light on the posting this week — but wanted to cover these couple of photography-related items:
— PDN 2006 Photo Annual Gallery, especially the Photo Books category.
From Aftermath: Bosnia’s Long Road to Peace. Just one example of powerful and wonderful, wonderful stuff here — well worth the few minutes you’ll take going through the whole thing. (It’s hard to stop once you’re in there.…)
— Adobe’s released the third beta of Lightroom, for those interested. I’m going to go with the Aperture path here at Osprey Design, but will definitely check out the new version of Adobe’s photo management/retouch/process/kitchen sink application.
The latter notation is from the Online Photographer, one of my favorite photo blogs, run by Mike Johnson, who’s been in the biz a long time. He’s highlighted a comment he got, that I’d also like to:
Is digital photography finally exiting its infant years? That a program originally designed for graphic artists, and not photographers, remains the preeminent software for photo editing shows the need for something like Lightroom. Photographers need software designed for photography, and it’s about time we got some. As amazing as Photoshop may be, its complexity and host of unneeded features make it a compromise solution. We don’t know yet if programs like Lightroom and Aperature are the answer, but at least the software makers are finally looking in the right direction.
As a graphic designer going into photography, I can agree with this — for the longest time I couldn’t understand why anyone would want anything other than Photoshop. It’s a great program, with enormous capabilities! But it’s also for jobs of one. Try 1500 of anything in PS and you’re in trouble. Aperture’s notion of stacks works especially well for me — but it’s great to see competition in this area, so the features and power in these programs will keep growing.
Thanks, Mike! Thank you, Photo District News. And Apple, thanks for Aperture, but get the auto-run ads off the front page of your website. They’re offensive.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, June 14, 2006, at 10:30 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Photography
BEA Podcasts Available
If you weren’t able to attend BookExpo America 2006 in Washington DC this year, we now have a valuable FREE service from the show — Podcasts from BEA.
We have recorded approximately 24 of the favorite events and sessions and will release them as podcasts over the next couple of months.
Plus, our roving reporter has captured some special interviews in his quest to find out “What’s the Buzz” at BEA this year.
Please visit www.bookexpocast.com where you can subscribe to our podcast by email, iTunes or other popular podcast software. We also have a complete list of our scheduled podcast events under “Upcoming Podcasts” on the site.
I’ve spoken with a couple of people who went to BEA this year; both said it was “underwhelming” and “not as busy as usual.” Anyone else want to venture an opinion?
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, June 6, 2006, at 12:40 PM.
Posted to Book design | Book people | Book sellers | Books | Books, design, art | Business | Jobs | Publishing
My Bad: Wonderful
Few Tuesday updates for folks:
- Joseph, this is right on several levels. Thank you for posting about this. And, yes, I do think “Horsemen of the Esophagus” is a great title. We’ll leave whether something’s wrong with me for later, perhaps…;)
- Stephen Fraser of Lulu, apologies for not getting to posting Lulu’s take on POD. I owe BookMobile an email, too, and just haven’t had the time to do either. Uh, “My Bad.”
- An update on the POD question is coming soon — as soon as I can put together a few minutes. This project, which started as a cool idea, has suddenly snowballed into something quite huge. Plus, it’s local — my first non-internet client in a long while — which means meetings instead of quick emails, making for some very long days indeed.
Although, one of the joys (and curses, for those with schedules as insane as mine) of Macon is that a meeting just isn’t a couple of rushed minutes in some office, it’s an event, often involving a meal or at least some sort of tasty treat. (I had my first Mint Julep the other day — oh, a delightful drink — served at a sweet-tea refill rate. With lunch. Sheesh.)
It could even be said that the move South — from Florida, LOL! — continues to bring surprise. Absolutely not complaining.
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, May 16, 2006, at 11:29 AM.
Posted to Book design | Book printers | Books | Printing | Site news
Update on Bush
Update, Friday noon: Going to go into the weekend. Would rather beg for an extra couple of days than not get this one right — and it’s proving sticky. I so want to use the red, white, and blue, all the type treatments I’ve tried are icky (and there’s a tone of type — long subtitle and two authors), etc., etc. Sometimes things just don’t “flow” the way you’d like.
Update, Thursday afternoon: Red, white, and blue definitely do not work. I’ve settled on a couple of different crops, but the colors and type are taking forever.
Original Post:
After a ton of culling through photo selections, the final three, uh, candidates were presented for this two-color, scholarly title yesterday:
The editors went with the first photo, which happened to be my favorite, as well. Alas, all three of the final images are from Corbis, so from here, it’s not a photoshop game but more a question of taking this photo and making a book cover out of it.
Parenthetically, I generally prefer to use cover subjects that are facing or whose action leads to the opening side of the book. The image chosen has Bush looking towards the spine. While in no way as powerful as the left-action image from Oote, for instance, Bush is well-known enough (heh) to attract attention to a cover no matter what.
Red and blue (with some paper showing through, for white) seem like the obvious choice for colors, but we’ll see how that plays out. Also, there’s deciding how to crop this photo; the title is 6×9, and the photo obviously isn’t — so do I use boxes, cropping, a combo? Time will tell.
Suggestions and “here’s how I would put this together” comments welcome.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, April 19, 2006, at 10:30 AM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Jobs | Photography
Bookslut: Kidd Awkward, Indifferent
But somehow the book winds up with something resembling a positive review:
This awkwardly designed, slippery slab of a book, with a half-split cover and the wingspan of a raven, is a physical ordeal to hold and to read. But it’s a rewarding ordeal. Containing nearly 400 pages of book jacket designs by Chip Kidd, one of the pre-eminent designers of our time, Chip Kidd: Book One is an exhilarating chronicle of how one creative mind can transform a moribund art form merely by taking a slightly sidewise approach to its hidebound conventions.
[…] Kidd’s secret? One of them, at least, is that, as he relates in the accompanying copy, he actually reads the books he’s assigned, from beginning to end; the reason he’s not irritatingly literal is that he’s gratifyingly literate, as the encomiums from some of “his” authors included in this book would indicate. Even John Updike himself contributes a fine introductory essay. It’s too bad, then, that the rest of the book is indifferently written (by Kidd himself) and horribly copy-edited — “loathe” instead of “loath,” “it’s” instead of “its,” “premiere” instead of “premier,” and “who’s” instead of “whose,” to cite just four depressing examples. But if you can look past that and, ironically, this book’s own uncomfortable layout, Book One is a treasury of brilliant book design.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, April 6, 2006, at 12:00 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Book people | Books | Books, design, art | Writing
NYTimes Covers
It’s Monday, which means a trip by Book Covers from the NYTimes Book Review around here. Missed last week, so double the fun today!
Including this gem:
J’adore. Spacing, aging, colors, amazing photo arrangement, all of it. Joseph is exactly right about the noose, too.
Update: Crown kindly let me know that David Tran did the cover for Our Town. Nicely done, David!
Great conversation going about A Changed Man, as well — check it out. (Like the Saunders and Disposable American, too. Thanks, Joseph!)
Posted by Giles, Monday, April 3, 2006, at 6:22 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book cover photography | Book design | Books | Type and typography
Bookmarkable: BibioOdyssey
Via BoingBoing comes this fascinating look at books, illustrations, science and history — including lots and lots of historic photos and illustrations, great reading, and tidbits like this:
A History of Color Systems. The above illustration is by Philipp Otto Runge, from 1810, for instance; the text includes ten other historical illustrations and several other reference sources. Very cool.
Check it out.
Posted by Giles, Friday, March 31, 2006, at 2:04 PM.
Posted to Art | Book and design blogs | Books | Books, design, art | Design | Printing | Publishing | Type and typography | Whatever
Graphic Style
The always-interesting (and astonishingly prolific) Steven Heller teams with Seymour Chwast for 2001’s new edition of Graphic Style, a cover that has worn very well:
Currently on sale at Labyrinth for $11. A nice (and long-overdue) addition to the bookcases.
Big thumbs up to my mother for bumping into and getting this. Sweet Mom.
Update: Amazon has the older version listed, but only a puny little illustration of the cover. Would be nice to do a side-by-side — will keep looking.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, March 30, 2006, at 9:40 PM.
Posted to Book design | Book sellers | Books | Type and typography
Foreword: Three Years of Book Design Blogging
Many, many moons ago, it seems now, Amanda and I starting putting HTML “blog” posts regarding books and book design up on the ospreydesign.com site. By the end of 2002, we’d decided that we wanted to do it often, if not daily, as a way to expand our knowledge of book design and set me up for leaving Tropicana and go back to doing freelance design — and try to do book design — full-time.
Back then, the header was based on a photo of Haunting Sunshine, a title that’s aged well, and was 550 pixels wide (here scaled to fit):
Then, three years ago this weekend, March 17-21, 2003, Foreword became “offical.” We purchased Movable Type, got it working, enabled comments, and even had rotating headers. The same 550 pixels wide (and again scaled to fit), the site lost the ospreydesign tie-in (and gained a subdomain) in favor of an emphasis on community. This one was my fave:
The photo on the right was to have been a cover for a book Amanda was working on; she spent a good deal of time wandering about Florida gathing information and photos only to abandon it later. (Unfortunately, IMO.) The books on the left were photographed and Photoshopped in-house.
This one got the most questions — and was another Amanda thing:
Nope, I ain’t answering…;)
Readership that first “offical” month averaged 50/day, at least ten of which were family and friends. But it was a start. The plan from there was yearly redesigns, tons of great book design and publishing news and blurbs, and to build that community. I left the juice company in July, and ospreydesign was full-time again. Readership went over 500/day.
In March of ’04, the site gained the so-called “velvet” look:
Reflecting growing average screen sizes, the site grew to first 600, then 650 pixels wide, so we could better accomodate larger cover pictures. Readership climbed over 1000/day, Foreword started flirting with the top-10 returns in Google for “book design,” and life seemed good — for a while.
By October 2004, it was a different site, really, because things were strained to breaking between the two principle bloggers. Yet despite a change in flavor from lighter, quicker “look what I found” items to more thoughts and feelings and design, readership continued to climb.
By March 2005, Amanda and I had seperated, I’d moved to Georgia, and the site got … wider. I flat out didn’t have time to redo it completely, and knew that part of me wanted to do something more radical (read: a new logo), so in the end, I postponed. And you, dear readers, kept coming — over 3000/day, from all corners of the world. Foreword now flirted with the #1 Google return for “book design,” trading spots with Robin Williams and Amazon.
This year, March 2006, posts are sometimes sporadic, Amanda and I are lawyered up — damned shame, if you ask me — but, thanks to the support of my friends, your support, and with the help of a few talented fellow bloggers, the postings continue. The site even got partially redesigned, but ran aground when I realized I didn’t know how to do what I wanted for the main portion and have been too busy to learn — so it hangs. Maybe in a week or two. Might play with a few details here, too; some of the dingbats on the left haven’t worn too well for my taste, the comments still aren’t clear, and a couple of other little things. (As always, suggestions welcome.)
Meanwhile, Foreword’s now solidly #1 in the Google “book design” rank (out of, when searched without quotes, 512 million), readership is over 5000/day, and we’re going to keep posting on book design, books, photography, writing, design, and probably even too much personal stuff. For another three years — or, hopefully, thirty.
Thank you for stopping by. Thank you for commenting. Most of all, thank you being part of the community.
Posted by Giles, Friday, March 17, 2006, at 2:15 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Books | Business | Design | Personal | Photography | Site news
The Search's Copyright: A Good Discussion
Tom Evslin, author of hackoff.com, mentioned not too long ago, has a good conversation with John Battelle, author of The Search — which is about Google et al — regarding the copyright warning in his book:
This warning seems directly aimed at Google Book Search, a project which intends to scan the collections of some of the world’s great libraries and make them searchable online. Now you can find similar language on the copyright page of lots of books but John Battelle is a known strong supporter of the value of having almost everything searchable as anyone who reads either his book or his blog knows.
So I emailed John and asked him about the apparent contradiction. He said the decision was the publisher’s (Penguin) decision to make but “I totally disagree with it.” Of course, at the time he signed his contract with Penguin, no one knew that this issue would exist. He readily agreed to talk to me it.
Tom also notes that hackoff.com has been selected for the short-list of titles being considered in the fiction category for the Lulu Blooker Prize. Congrats.
Posted by Giles, Thursday, March 9, 2006, at 1:18 PM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book people | Book prizes | Books | Business | Computers | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Libraries | Public domain | Publishing | Technology
Theme of the London Book Fair
…was “what technology can do,” says the New York Times.
Margaret Atwood’s robotic arm seems especially amusing.
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, March 8, 2006, at 11:35 AM.
Posted to Book people | Book sellers | Books | Business | Publishing | Technology
BEA Reminder
Email from Book Expo America today reminding us that this years’ show is May 19-21. Anybody know if they’re going yet? (I don’t plan to, but.…)
Posted by Giles, Wednesday, February 22, 2006, at 2:45 PM.
Posted to Books | Books, design, art | Business | Jobs | Publishing
'Nuther US vs. UK
vs.
Talk about different! Size, title, style, everything. Seems like the US might win this one, though — otherwise known as “what happens when Penguin gets it.” No designer listed (for either).
Posted by Giles, Tuesday, February 21, 2006, at 10:55 PM.
Posted to Book cover photography | Book design | Books
Foreword asks
What are you reading right now? What are you recommending to friends?
Posted by , Thursday, February 2, 2006, at 10:40 AM.
Posted to Books
Thanks, Joe
Coming soon to Foreword: three, perhaps four new covers for David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster, courtesy of some guy from Hustler, WI. (Okay, perhaps that’s not the best reference for the quality of his work…;)
One word: fantastic.
In the meantime, enjoy this beautiful, beautiful cover:
…and go over and get the great context Joe’s put it in. Nicely done. (Check out the American Purgatorio cover, too — lovely.)
Posted by Giles, Friday, January 27, 2006, at 11:29 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Books | Books, design, art | Site news
"Creative Nonfiction"
Had an interesting conversation with someone yesterday about creative nonfiction, a category of literature I didn’t even know about. We were discussing it because of this:
The person I was speaking with specifially mentioned that Oprah had stood behind it, but I noticed in this morning’s NYTimes that she “rebuked” the author and kicked him out of the book club. Heh.
And the cover? Well, let’s say I didn’t need the Times to tell me someone needed a rebuke…! “The sticker’s an improvement,” I can hear someone saying. Newsflash: not for long.
A customer on Amazon left an image of this title as an alternate — and I like the cover:
It asks more questions. (A million more? Sorry. Had to go there.) Not perfect, certainly, but gets you thinking about what’s inside — an excellent measure of “success” in my book.
We have this second cover to think about because someone left a comment on Amazon. Been a good trend here recently, too. Thanks.
Posted by Giles, Friday, January 27, 2006, at 10:40 AM.
Posted to Art | Book design | Book people | Book prizes | Books | Books, design, art | Ethics | Freedoms and rights | Writing
Widen the Debate
Blatently stolen from Joseph, because it’s such a great question:
Well, this should spur some debate. Would you feel comfortable designing this? Under what circumstances?
Let’s talk about it! Here or there, leave a comment. Thanks.
Posted by Giles, Monday, January 23, 2006, at 11:14 AM.
Posted to Book and design blogs | Book design | Books | Books, design, art | Ethics | Personal | Publishing | Whatever
Poster, V2
Okay, here you go:
Past even my usual four-something posts; I’ll try to be brief. But I thought you’d appreciate some details.
Ironically, the same day I was on a soapbox about culture, the poster was rejected — for a lack of cultural understanding.
The three artists talking about their work are from India and the Caribbean, areas of the world culturally sensitive to being grouped (generally) with the African culture the mask represented.
Monica and I discussed it a little, and her take — she chose the mask photo, by the way — was that the mask was a “diverse take on comedy/tragedy.” Worked for me at the time, but both Dr. Young-Zook and the “esteemed designer” learned a lesson. I said in one of the comment threads that I’m glad it’s not easy, because it’s more interesting. You also learn more. Case in point.
So, Monica wanted to go back to the panel of fellow doctors, to coin a phrase, with some photo options. I sent her to iStock, where she found a few good potential photos — but I really didn’t want to see something that I’d liked that much go to an iStock photo. I wanted one of my photographs. Thankfully, I knew I had this. I’d just taken it (December 26th, as part of the Ringling Museum photo series that My Life is from) and knew as soon as I’d seen it that I wanted to use it for something.
Non-offensive, it fits both India and the Caribbean — the palm shadow works especially well, I think — but needed, well, work. Five hours later, here we are.
Am I going out on a limb, taking this time for something that could — might very likely be — rejected again? Maybe. But the “panel” will get this developed poster and the two iStock photos undeveloped. Hoping it’s enough to nudge them to using a design based on my photograph, and I enjoyed the exercise. It was worth the time.
And damned if I don’t like it just as much as the first one, for a ton of very different reasons. What do you think? Leave a comment.
Note: In the interests of full disclosure, I wanted everyone to know that I posted a (very) slightly tweaked version Saturday evening.
Posted by Giles, Saturday, January 21, 2006, at 5:21 AM.
Posted to Art | Book people | Books | Books, design, art | Design | Flickr | Personal | Photography | Type and typography