Pretty much everyone reads more books than I do
May 03, 2009
And that's why I need your help. I'm curious about well-designed books. Basically, I'm interested in any aspect except the covers and the spine. Perhaps you know of a book that isn't all that well-designed except it has a wonderful table of contents? I'd like to know. Maybe a book you read has a particularly nice page numbering? I want to know. Or maybe you absolutely love everything about how certain book looks? You must tell me!
I don't care if you work in publishing or if you read even less books than me. I don't care if you own The Elements Of Typographic Style or if you've never even thought about design. I'll take your input, whoever you are. What looks good? (But Comrade Liu and Comrade Swimmer, I'm especially hoping for responses from you, be it here or in person.)
Finally, if you can get me a link to a picture of what it is you like, that would be super cool.
I guess I'll start it off.
Lessig
This whole thing started because I just downloaded Lawrence Lessig's Remix (available for free thanks to Creative Commons licensing) and I think I like the page layouts for the normal text, specifically the amount of text per page and the typography. I also think I like the typography of the TOC. But that's just it... I think I like it. I haven't seen it on a paper page yet, nor have I attempted reading it seriously, so I'm not certain of the extent to which I like it.
Tufte
Some book design that I am certain I like would have to be Edward Tufte's books on visual communication. Tufte, for those of you unfamiliar, has a very practical style. It is often mistaken for minimalism, due to his deft omissions of unnecessary visual data, even though he advocates maximizing the data-per-visual-area ratio. And I absolutely love his footnotes-in-the-margins thing. (Note 1: I am not one of his cult-like followers. I agree with some of his opinions and disagree with others.) (Note 2: I've never really read one of his books, so I'm a little unsure how much of the design of his books is his own doing and how much is a hired designer. However, his books tend to have a unique and consistent design, and he deals in visual communication, so I'm assuming he at least has a hand in it.)
Well, now that I've shown my ignorant book design knowledge, perhaps you'd like to share?
Posts
May 4, 2009 at 7:10 AM
This is probably the best-designed book I own. They got the layout right, as really any retard can if they actually think about the fact that someone has to read the book they are about to publish---plus you expect a reprinting of a book about design by the dude who created Futura to be well designed. But what really makes it so good is the printing quality. The paper is nice and you can actually feel the letters and see how the ink floats on the paper. It's perfect. (Here's the table of contents.)
Also I like BS Johnson's ideas about his book designs. His ideas would be crap if he couldn't also write well:
The book in a box where the chapters are all bound separately from each other and can be read in any order --- the idea being that since you are sifting through the main character's memories, it doesn't matter which order you read them in. It works.
This book I actually haven't read, but it looks cool. He cuts holes out in pages, to let you look ahead to plot developments as you are reading.
I could list so many; I didn't realize you were into this stuff, Joe. So is Mike Noble. You should ask him.
May 4, 2009 at 12:06 PM
Whoah. Die Kunst der Typographie looks awesome. A quick search of amazon shows me that there is an english translation, but it's redesigned to look not nearly as good. Looks like this might be the first book I buy that I can't read...
Do feel free to list more. And thanks for the Mike Noble tip.
May 9, 2009 at 2:22 AM
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_PB-O1yT5EYg/SbcUPEHhXuI/AAAAAAAAgvY/YO0-hQwhsxY/s1600-h/05_callwild_branson_contents.jpg
I'll leave it up to you to decide how seriously you would like to take that link.
I took some photographs of a text that I'll put up at some point, but I'll warn you that I don't expect to be able to restrain myself from posting cover & spine as well.
Also, the Star Trek movie sucks. Blarg.
May 9, 2009 at 2:23 AM
I didn't give it much thought until now, but what on earth is happening to that 'N'?
May 9, 2009 at 3:02 AM
You think the Star Trek movie sucks? Man, now I don't know what to expect at all. Ashley (WHFR) said it was amazingly amazing. I might see it Sat night, so we'll soon see what I think.
As to your TOC contribution, I like it, but I can't see myself ever using a style quite like that for myself.
(And didn't I teach you how to do links in Blogger comments, Lin?)