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Fine Art Reproduction: Why (and How) We Look at Pictures Today

For three weeks now, I've been working on a blog about color correction for digital and print publications. I think I've developed decent skills in this area during my many years of work in graphic design and production, so I thought I could provide some tips readers might appreciate when left to fend for themselves while producing a publication.

I began by wrestling with ways to describe how to attain accurate reproduction of original artworks and display their images consistently across a variety of media. This brought me to consider the astonishing range of displays on which people can presently view the same, single image, and how widely color and contrast is likely to shift with each of those displays. Always developing printing capabilities skew things even further.

Then I considered how millions of people, like me, spend hours in front of computers, being deluged by countless images. When you contend with that kind of visual saturation on a daily basis, the only chance an image has to grab your attention is if there is something really wrong with it. Even then, I expect that such an egregious error would also need to be engaging enough to keep the viewer from scrolling and clicking.

As you can see, color correction had taken a back seat to a consideration of what it presently means to look at art.

On the print side, my company produces catalogs for museum exhibitions and collections as well as other kinds of books that deal with fine art and architecture. We share with our photographers, production managers, prepress techs, and printers the responsibility for controlling consistency and delivering accurate reproduction. While there is much room for error, the variables are manageable, and we all have the common goal of producing an accurate printed page. At every step along the way, we spend a great deal of time comparing and adjusting each piece in order to provide readers with a collection of images with which they will also want to spend time.

Lately, we have been considering how the great shift from print to digital publishing will affect our niche market of fine art publishing, and how best to utilize these new, always evolving technologies. We've met with  firms that adapt picture-driven books to e-book format. To date, the most successful of these are instructional titles (e.g., cooking, craft, and DIY books and magazines). But, chances are that the reader who spends time studying specific images or text in such books is doing so to clear up confusion about the subject rather than out of appreciation for the pictures.

I'd really like to know if some people would prefer to study a fine art reproduction on a monitor rather than on the printed page. I expect there are many who do, and no doubt I will find their reasons surprising.

I recently talked with a gallery owner who specializes in contemporary and vintage silver print photographs. We talked about how the tiny, rarified market for fine art photography books continues to shrink. He  suggested that the flood of digital images that has become available to everyone, everywhere could cause people to forget the pleasures of viewing photographic prints "in the flesh," which could easily lead to a wholesale loss of interest in attending photography exhibits at galleries or museums. An excessively gloomy forecast, perhaps, but it does cause me to wonder if we are all progressively losing our capacity for sustained visual attention.

Anniversary books and design firms: Resolve these five issues first

My March 24th post concerned hiring a design or marketing firm or an advertising agency to develop and produce a book about an organization's history. As I mentioned then, anniversary books are often longer and editorially more complex than the projects typically produced by such firms.

I also noted that the manuscript and art for such an anniversary book might not have received the necessary shaping, trimming, and focusing that a strong editorial hand can supply. So, even if you are confident in your completed manuscript, here are five crucial points to cover before commissioning a creative team.     

1. Previous experience
Requesting information as specific as possible on this point always works to your advantage. If the potential vendor assures you that there is no difference between the work he has produced and what you require, ask him why — specifically and in detail. You know much more and about your organization and are likely to have a clearer picture of the end product you want than he does. Once, when bidding to produce the history of an executive recruitment firm, we were summarily discounted because we did not have another executive recruitment firm's history in our portfolio. The client spent fifteen very illuminating minutes outlining why they required such particular experience.

2. Communication vs. intimidation
Do the prospective firms understand your business, your organization, your story? Do they effectively present to you your story — in terms related to your business — rather than explain how they approach their own work? I've attended design presentations, both as a designer and a client, at which I have seen too many design professionals rely heavily on design-speak. They seemed to use it as an effective means of intimidation, assuming that the best defense is a good offense. Resist these obvious tactics, and keep in mind that the presenter needs to prepare for the meeting by familiarizing himself with your work, not the other way around.

3. Samples of their work
If you want a cloth-bound, hardcover book with a French-fold* dust jacket and five-color, printed endpapers, the firm you hire needs to show you a sample of exactly that. Your vendor should be working with a printer who specializes in printing and binding illustrated, hardbound books. If not, you run a significant risk of cost over-runs, schedule delays, and compromises to the overall quality of the finished book.

4. Schedule, front-end and back end
Does the design firm you are interviewing understand the time frame your anniversary history requires? Imagine you have a total of 14 months in which to complete the project, but your designer doesn't realize it may take more than 12 of those months to complete the text and art research, interviews, writing, and editing. Such inexperience will turn into significant rush fees for production and printing, not to mention the chance of a missed deadline.

5. Will it last?
You expect the beautifully printed and bound book you have worked so hard to produce — this volume that commemorates the last however-many years of your organization — to have a shelf life of more than a few months. Many print publications incorporate very expensive techniques and materials, but are not expected to have the long and useful life of a well-made book. Printers and binders specializing in fine-quality illustrated books have the resources to offer the best prices on paper, printing, and binding materials that endure. Find out if the firm you are interviewing knows how to provide you with a beautiful book that will also last decades, not just years. Note, too, that the same kind of longevity should be expected from the book's look, feel and design. Trendy seldom equals lasting.

*A "french fold" dust-jacket is one with folded, double-thick edges along the book's perimeter, which assures greater durability and resistance to tearing.

Illustrated books or books with videos?

I am very fortunate to be able to design and produce wonderful illustrated books on painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and architecture for museums as well as university and commercial publishers. I also take great pleasure in perusing a thoughtfully designed book-with-pictures, appreciating the pacing and rhythm of its layout and how text and art refer to and enhance each other.

In my work I strive to provide the viewer with text that is both easy to read and scan for specific information, as well as presenting pictures that one can scan with ease; taking in its surface or boundaries or finding its compositional (or metaphoric) focus.

Of course, all this suggests my preference for holding a book in my hands, scanning spreads from left to right, and turning pages. This experience may be destined for obsolescence, and at Vern Associates we are cautiously adapting our work to accommodate the insistent shift from print-on-paper to digital books.

One seldom visits a site or reads a blog that doesn't supplement its text with video. This is what most people have come to expect from an interactive medium, and video can convey a great deal of information effectively and persuasively. It is a boon for those looking for information on how to do something, because you can watch someone demonstrate the task. I'm more skeptical of sites that combine text with talking heads who instruct, coach, sell, or what have you.

I recently visited two publishing sites that sell hybrid book-and-video titles and found that they to relate to each other in unexpected ways.

Vook is a web-based application that partners with magazine and book publishers to produce highly interactive digital books that you can access on PCs, digital readers, or mobile phones. These vooks include both text and video, along with links to social media sites. Some titles, such as those about cooking and fitness are a good fit for this format. Fiction titles often include dramatized versions of the story, alongside the text. Another discovery was the children's and Y-A author Patrick Carman's Skeleton Creek series (Scholastic). Carman wrote an interesting piece in Publisher's Weekly about his successful series that gets kids really interested in reading.

These stories are presented as text followed by video and so on. This video carrot works really well in making the written word much less of a stick. In the Skeleton Creek books, kids must finish reading before they get to the movie. I don't think that would fly with customers downloading novels from Vook.

The voices in my head

I've never mentioned this to anyone—nor had reason to, until now—but when I read, I "hear" the words in my own voice. My voice is modulated depending on the topic. It is very nondescript when I am calculating figures in a math text, and can get quite dramatic for fiction, a higher pitch for female characters, an appropriate accent for English or French or Bostonian characters. It seems to me that these sounds become an integral part of how I comprehend the written word, make it part of my memory, and classify its value. More important, my internal voice is my first step to visualizing the images and situation being described. I'd like to think that other people share this experience while reading. If not, they must have other means of processing words and internalizing stories. I don't understand how the same degree of comprehension is possible from watching a scripted, filmed, and edited version of that same story, but would love to know if other people share my opinion.

Art Book Designer Considers: What Is an Illustrated Book?

When we started Vern Associates 15 years ago, almost all of our clients were commercial publishing companies well versed in every aspect of the editorial, design, and production processes required to make a book. As our client base expanded to include nonpublishing entities, however, we were suddenly called upon to explain both the specifics and even some basic concepts of our work.

Initial confusion usually shows itself when I tell a potential client that we produce “illustrated books.” For publishing professionals, this term conjures up different types of publications, each with its own specific market. But our nonpublishing clients often assume we produce picture books for young children. That’s reasonable. Children’s books prominently display “illustrated by” credits on their covers, and illustration tends to suggest drawn or painted artwork.

I researched the term illustrated book and found the following definition in The Illustrated Book: Notes on an Exhibition in the Print Gallery of the New York Public Library, written in 1919 by Frank Weitenkampf:

Books were illustrated from the beginning. From the block books and the earliest books printed with movable type, on through four and a half centuries, illustration has played its significant part in the printed book. Two basic principles have obtained: the illustration must either elucidate the text or adorn it. It may do both; sometimes it does neither.

We produce museum catalogs illustrated with reproductions of fine art; corporate and organizational histories illustrated with photographs, documents, and artifacts; professional publications illustrated with information graphics and photo-documentation; lifestyle books showing photographs or drawings of food, design, etc. Regardless of a book’s category, it requires that its illustration (be it photography, fine or commercial art, even use of color and typographic display) integrate with the text to invite the reader’s attention and sustain it through an extensive and complex story.

Being an art book designer has captured my interest for more than 20 years. I love the challenge of creating visual guides, landmarks, respites, and highlights for readers to use and enjoy on their journey from front cover to back. Each new title presents its own unique set of challenges and, as many poorly designed books confirm, it is very easy to apply illustration in a way that neither elucidates its text nor adorns it.