Annotations

Powers of Ten, My Design Standard for Illustrated Books

Near the top of my list of "Books I Wish I'd Designed" is Powers of Ten, a collaboration of Philip and Phyllis Morrison with the Office of Charles and Ray Eames. It is as accessible and captivating to children as adults, which was apparently the intention of all of its creators: "The sketch should, Eames decided, appeal to a ten-year-old as well as a physicist; it should contain a ‘gut feeling’ about dimensions in time and space as well as a sound theoretical approach to those dimensions.”

The premise of Powers of Ten is the illustration of the infinitely large and small by locating the reader specifically within the universe. Some have used something similar to describe the Bible, but to my mind Powers of Ten is a lot more reader-friendly.

The concept was taken from a 1950s children's book, Cosmic View: The Universe in Forty Jumps. It was then made into a short (9-minute) film in 1968 that was adapted into this book in 1982. Both the frames of the film and the shape of the books are square. The starting point is a representation of an area that is 10 meters square (10⁰).The image within is an overhead view of a man and woman at a picnic. 

Next the view zooms out to an area 100 meters square (10m x 10m, or 10¹), then to 1,000 meters, and 10,000, until it represents the size of the observable universe—one billion light years away (10²⁴).

At the center of each square is another blue-ruled square representing the smaller area from the previous image. From a design perspective, these two concentric squares represent the basic components that graphic design involves: composition and proportion. That these two very flat shapes can form the structure for a three-dimensional voyage to infinity always reminds me of the unlimited possibilities offered by a blank page (or screen).

In the film, the viewer must remain a passenger who progresses forward in a linear fashion. In the book, however, the reader can move back and forth through time and space at will—he commands the voyage that unfolds on the right-hand page of each spread. The left-hand pages are four-column grids filled with pictures and text that bring to life each point in the voyage—its structure, texture, atmospheric conditions, and the life forms it supports.  

I have always loved illustrated books for offering the opportunity to read, learn, and understand backwards, forwards, sideways, or from the middle out, any way that makes sense to me. If I want, I can even start on the first page and read to the end of the book. Every page of Powers of Ten reminds me why I continue to be fascinated by the practice of graphic design. 

Editor to Book Designer: Read First, Design Later!

Editor though I am, graphic design fascinates me. I think a well-designed book, regardless of subject matter, can launch some of life's greatest experiences. There is something wonderfully encouraging about the dialogue between the visual and the cerebral inspired by type on a page (or screen). Frequently I am thrilled when I read words made from well-wrought, carefully chosen type. Place it in thoughtful proximity to pictures, and it can be astonishing. Therefore, I want to know if others think it is too much to ask of book designers that they pay attention to the substance and nature and content of their raw material—text and, often, images.

"Type: nothing but blocks of gray space!" I was present when this was tossed off word-for-word by one of the world's most highly reputed graphic designers. You can guess in what esteem he held the actual words and sentences that comprised that gray space. (Sadly, his illustrated-book designs treated pictures as nothing but blocks of colored space.) But he raked in the design awards. Had he read any of the text with which he was asked to work, his designs would undoubtedly have been very different—dare I say better?

Another quote: "He would be happiest if he was asked to design a book that had no words." And you guessed it, "he" is also an acclaimed book designer who reliably wins impressive kudos and awards. When I heard this statement and the admiration it engendered, I recalled a museum publications competition I judged a few years ago. My fellow judges quickly became annoyed by suggestions (on a couple of occasions, insistence) that we take into account the manner in which the content was handled and how it worked—or didn't—with the visual component. But my colleagues couldn't move beyond assessments of each piece's "pretty quotient." Their words, not mine. Basically, my viewpoint was completely overruled within the first hour or so. (As I recall, the highest accolades went to a tasteful, neo-Romantic poster featuring a restrained painting of a bouquet of flowers with a counterpoint of tightly elegant type. It was lovely, unquestionably, but had little to do with the subject of the exhibition it promoted: the art and culture of late-1930s Berlin.)

By the time we founded Vern Associates, Peter had heard my diatribes about book designers' all-too-frequent refusal to read the material with which they were charged. His being a book designer didn't dissuade me from jumping on my soapbox, from which I could spew unfair invective and floods of generalized, less-than-complimentary notions about why reading wasn't part of their skill set. Nevertheless, Peter took it to heart, and when we began our business he became determined to show me that not every graphic designer prides him or herself on feigned illiteracy. The result, I like to think, has been books offering far more than merely surface beauty and visual intrigue. These publications actually enhance readers' experiences and facilitate their understanding of the material between covers.

Typically, simple tools accommodate this. For example, for our Princeton U.P. book—Ten Thousand Things: Module and Mass Production in Chinese Art—we were asked to capture the vibrance of Lothar Ledderose's brilliant Mellon Lectures by conveying in book form the blend of his lively speaking style, the information and point of view he offered, and the immediacy made possible by an illustrated presentation. We recognized right away that to do this we needed a design that "speaks" directly to the text, which our editorial/design mix provided. So, when Prof. Leddorose deals in detail with the integral character of a 12th-century BC bronze wine container, we chose to display all four sides and two views of the lid together on a single page, which faced the relevant text. The author later told us that he was delighted with this solution, which he had never encountered before.

The importance of the book designer's comprehension of the nature of the text recently struck me when weeding my library. Several discards were books whose content I treasure and return to often, but the tiny type and skimpy leading made those particular editions ineligible for future reading. I was particularly struck by the miserliness apparent in the text design for a volume of Emily Dickinson's poems and another by, of all people, Walt Whitman! Had the designers spent half an hour or so reading random selections of either one, I can't imagine how they could have prepared such cramped and crimped pages.

To be fair, designers aren't at fault when publishers' economic dictates require Scrooge-like squeezing into too few pages. But don't book publishers (and their editors and designers) owe it to readers to create as felicitous an experience as possible? From my personal perspective, I see that as the goal to which book makers of all stripes and job descriptions must aspire.

Content as words and illustrations, not empty calories.

I expect this is the reason I have always loved illustrated books—children's books, coffee table books, graphic novels—and have spent most of my career designing them. Illustrations give me a break from reading while offering a way to process information in a more immediate fashion. It's also why I consider information graphics (charts, graphs, tables, etc.) to be illustrative. Once finished with my "break," I can return to my place in the text more relaxed and better informed than when I left.

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.

Anniversary books: "creative" and "content" are not oxymoronic.

The last thing any organization's harried communications director needs is to go through the complicated process of hiring a design firm/marketing firm/advertising agency to produce their history only to be met with: "We are ready to start, when will you send us the text, art, research, interviews, manuscript, and everything else?"

An annual report, for example, can easily reach book-length proportions. However, it's reasonable to expect that an annual report will begin with an overview of the previous year and end with lists of officers and board members. Moreover, altering the report's form would do little to enhance the content within and is even likely to make it more difficult to use.

A history that includes pictures, while nonfiction, is still a story, and integrating the ways both pictures and text drive that story is integral to creating an engaging illustrated book. 

The design of an illustrated history benefits from a close relationship between author, editor, and designer. Even a history as rudimentary as a chronological time-line will do more to engage the reader if each benchmark is carefully considered, reflecting the preceding entry and informing the subsequent.

As an illustrated-book producer, I have had the good fortune to be involved in the "building" of an illustrated book. The editor and I met with the book's two authors and its photographer (who documented the entire project) for a series of weekly brainstorming meetings on how to portray the way architect Frank Gehry's astonishing Stata Center came to be, from concept through design, execution, construction, and implementation.

Each week we would meet and discuss the many issues that needed to be addressed. The following week we returned with our various contributions, such as rough manuscript or rough layouts (sometimes both). These inspired further discussion of how to expand and develop the story.

I've experienced very few projects that have developed as organically as this one. It confirmed my concern that when a designer is handed all the components of a history and told to put them together, he or she could easily miss any number of opportunities to bring the story to life. For example, I have seen countless designers roll their eyes at the art they receive for a project, never considering what they could do to improve both the art and the project overall.

 

My partner, the editorial "wing" of our company, and I provide our clients with a simple, unique service that seems to be little known outside of the publishing world. When we receive a manuscript, we can furnish the client with an "art manuscript": we simply annotate the text with suggestions for photographs, art, or artifacts that enhance the story's progression. We offer this service whether we are developing a new manuscript with the author, editing a client's completed manuscript, or have received both edited manuscript and art program from a client. Our suggestions are always well received, but never more so than when a client's "photo research staff" is actually an overworked manager who had too much to do before the project landed on her desk. Such circumstances rarely foster inspiration. In fact, our art manuscripts have often inspired researchers to track down illustrations above and beyond our suggestions.

I have never considered the elements of graphic design as a collection of discrete components that need to be balanced and arranged. When words and pictures work side by side, they elevate even the most unlikely subject and bring its story to life. A client need never apologize for bringing what others might consider a "prosaic" topic to the table. Our goal is to reinvigorate the client—and the ultimate reader— to consider a familiar story with their own fresh, excited eyes.

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.

Why I dislike reading online: a print publication designer grumbles

The 5 Ws of Illustrated-Book Design (Part 2 of 2)