Posted by Brian Hotchkiss on Thu, Jul 01, 2010
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.
Posted by Peter Blaiwas on Fri, Jan 08, 2010
First, I turn 53 this month. So do my eyes.
Then, too, I design and lay out illustrated books for a living. Textual balance, ease of use, and readability--including sufficient contrast from brightness of page to variety of thicknesses in the strokes of each letterform--are all extremely important to me. I dislike reading endless lengths of minimally formatted text and scrolling through undifferentiated paragraphs with no rhythm or pacing.
I believe that the Internet developed as an interactive tool that was required to do too many things fast (and well), so readability was not given a high priority. As a result, most legibility basics (e.g., the aforementioned contrast, or care given to typographic choices) need to be reconsidered for electronic text. When I read a book, for example, I don't shine my reading lamp into my eyes, so it stands to reason that I won't be happy if light emanates out toward me from behind the text I'm reading.
There is also the issue of scrolling up and down as opposed to reading left to right and then turning a page. To date, presenting text on a screen has followed the basic "universal" assumption that real estate on a monitor is always at a premium. This makes scrolling the most logical and efficient means of progressing through text. So, even though a vast number of the world's readers have fallen in line behind this essential compromise, I think it's time to look at the bigger picture. Five and a half centuries of reading practices really needn't crumble in the face of the two or three decades over which online content has developed.
For one's eyes, turning a page provides a brief, natural, and essential break from the concentration required to read. Like blinking, this unremarkable activity has the capacity to offer our hardworking eyes the frequent and necessary pauses they need. Many of the newspapers that have developed online "readers" have recognized this, and they seem to have had the most success in negotiating with the realities of the monitor in creating more reader-friendly environments.
Of the many technological advances in digital publishing over the last decade, the advent of the portable document format (pdf) has brought about a major shift in how print publications are edited, designed, and produced. The potential savings in time and costs (shipping and paper) and the jump in efficiency were immediately apparent. Almost as quickly, the pdf became the new standard for proofing print publications.
I am aware that only a tiny fraction of the constant stream of innovations in information technology directly affects my work (and perhaps my interests), and that my use of such advances barely scratches the surface. My appreciation of Adobe's latest innovations is likely always to be analogous to the Indian story of
the blind men and the elephant. I welcome anyone to fill me in on how I can become a pdf "power-user" and resolve the issues addressed in the following critique:
The pdf encapsulates the digital image, layout, page, or manuscript, and thus essentially mimics the "permanence" of the printed page. It is also the most comfortable way I have found to read content on a monitor. For that reason, I think this format has the potential to become the most effective means of bridging the gap (or chasm?) between publishing content digitally and actually reading it onscreen.
Presently, we create pdfs for our clients so they can review layouts of individual chapters from the illustrated books we produce for them. We reduce their length like this because electronic files containing an entire book are too large, and the redraw rate too slow, even when file size is significantly reduced and art compressed.
Adobe Acrobat functions primarily as an "artifact" display, despite its useful editing and proofing tools. Its GUI for sequential documents has always been ungainly. In my opinion, pdfs should be the display of choice for electronic books, particularly illustrated ones. Retooling Acrobat (or developing new spinoff applications) in partnership with e-book developers with the goal of recreating the experience of reading a print publication is the best bet for this nascent industry. But, then, perhaps their primary goal is making reading more fully interactive--which may only offer the reader more distractions--rather than efficient or comfortable?