I recently saw this book, Blind Faith by Peter Bartl & Jane Merks, on the Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild website as part of their 25th Anniversary exhibition in 2008. I thought it was a great use of the accordion structure. Click here to see a very large image where you can read all the words and get the full effect. See all the books in the exhibition here.
I thought this was a sweet variation on a book with map-folded pages. Click here to see a much larger picture. Found on Ciaee’s blog.
I’m really enjoying designing and making little books that fit in a matchbox. Here’s the latest… instructions on making a simple string figure, the Cat’s Cradle. Inside the matchbox is an attached, pull-out book with illustrated instructions and a paper cut of what the finished figure looks like. See more here.
I finally got around to reading Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. It’s a sweet book about, among other things, loving books and typography. One main plot thread is about a font called “Gerritszoon,” designed by Griffo Gerritzoon, and I was puzzled by what typeface it is supposed to be. I thought perhaps the book was printed in Gerritszoon, but the colophon and front matter don’t list a font. We’re told Gerritszoon was included on the Mac, but that name isn’t one of those fonts. It sort of looks like Palatino, which was designed by Hermann Zapf, and the wikipedia page says “Palatino… which takes inspiration from printing types cut by Francesco Griffo c. 1495 in the print shop of Aldus Manutius.” So the clue there is “Griffo,” and it turns out Francesco Griffo designed Bembo and these other fonts. I only have Bembo and Palatino on my computer, and they don’t quite match the face in the book. But Google to the rescue—this guy figured out it’s Poliphilus.
So now you know how I diverted myself the other night! I’ll end with a quote from the book, a comment by the narrator about the coders at Google (the book digitization project at Google is another plot thread) and which also speaks to his evolving view of technology and books:
Books: boring. Code: awesome.
These are the people who are running the internet.
At book & printer’s fairs in Northern California, the San Jose Printer’s Guild always set up a tiny Kelsey or 2 for people to print a card and to see how letterpress really worked. A design firm in Rotterdam, Letterproeftuin, has a similar idea. They’ve built a traveling design studio to make small posters and books. See more about them .
When I see books like this, I wish I had this much patience for sewing! This is an embroidered composition book by Candace Hicks. See more of her work here.
