I Wonder: Preview & promotion posted 06 April 2010
{{{PRESS: Do me a fave and hold off extensively reporting on this until October when the book is out. If you require a review copy in your printed publication, (hopefully available by end of August), contact Monacelli Press in the USA, or Thames&Hudson in the UK, or drop me a line and I’ll put you in touch with the right person.}}}
It’s a gorgeous hardcover, with gold and silver foils on a satin cloth, with gilded page edges. It’s printed in 5 colours throughout (mostly CMYK + Gold) on a coated stock. At a smallish size (15.5cm x 24cm, or a little taller than 6×9), it is a book meant for holding and reading, curled up in your favourite chair.
These are shots of some of the page proofs.
Every single illustration is new, created for the book, and the content is not about my work, but instead combines graphic art with the written word, and lends my own contemplative but frequently amused voice to my observations of the world.
Some of the articles were originally published as blog posts for the now-archived blog Speak Up, but they have been resurrected, edited, rewritten and given new life in these pages.
Those quirkier writings are interspersed between more philosophical musings on the nature of Wonder and Honour and Memory as they pertain to graphics and the visual world around us.
As a book experience, the relationship between the content and the graphics is very important. They are totally interdependent and neither the articles nor the graphics can live without the other.
The book is in many ways eclectic, with a variety of forms and moods, represented in an abundance of typefaces and graphic styles. But, much in the way of one of my favourite films, the documentary “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control” by Errol Morris, this disparity picks up threads one from another as it progresses, and starts to weave together in a unified whole.
Ultimately the range of thoughts, personal history and hare-brained ideas come together. To the eyes, it is a feast for visual gluttons, but as those who are familiar with my work will already know, there is food for the mind and the heart as well.
There are even secrets …
While the book will be enjoyed by designers and our ilk, it also has a broad range of appeal. The thoughts and experiences within are largely universal, and at times very personal.
My friend Jan, a martial artist, said, “I was surprised by every chapter. Each took me off my guard and my expectations of what I thought your book would be. For some chapters I needed a tissue, others, a dictionary. And I love that you cuss on the printed page. I was grateful for the opportunity to look into another world and to be stretched. (I mean who thinks to critique the alphabet?) What a joy! My eyes darted from text to design and back again on every page, afraid I would miss something, as if it might disappear if I didn’t understand it all at once. Lucky for me I could slow down as each page waited patiently for me to catch up, and read again. I was able to soak up the entire story and design before I continued all the while, knowing I will read it again, because there is more here than a first read can grasp.”
Andrea Deszö, an artist, said “I love how you combine philosophical musings, personal history with beautiful details, history of art, design and theory and all in a perfectly genuine, and seemingly effortless conversational style. Do you know how refreshing it is to read something this smart, eloquent and occasionally also very funny? How refreshing it is to read about ideas and questions that matter today as they mattered when manuscripts were illuminated and on and on throughout history. This will be a great book and an important book, and you are doing it the way you are doing your art by not looking left or right but just looking ahead and doing your thing and it ends up being such a different thing from anyone else’s stuff out there.”
And those two comments are exactly how I hope this book will be received. Exactly what I aimed for, and exactly what I’ve spent the past 15 months working for.
The book is available for pre-order in the USA at Amazon.com
and in the UK at Amazon.co.uk
It will retail in the US for $40, but that Amazon pre-order price of $26.40 is just ridiculously cheap. But remember, you have to wait til October to actually get it in your hands and feel its satiny loveliness.
valentines 2010 --back |
forward-- Maharam wallpapers 1
