posted by Adrian Lucia
The Frankfurt Book Fair is staggering in scale. The American hall alone feels like it could fit two football fields comfortably within its walls, and it’s only one of eight exhibition spaces in the Fair, many of which are two levels. The small Marquand Books booth is a tiny speck in a sea of books. But we like it just fine that way.
The Frankfurt Book Fair’s origins date back 500 years to the nearby city of Mainz, Gutenberg’s birthplace and the cradle of European printing. The Fair in its current incarnation is an expression of our time: publishers, booksellers, librarians, and others from hundreds of countries buying and selling international rights, promoting services, fingering some wonderful books, and smoking a whole lot of cigarettes. (Smoking was “banned” in the halls last year, which seems to have meant only that each booth wasn’t provided with an ashtray.) The global economy churns away.
While the overall effect can at times be overwhelming and somewhat numbing, the experience of looking at books is always an intimate one, no matter the setting. At the Fair there are countless stands of fascinating, surprising books; books whose designs catch your attention; books whose production techniques spark ideas for future projects; books you didn’t know you needed but resolve to buy the second you get home. I’m not complaining.
Marquand Books attends the Fair primarily to meet with American publishers, to whom we present books we’re producing for museums—usually exhibition catalogues that may be worthy of wider distribution. I love the chance to talk with the art editors, figuring out which subjects they’re drawn to and what books fit best on their lists, hearing the buzz on their favorites at the Fair, catching bits of publishing gossip. When I can sneak away, I’ll be poking around the stands of illustrated book publishers, especially in hall 4, where I’ll be spending as much time as possible in the Stiftung-Buchkunst area.
If you happen to be going to the Fair, you can find Marquand Books in hall 8, row O, stand 934. It will just be me this year. Come by and say hello.
+ Why did you decide to pursue graphic design?
I spent most of high school drawing logos and sketching album covers for nonexistent bands. No guidance counselor had the sense to tell me that people get paid to do that, so I ended up studying film in college. After school I started working at a copy shop, then moved to an actual print shop doing prepress and a tiny bit of design, and I gradually transitioned from the production world to the design world over the next few years. Somewhere along the way I went to grad school for library science. Like most people who somehow find themselves in their ideal job, I got here entirely by accident.
+ What’s your design process/style?
I’m not very process-oriented, and in general I think style is bad for design—or at least for the kind of design we do. My job isn’t to have a recognizable style, it’s to let each book be what it needs to be. Of course, we want our books to have compelling designs because we want people to pick them up, but ultimately the design has to be subordinate to the content. That’s basically true of all kinds of design, but it’s especially true in our area. Some kinds of design, say ads or album covers, can be pretty freewheeling, but books require a more delicate balance—this is particularly true with the kind of illustrated art books we make, because each book’s content already has a highly developed visual identity. That’s not to say that there isn’t room for aggressive design sometimes—some books you can push further than others.
+ How did you develop an interest in letterpress/book arts?
I think the question is really “How does anybody avoid developing an interest in letterpress/book arts?” Everybody loves books. It’s very rare for people not to respond positively to a well-printed, well-bound book. In fact, when you hand somebody an example of nice printing or binding, the vast majority of reactions range from positive at the low end to the sort of gushing, zealous enthusiasm that’s almost uncomfortable in its intensity. So, you know, I love books but don’t think I’m at all unusual in that regard.
I love technology too, and I look forward to the day (probably very soon) when I can have a little handy tablet that I can keep in my back pocket that holds one thousand novels and is actually pleasant to read. But loving to read and loving books are not the same thing—they’re related but not the same. Fine illustrated art books are never going to go away, because everybody loves them. The realities of producing and distributing them have changed and will continue to do so, but I think people need these books and aren’t going to give them up.
+ What’s your process for selecting fonts when designing a book?
This is probably the part of designing a book that I spend the most time on. It’s definitely the part I enjoy the most. Obviously, type is pretty critical for books. I often think that as a book designer, choosing the right type is about 90% of my job. And I also think that when a design of mine is successful, I owe about 90% of the credit to whoever designed the type I chose. Sometimes it seems like you find the right type to go with the art and all you have to do is sit back and let the book be pretty.
I think many book designers have a couple of typefaces that they know well and tend to go back to over and over. Mine are Whitman and Caecilia, but I try not to beat them to death. We’re living in a sort of golden age when it comes to typography, and the big problem is that there’s just too much good stuff to choose from. There are lots of ways to choose type, like using Dutch type for a book about Netherlandish paintings for example, but that kind of rationale is generally just that: a rationale. It’s not a process so much as a coping mechanism, because you have to narrow the field somehow. Ultimately it comes down to choosing a bunch of candidates and then setting some text and printing out a gajillion pages until you’ve got the right type at the right size.
+ How do you become inspired when designing a new book?
In general, I think inspiration is for suckers. You just start working, and you get some ideas down, and those ideas lead to other ideas, and eventually you find the right idea which you then develop. That said, we’re really lucky in what we do because inspiration is basically built in to all our books. We’re not starting from scratch, or even from a design brief*—we’re starting from the art. It’s not too hard to look at a bunch of art and get inspired. The content of the books suggests the design direction for the books, and you go from there.
* I hear designers talking about “briefs” all the time, but I don’t actually know what a “brief” is. I’ve never seen one. I’ve never worked in a “regular” design firm. I’m sure that all designers are secretly picturing underpants when talking about briefs, but this is especially easy for me to do since I have no concept of a real design brief that could compete with the underpants.
+ What design blogs/Web sites are you reading these days?
Coudal.com is a many-times-daily thing. Lately I’m really enjoying The Ministry of Type, Type for you., and I Love Typography. The Nonist,* BLDGBLOG, and Language Log are further afield but really gratifying, though they’re maybe all a bit too meaty for reading at work. I’m addicted to Achewood, which is almost never about design, although there’s a character who is a designer and it is written (and crappily drawn) by a (former? recovering?) designer.
*I just discovered The Nonist has been retired, which is a shame, but there’s still tons there.
+ When you design, what do you listen to on your iPod?
I listen to soft music that doesn’t have words, so that I don’t get too distracted. Right now I’m listening to When the Detail Lost its Freedom by Brian McBride.
At Marquand Books, we believe in the power of strong images and text, well presented in books about art, art history, architecture, design, photography, and world culture.
In order to share this passion with you, the staff at Marquand Books is pleased to announce the launch of a blog devoted to art and design books—their creation, publication, distribution, and impact on our collective culture.
We want you to know a little bit about the work we do, both in our Seattle office and in our book arts studio in Tieton, Washington. We’d like to engage our readers by posting interviews with designers and editors—our own and those at other publishing firms—and with art directors, bookstore owners, museum publications directors, curators, and production managers to get their take on developments and issues in our shared profession. We’ll also invite architects, artists, photographers, and other creative professionals to discuss which illustrated books have made significant impressions on them and influenced their work.
We urge you to engage with and comment on what you read. Content will be updated frequently, so check back often.
