Anatomy of Design

37

ANATOMY OF DESIGN

In a typically hilarious Seinfeld episode, Kramer proposes to write a coffee table

book (the term used to describe large-format illustrated books) that is a real

coffee table with folding legs. It may have sounded absurd at the time, yet in

recent years books have been designed more as objects (read with haughty

French accent) than traditional page-turners—and a few are indeed so huge they

can be mistaken for coffee tables. Objectness among certain trade publishers,

which has roots in the more rarified artists’ book movements of the early to

late twentieth century, has two goals: (1) to transcend ordinariness while (2)

testing the tolerances of convention. One of the earliest of these commercial

books was a small illustrated volume devoted to miniature golf covered with

real Astroturf (Abbeville Press, 1987). Later came the bolted metal-covered

Madonna

Sex book (Callaway Editions, 1992), and others abound. Although

expensive to produce, some publishers have built their reputation on rampant

production, ambition, and adventurism.

Art director Julia Hasting is a doyenne of high-concept book design, and

in 2005 she produced one of Phaidon’s most ambitiously designed books,

SAMPLE: 100 Fashion Designers, 010 Curators. Given its bunched-up and gathered,

unevenly cut pages, at first glance it appears that the binding machine ran

amok or the printing gods were playing a cruel trick. Au contraire. SAMPLE is a

tour de force of production profligacy. From its pleated, pure white glossy

paper-over-board cover, wrapped by an elastic band (bearing a striking

resemblance to the tops of tighty-whities) to the book title, which is

embroidered on a small hanging label sewn onto the bottom of the elastic, it

looks like a garment salesman’s sample binder.

Hasting, however, explains that the cover was actually influenced by a

pleated dress: “I was trying to emphasize materiality and structure to form an

overall three-dimensional object. Using form, light, and shadow, rather than photos

or illustrations, seemed more appropriate for a book on clothing.” Interior

photographs and drawings of haute couture, cheap-chic clothing, and accessories

represent the likes of Viktor & Rolf, Angela Missoni, Blaak, Bless, and A Bathing

Ape. Although many of the images are mostly in color (with some in sultry black

and white), the extra-wide margins on these shiny pages celebrate whiteness.

“White leaves space for imagination and presentation,” Hasting adds.

SAMPLE is also advertently and inadvertently a composite of shared special

effects. Tactile materials and fabrics, for instance, are frequently used today—a

miniature prayer rug found in a book on the Koran, basketball netting for a book on

hoops, more Astroturf on a book about gardening. Labels, bellybands, and hangtags

(usually found on retail products) are also more common. Sewing, stitching, and

embroidery are recurring techniques, as graphic design returns to its craft origins.

While sometimes highly mechanical, expressively stitched scripts are also vogue.

Most of all,

SAMPLE owes a debt to those books that pioneered the stair-step page

and tabular format, from Lissitzky’s 1923 avant-garde masterpiece For the Voice to

the Barrett Cravens Company c. 1940s parts catalog for handling equipment.

Sample

Designer: Julia Hasting

2005 SAMPLE-100 Fashion Designers, 10 Curators, book cover

d: Julia Hasting c: Phaidon Press

A high-concept book designed to look like a fabric swatch book

Stitched typography

Clothing labels

Fringed and tabbed pages

2003 In Memoriam book

cd:Helmut Himmler ad:Till Schaffarczyk

s:Ogilvy & Mather Frankfurt

Published by Hermann Schmidt Verlag.

1931 Mother Goose, The Old Nursery

Rhymes book cover

i:Arthur Rackham

2001 Custom Made By Kaa

s

brochure cover

cd,ad:Craig Terrones d:Chri

s

p:Patrick Barta

s:Graphica Communication

S

c:Kaas Tailored

1989 The Woven Label Book-by Ruven

Feder, J. M. Glasman book

ad:Valerie Envain d:Christophe Delamare

c:Editions Yocar Feder

Actual woven label inlaid in book cover.

1929 Conference on Radio-Electronic

Comunications PTT program spread

d:Piet Zwart

1933 Delft Cables pages from an advertising brochure

d,p:Piet Zwart

19

8

ad:

R

Pip

p

c1940 Barrett Cravens Company catalogue

1923 Vladimir Mayakovsky—Poetry for Reading

Loud spread

d:El Lissitzky

Published by Soviet Russian State Publishing

House.

2002 I Made This For You stitched book

d:Chosil Kil

2002 Singapore Design

Awards book cover

cd,ad,d:Christopher Lee

s:Duffy Singapore c:Designer

Association Singapore

2001 Just Like Home brochure

ad:Erik Kessels d:Krista Rozema

s:Kesselskramer c:Hans Brinker

Budget Hotel

2002 Uho, Grlo, Noz (Ear, Throat, Knife) book

cover-embroidery

ad:Kruno Lokotar d:Melina Mikulic

i:Mirko Ili´c c:AGM

2003 Podravka annual report

cd,d:Bruketa & Zinic ad:Maja Bagic

p:Marin Topic

1998 Ray CD package for L’Arc-en-Ciel

d:Mote Sinabel c:Sony Music Entertainment

(Japan), Inc.

See Chapter #48