Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Messieurs et mesdames, we have a colophon and a cover

Now all's we need is a bookbinder to sew it all up.

The Baudelaire project moves toward completion after all the photo grokking and letterpress printing this weekend. I still have to add the accent marks, seeing as how my typefaces (Minuet and Cloister) were poured without them.

My lead on a French typewriter fizzled when I got to the resale shop just days after another buyer did. Dommage, but also tant pis. Much as I love this poem, I could never type it 25 times. And on thick Fabriano paper?—forget it. Plus, my handwritten accent marks will add a homespun touch. I thought briefly whether I could omit them, but then the poem reads all wrong. I can't do that to Monsier Charles!

Lately, I've been wondering, Does anyone send prospectuses anymore? I stopped after Bahia Night, probably because designing and assembling them usually added a month to the book rollouts, as they were. Still, I got a respectable number of orders that way, and even perhaps added to the allure of my offerings. It might be time to resurrect them; that way I could send everyone a ticket to "L'Invitation au Voyage."

Monday, June 13, 2011

There are many sides to "Two Lives": here are four of them

stacked view

front view

A gatefold features three images representing each of the two subjects—talk about a drastic photo editing job!

Two archival double-sided pockets on either end of the book hold CDs and DVDs with more pictures, text, and audio files.