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A Bookmark for Clever Readers

Front and back views are shown. Letterpressed by Marquand Editions | Tieton

Books to Add to your Holiday Wish List…

Coralie Bickford-Smith has designed a series of keepsake hardbacks for Penguin. Freshening up classics like Crime and Punishment and Madame Bovary with bedizened patterns and vintage color, the spines of these books were made to snuggle into a bookshelf together.

An interview with the designer on Penguin’s excellent blog is a delight, as visual as it is informational.

Open House: Marquand Books Seattle

Production Coordinator Jeremy Linden took some candid shots around Marquand’s Seattle design office this afternoon.

Art in the Age of Steam is Just What the WSJ was Craving

Today’s Wall Street Journal includes Richard B. Woodward’s review of “Art in the Age of Steam: Europe, America, and the Railway, 1830-1960.” The exhibition catalog, The Railway: Art in the Age of Steam, produced by Marquand and available from Yale University Press, was just what Woodward needed to complete his visit to the exhibition:

Too many curators these days fatigue museum-goers in a noble effort to be thorough. That’s not the case here. I left refreshed, wanting more. My cravings were satisfied where they should be, and at a more leisurely pace, in a group of outstanding essays for the catalog published by Yale University Press.

“Art in the Age of Steam” is on view at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO, through mid-January 2009.

Calling All Book Designers: The 2009 Stiftung Buchkunst Competition is accepting entries

Marquand Books invites all US book design professionals to submit entries to Stiftung Buchkunst’s “Best Book Design from All Over the World,” a German international design competition awarding prizes at the annual Frankfurt Book Fair.

A jury of book design professionals will select the US entries to submit to Stiftung Buchkunst. An international jury will review all final US submissions, paying special attention to quality of typesetting, reproduction, printing, paper, and binding. Typography and graphic design as aesthetic elements of the book will also be examined.

Finalists will be juried in February 2009, followed by the exhibition during the 2009 Leipzig Book Fair and the exhibition “Book Art International” during the 2009 Frankfurt Book Fair. All prizewinning book editions are archived and will be available for perusal at the foundation in Frankfurt.

Entries are limited to three books per individual designer. Please send two copies of each submission. Submission deadline is DECEMBER 15, 2008. Participation is free of charge.

Send two copies of each book with the following information to Marquand Books, STIFTUNG BUCHKUNST COMPETITION, 1402 Third Avenue, Suite 300, Seattle, WA 98101.

Author/Editor:
Title:
Publisher:
Designer:
Illustrator/Photographer:
Printer:
Bookbinder:
Price:

Sorry, submissions will not be returned. Finalists will be selected and featured on Marquand’s blog in early January 2009. Contact stiftungbuchkunst@marquand.com for more information.

Book Arts Desktop Backgrounds

Pick your favorite, then click on the appropriate screen size. Right click “set as desktop background” to download.

[1024 x 786] | [1920 x 1200]   Photo by Ed Marquand	[1024 x 786] | [1920 x 1200]   Photo by Sara Gettys
[1024 x 786] | [1920 x 1200]   Photo by Ed Marquand	[1024 x 786] | [1920 x 1200]   Photo by Sara Gettys
[1024 x 786] | [1920 x 1200]   Photo by John Hubbard	[1024 x 786] | [1920 x 1200]   Photo by John Hubbard

Video Art that Moves Through Time and Space

The November 2008 Artforum includes a feature on Belgian-born video artist Chantal Akerman, who has produced more than fifty video works over the past four decades. The New York Times had this to say on the artist’s catalog:

Not just a formalist, Ms. Akerman also takes on hot-button themes like racism in the American South, illegal immigration in the Southwest and a terrorism in the Mideast. As a political artist she can be heavy-handedly predictable or unexpectedly illuminating.

Currently based in Paris, Akerman’s latest work is featured in her first solo museum exhibition, “Chantal Akerman: Moving Through Time and Space,” which has traveled to the Blaffer Gallery at the Art Museum of the University of Houston and the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, MA.

The exhibit of five video installations is currently on view at the Miami Art Museum until January 25, 2009, when it will move to the Contemporary Art Museum of Saint Louis in May of 2009.

Fairing the Storm: Highlights from the Frankfurt Book Fair

Posted by Adrian Lucia

The first question I was asked by almost everyone I met at the Frankfurt Book Fair was regarding the economy—editors, printers, and others were all constantly discussing the health of the publishing trade in general, not simply the stability of their own firm or institution. I found it a difficult question to answer. In my eyes, little had changed from previous years, though I thought some publishers’ booths might have been a smidge smaller and less extravagant. And the rumor mill hinted that conservatism dominated the big-book deal making on the floor of the Messe.

In our tiny corner of the Fair, the daily bustle seemed fairly routine despite the worsening economic news. Museums like the Art Institute of Chicago, MoMA, the Metropolitan Museum, National Gallery, and Getty are unsure as to how the economic downturn will affect their publications programs. There may be some adjustments in the future, but none of these institutions, at least, are about to stop publishing books. Fingers crossed.

My favorites at the Fair: Actar, the Spanish design and architecture publisher; DAP, with its thousands of compelling titles; Steidl, cool as ever, and continuing to define the look of the art book; Prestel, showing off The Hyena and Other Men, a fascinating book of photographs by Pieter Hugo; and Moleskine, whose booth design is always captivating.

See you next year. We’ll be there.