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Beautiful books
Another quiet, slightly late morning. This'll be a day that I think I'm going to avoid most news sources; for me, remembrance doesn't equate to revisiting.
I've been reading The Elements of Typographic Style avidly since I bought it on Monday. The author, Robert Bringhurst, is not only an acclaimed book designer, he's an acclaimed poet—so the prose is unusually lyrical. It's a beautiful book, even though it's difficult not to come away with a wow, I really have no idea what I'm doing vibe. There's a couple things I'm not sure I agree with – like his advice to set off phrases the way they are in this sentence, with a space, en-dash, space instead of the traditional unspaced em-dash – but on the whole it's lovely and thought-provoking material. (While you may never have even noticed it before, which do you like—that way or this way?)
I've been asked a couple times, in different variants, if good typography is really the sort of thing that gets noticed by people who aren't typographers themselves – particularly in this day and age when a great deal of professional work is resoundingly mediocre. To some degree, no. Not everyone gets bothered by "straight quotes" instead of “typographer’s quotes.” But even when people can't describe why they like one thing more than another, beyond this one is better, many can still make that distinction.
Beyond that, it comes down to taking pride in your work. If you're serious about doing something, you should be serious about doing it well.
I suspect this weekend, if time and energy permit, I'm going to make two "pilgrimages"--one to the San Francisco Center for the Book, and one to the Coyote Point Museum, a place I've been intending to get to since I moved out but never get around to visiting. I don't think either one will be a research trip, even though I'm hopeful I might start making contacts that would help in both book production and finding authors/content. What I'm really looking for, though, is inspiration.
(N.B.: If you're reading this page on LiveJournal, give a look to the version on my home page, which does automatic conversions of some symbols to typographer's symbols. If I do say so myself, I think the overall design of it is pretty cool for a weblog.)
I've been reading The Elements of Typographic Style avidly since I bought it on Monday. The author, Robert Bringhurst, is not only an acclaimed book designer, he's an acclaimed poet—so the prose is unusually lyrical. It's a beautiful book, even though it's difficult not to come away with a wow, I really have no idea what I'm doing vibe. There's a couple things I'm not sure I agree with – like his advice to set off phrases the way they are in this sentence, with a space, en-dash, space instead of the traditional unspaced em-dash – but on the whole it's lovely and thought-provoking material. (While you may never have even noticed it before, which do you like—that way or this way?)
I've been asked a couple times, in different variants, if good typography is really the sort of thing that gets noticed by people who aren't typographers themselves – particularly in this day and age when a great deal of professional work is resoundingly mediocre. To some degree, no. Not everyone gets bothered by "straight quotes" instead of “typographer’s quotes.” But even when people can't describe why they like one thing more than another, beyond this one is better, many can still make that distinction.
Beyond that, it comes down to taking pride in your work. If you're serious about doing something, you should be serious about doing it well.
I suspect this weekend, if time and energy permit, I'm going to make two "pilgrimages"--one to the San Francisco Center for the Book, and one to the Coyote Point Museum, a place I've been intending to get to since I moved out but never get around to visiting. I don't think either one will be a research trip, even though I'm hopeful I might start making contacts that would help in both book production and finding authors/content. What I'm really looking for, though, is inspiration.
(N.B.: If you're reading this page on LiveJournal, give a look to the version on my home page, which does automatic conversions of some symbols to typographer's symbols. If I do say so myself, I think the overall design of it is pretty cool for a weblog.)
no subject
Not that I know anything about this subject. I like straight quotes. I expecially like them because they don't mess up cut-n-paste they was MS's typographer's quotes do. As I'm usually pasting html, it adds more frustration than my feline mind can tolerate - while remaining below the irritation level necessary to find a more complete solution.
no subject
the typesetter was almost certainly going to be a specialist, and not
the author, that was the accepted symbol for an em dash, and it's mostly
stuck. It's the same way that underlining is really a symbol for
emphasis, and when typeset underlined phrases become italics--one never
underlines in actual typesetting. (This is an argument I tried to have
with Floki over 'World Tree,' when he insisted in having the spells
underlined, since it's a distinction from normal emphasized text. I
understand his position, but were I the typesetter for the second
edition, I would... well, vehemently suggest that a way of setting them
off that doesn't violate good typography be found, such as putting them
in small caps.)
As for straight quotes versus "curly quotes," in word processors I
always turn off the smart quote option, because word processors are not
typesetting programs despite their occasional delusions to the contrary.
More often than not, text from editors like that is going to be shuffled
through multiple forms--which means the problem you noted about the
quotes changing to other strange characters has a good chance of
happening. (HTML actually has entities for the open and close quotes,
both single and double, but I doubt anyone actually types them--I have
some scripts which automatically put them in when I really want them.)