Jobs from the past - Number 42

Regular followers of this blog will know that my first post of every month is a "job from the past" so that I can show some of the really good work from years gone by and here's one from 2008.

The Ghost in the Fog

This project is the ghost of a book. It documents corrections made by the editors, translators and contributors to How to Address the Fog: XXV Finnish poems 1978-2002. Published in 2005, the original went through five sets of amendments. This book documents those changes. Only the corrected text, the marginal notes and the proof-readers' marks remain, forming a different kind of poetry - one of an accidental, concrete kind. It is a book of absences. (all I've done is repeat the original text taken from the jacket - I really can't improve on it! J)

The size is 195x128mm, portrait and is section sewn. It has a 4pp cover with an 8pp 'dust-jacket' wrapped around it and 128pp text. The text and jacket are all printed on our lovely Offenbach Bible 60gsm. The text is mainly printed in two colours (black and red) with specials used on the 'endpapers' - yellow and on the jacket. The materials have a beautifully light and ethereal quality and with just the faintest hint of showthrough, it works with the ghostly subject, perfectly.

In 2009, this project won an ISTD premier award an this is what the judges said about it ( ...and in particular note what is said about the delicate stock): The idea of a book that only includes the corrections and observations of the authors and proofreaders is unexpected and unusual. Using typography that suggests concrete poetry, the rythmical pattern through the pagesgives the sense of a musical score. The tactile quality of the delicate stock reveals and documents the changes through layers of amendments, allowing the reader to only sense the actual text. Fittingly titled, The Ghost in the Fog is a ghost of a book. It really is, as the designer describes it, 'a book of absences'. An intriguing book that is a delight to handle  ___Freda Sack

http://justinsamazingworldatfennerpaper.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/istd-awards.html

Art direction is by Barrie Tullett & Philippa Wood at The Caseroom Press. Design and production is by Barrie Tullett. Print is by The Short Run Press based in Exeter.

The foreward is by Ken Cockburn and the corrections, observations and alterations of the original publication are all made by Ken Cockburn, Anni Sumari, Robin Fulton, David McDuff, Donald Adamson and Robyn Marsack.

www.the-case.co.uk

Posted by Justin Hobson 02.04.2013