E-catalogue 59: Typography and Letterforms
For our first offering of the New Year, we are taking a closer look at the basic building blocks of the printed book, as well as the arrangement of type on the page. Alphabets and type specimen books allow us to step back and consider the individual beauty of letterforms—consider, for instance, Consuelo Godinho’s figurative alphabet, one that recalls the elaborate splendor of earlier Italian rococo works but was executed in late 19th-century Portugal. Other examples, like Face the Face from Ximena Perez Grobet, play with the idea that letters contain density; and so her black-and-white block letters in a concertina format allow the viewer into the negative space between letters.
The artistic or aesthetic arrangement of type on the page is, of course, a deep well from which we have drawn some notable work for your consideration: from Leonard Baskin’s elegant Cancellersca Bastarda—one of two Gehenna books devoted entirely to typography—to Richard Bigus’s daring and controversial interpretation of Pablo Neruda’s Ode to Typography. These run the gamut in formats, ranging from a wooden horn book (containing printing from wood type, of course) to miniature books.
We thank you, as always, for taking some time to view the e-catalogue, with the hope that you find something that is just your “type”…
