Penguins lose the plot
Hyphen Press / 2007.11.01
As any long-term reader and watcher of Penguin Books knows, the company has always cultivated its own history, seizing the chance of an anniversary to make an exhibition or put out a book celebrating its own story.
Kafka in Oxford
Hyphen Press / 2007.10.31
On 15 November a presentation of the new ‘Historical-Critical Edition’ of Franz Kafka’s writings will take place at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, followed by a panel (and open) discussion.
A new Zurich Bible
Hyphen Press / 2007.10.30
The Zurich Bible was published in a new translation this year. This is the Bible in its Swiss-Protestant text, first published in 1531. Not only is it a bestseller (26,000 copies sold since June), but it must be one of the best-looking and best-made books published anywhere for some time.
Rule or law
Hyphen Press / 2007.09.15
The re-publication here of this essay by Gerrit Noordzij is prompted by the issue of Christopher Burke’s Active literature. Our book was made in the belief that the best service to Tschichold is a critical placing of his works and his ideas in their real historical context: the fact that we want to do this in such detail must be evidence of the importance that we think his work has. Gerrit Noordzij’s short and sharply critical essay points to what may be the central issue in Tschichold’s writings, and it does more than that.
‘The new standard work’
Hyphen Press / 2007.08.24
‘… meticulously researched, splendidly illustrated, and very nicely designed – without doubt the new standard work on Tschichold … even experts will find new and surprising things in it.’
Socialism and print
Hyphen Press / 2007.08.20
The latest New Left Review leads with a dazzling article by Régis Debray, lamenting the end of print, and of socialism: the one death implies and necessitates the other.
Renner re-clothed
Hyphen Press / 2007.08.14
To coincide with the launch of Christopher Burke’s new book, we have put a new jacket on the remaining copies of his first book, Paul Renner.
Vertigo: Collecting W.G. Sebald
Hyphen Press / 2007.08.13
Terry Pitts’s blog about these books: interesting, and not just for the Sebald content.
Biospeak
Hyphen Press / 2007.08.09
Two demon constituents of capsule English-language biographies (for book-flaps, catalogues, CVs, and so on) are ‘currently’ and ‘based in’. ‘Cormac Wrathbone is a freelance writer and critic, currently based in London.’ What’s wrong here? It’s not just the tiredness of the phrasing.
Buy this book by Nicolette giovanni M Gray today!
Hyphen Press / 2007.07.30
Why it is safer to look at the website of the publisher of a book, rather than at one of the websites of the internet shop Amazon.
More on cold glue
Hyphen Press / 2007.07.26
A letter published in the London Review of Books, 2 August 2007.
‘Typography papers 7’ finished
Hyphen Press / 2007.07.24
We have received the first copies of Typography papers 7 in the office.
‘Active literature’ arrived
Hyphen Press / 2007.07.12
This week we received copies of Christopher Burke’s new book.
Best books 2006
Hyphen Press / 2007.06.27
This year’s catalogues for the best-designed/-produced books have been appearing. The Swiss catalogue for books issued in 2006 is just published. The German catalogue for the same period came out some weeks ago. The British publication, also carrying the designation ‘2006’, was produced towards the end of last year. The Dutch best-books catalogue is on its way, and will cover books published in 2006. With the exception of the British publication, these catalogues describe and discuss books that are put on exhibition in their own countries, and which are also, in the autumn, added to a showing at the Frankfurt Book Fair of all the world’s best-books of that preceding year. A proper survey of the best-books exhibitions would take in all the countries represented at Frankfurt, including (as I recall) Finland, Denmark, the Czech Republic, the United States, Spain. These remarks are addressed to the countries with which I am most familiar.
‘Active literature’ advance
Hyphen Press / 2007.06.22
On Tuesday of this week, Christopher Burke talked in London on ‘Jan Tschichold: the missing typefaces’ to the Friends of St Bride Library. Speaking without notes, and in full command of his subject, he described and analysed the previously almost unconsidered typeface designs that Tschichold made in the 1930s.
Burnhill obituary
Hyphen Press /
Paul Stiff’s obituary of Peter Burnhill is published in The Guardian today.
Typefaces of their times
Hyphen Press / 2007.05.15
There has been much discussion in recent years about the typeface Helvetica, prompted by the book made by Lars Mueller and now a film by Gary Hustwit. In this connection, Erik Spiekermann has been active. Much of Erik’s work has been a wonderful effort in surpassing the unthinking, formulaic and bureaucratic approach that often entails the use of Helvetica. In 1991 Erik brought out his typeface Meta. With the great success of Meta, it came to be some sort of alternative to Helvetica: more subtle and humane than the essentially regularized-industrial forms of Helvetica. The tag ‘the Helvetica of the 1990s’ has become attached to Meta, and has sometimes been attributed to Robin Kinross.
The x-height ribbon
Hyphen Press / 2007.05.08
Sergei Egorov (it must be him) has made an analysis of a column of Aldine text that seems to correlate with Peter Burnhill’s findings in Type spaces.
Books that lie open
Hyphen Press / 2007.05.02
This is an introductory survey of a vexed issue of book-production: binding techniques. The intention of the piece is general enlightenment, and to support a process that is threatened with extinction. A version of this article was published here in May 2007. The text and images here are a new version of this article – thoroughly revised and reshaped in April 2018.
Tschichold at St Bride’s
Hyphen Press / 2007.04.29
In connection with his forthcoming book Active literature, Christopher Burke will be talking on 19 June at the St Bride Printing Library in London on ‘Jan Tschichold: the missing typefaces’. An exhibition at the Library of work by Tschichold, curated by Christopher Burke and Robin Kinross, will open then and be on display through to 23 August.
Two books on book typography
Hyphen Press / 2007.04.26
This review has just appeared in the new number (no. 11) of Text, within an issue on the theme of ‘Edition & Typographie’.
Architectural positions
Hyphen Press / 2007.04.25
The faculty of architecture at the TU Delft commissioned Karel Martens to design booklets, flyers, stationery, and a poster for their series of six seminars this spring on ‘Architecture, Modernity and the Public Sphere’.
Remembering Peter Burnhill
Hyphen Press / 2007.04.17
Peter was there in Stafford as a constant point of reference for me for about thirty years. I remember making what seemed like a pilgrimage from Reading to Stafford, in 1977, to meet him for the first time, and the others around him in the group that made and ran the typography course at the College of Art and Design.
London Book Fair 2007
Hyphen Press / 2007.04.15
We are taking part in the London Book Fair, at Earls Court, from 16 to 18 April.
Peter Burnhill
Hyphen Press / 2007.03.13
Peter Burnhill died in hospital at Stafford on Sunday 11 March, aged 84. We will publish something here soon about him and his work.
Wright in Reading (further)
Hyphen Press / 2007.03.09
The Optimod website has further material on the Edward Wright show.
The Stafford papers
Hyphen Press / 2007.02.22
The ‘Optimism of modernity’ project has posted its first ‘documents’.
Lazy links
Hyphen Press / 2007.01.22
When it launched its website in July 1995, the internet seller Amazon seemed a wondrous thing. Here was a bookstore stocked with almost every title, and one that would reach parts of the country (the United States of America) that were far from any bricks-and-mortar shop. It was indeed based in Seattle, and its employees, one imagined, were mainly grunge-kids in baggy jeans and t-shirts, fetching and packing the books for minimum wages. The company seemed endearing to those of us who like brave new ventures.
Wright in Reading
Hyphen Press / 2007.01.20
An exhibition of Edward Wright’s design work opened yesterday at the Department of Typography in the University of Reading. For two months or so, the public has the chance to see some of the products and working materials of this special man, who in the spirit of the heroic modernists of the earlier twentieth century, did not pay much attention to boundaries between art and design. Yet – he was working in mid-century Britain, and in situations that were often pretty torpid.
A very English blunder
Hyphen Press / 2007.01.09
James Mosley has welcomed the new year by adding two substantial posts to his blog Typefoundry: an update on his thesis about the appearance of sanserif letters in eighteenth-century Britain; and an explanation of why the inscription recently added to the National Gallery in London is all wrong.