Hoping to reignite interest in Jan Tschichold’s 1991 collection of essays on book design entitled The Form of the Book: Essays on the Morality of Good Design, the editors of The Form of the Book Book have assembled a collection of texts from a variety of voices in design, from the young practitioner to the established design historian, all of whom first presented their papers at the 2009 Form of the Book conference at St. Bride Library in London.
Contributors to this fittingly well-designed collection include Catherine de Smet, writing on the book designs of Le Corbusier; James Goggin, exploring the fine line between homage and parody in “The Matta-Clark Complex: Materials, Interpretation and the Designer”; and Jenni Eneqvist, Roland Früh & Corina Neuenschwander’s look at the history of the Most Beautiful Swiss Books competition. Also featuring essays by Sarah Gottlieb, Richard Hollis, Chrissie Charlton, and Armand Mevis.