I don’t really do logo design, but this slideshow is an interesting view of all of the iterations of the new logo for Tavern on the Green. I actually liked the shields in slide 6 the best, but of course, I prefer design that is very simple.
Another book from this summer is now at press: Cheyenne War: Indian Raids on the Roads to Denver, 1804-1869, by Jeff Broome. Here’s a quote from a reviewer, John D. McDermott, whose book Red Cloud’s War: The Bozeman Trail, 1866–1868, I designed a couple of years ago:
The group of documents found in the National Archives known as Record Group 123 contains claims initiated by United States citizens to recover the value of property lost in Indian raids. In his latest book, Jeff Broome has used these documents to give us a fascinating account of Cheyenne raids in Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming during the period 1864–1869. Illuminating one side of white-Indian conflict, it brings home the horror of war and its consequences, and elevates Indian depredation claims as an important source of our history.
The book will be available at the publisher, Aberdeen Bookstore, around Thanksgiving.
From the Guardian, Neil Gaiman on libraries and literacy:
Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information.
Check out the art on the trimmed edge of this book! I’m working on the details of a fancy limited edition, but we are not going quite this far.
I’ve been working on three dust jackets in the last month, very fun! Here are two of them; the third is about a month out from completion.
The first is for a reprint of a book that is out of print–just in time for a new museum at Fort Custer to open! Fort Custer on the Big Horn, by Richard Upton, is being released with a new foreword and introduction by Upton and Sons. It will go to press in just a couple of weeks.
The second is by a frequent customer of the rare books division of the Arthur H. Clark Company, Leonard Brant. It’s rare that I meet an author face to face, and even more rare that he comes to my house (since I work from home)! I’m delighted with how this cover is turning out. Kootenai Indians of the Columbia Plateau will be out in November.
It’s hard to tell here, but this cover is a deep eggplant color. It pairs really well with the warm brown of the foreground of this bison image from the Library of Congress, and it’s a nice change of pace–OJ covers often end up being blue, green or brown since we frequently run landscapes as the image. Our printer did a great job with it; they helped me make sure the color would be just right, and we didn’t have any of the banding that can happen with a dark color like this one over a large area. The summer issue will be done pretty soon, too!
Here’s a fun take on indexing: an album!
The winter issue of Overland Journal has just gone to the mailing house. The cover, though, is a bright, chartreuse-y green, brighter than anything I’ve done before but perfectly suited to the spring season.
From an oldie from Salon sent to me by Bob Clark:
The art of editing is running against the cultural tide. We are in an age of volume; editing is about refinement. It’s about getting deeper into a piece, its ideas, its structure, its language. It’s a handmade art, a craft. You don’t learn it overnight. Editing aims at making a piece more like a Stradivarius and less like a microchip. And as the media universe becomes larger and more filled with microchips, we need the violin makers.
So here’s to you, editors, whose names never appear on an article, who are unknown except to their peers and to the writers who owe you so much. Keep fitting those delicate pieces of wood together. Use the skill it took you years to acquire. Don’t give up and just slap the thing together. Make it light and tight and strong so that it sings. Someone is noticing. Someone is reading. Someone cares.
