Two good articles about art books have made their way to my desk lately (the way it works is that when an article about art book publishing appears just about anywhere in the press, three or four people send it to me within twenty-four hours--which is very handy). The first one, from the Aperture blog, is an interview with book designer Stuart Smith about
How Not to Design a Photo Book (the image of photographer Martin Parr's book
Hong Kong Parr below is drawn from this article--although, as far as I can tell it is not meant as an example of what not to do (and this despite the fact that that the gutter is running right through the person's face, which is generally a big no-no but which, I'd hazard to say, was done here as a deliberate and very effective choice). The second one is a piece in the LA Times about how great big expensive art catalogs are
Keeping Print Alive (the Warhol image above from the book
Three Centuries of American Prints: From the National Gallery of Art is drawn from this article)--and while, yes, perhaps that headline does read as a bit manically hyperbolic, the assertion is at least in part born out, not only by the evidence offered in the article, but from sales data going as far as 2012, as discussed
here. So. That concludes your art book publishing news round-up for today. Now go play.
