Wednesday, August 29, 2012

In Memoriam

I've been working on a production project over the past few months and it is heading out the door this week.  It's been a really interesting, involved process, and I thought I'd share a bit of it here.  This project was great because I felt I had a hand in every part of it.

In Memoriam: Innards

The client lost her husband a few years ago.  She had a copy of his autobiography, which he had been working on for a number of years, and a plan to finally properly lay it out and honor his words.  I laid out the text and worked back and forth with the client to do some tidying and general edits (for clarity) and we opted to make a box to house the unbound sheets of these memoirs, symbolic of the unfinished text.  The box features a tray with notches on either side to easily remove the text.  An attached ribbon serves as a placeholder for when the items are returned to the box.

In Memoriam: Text

The frontispiece was letterpress printed.  It is based on a woodblock print made by the client's husband many many years ago, with a quote from Edgar Allan Poe that he related to.

In Memoriam: Frontispiece

A stamping die was made to blind-imprint the covers of the boxes.  The goal here was subtlety - we wanted the entire project to be.... "quiet", and really to honor the text that was inside.

In Memoriam: Blind Stamped

An edition of 11 boxes were made, with most of them going to close family members, and with at least one circulating copy. 

In Memoriam: Stacked


4 comments:

  1. Lovely. Really lovely. I think the entire concept is brilliant. I hope your client and her family are please with the end result.

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  2. wow, this is amazing. so much care in the details. you are brilliant.

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  3. How beautiful. I am so impressed with its elegance.

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