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Title: Edward Fella: Letters on America by Lewis Blackwell, Lorraine Wild, Lucy Bates ISBN: 1-56898-217-8 Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press Pub. Date: July, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $50.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.25 (4 reviews)
Rating: 1
Summary: Not Enough Letters, Too Many Pictures
Comment: This book is mainly a photography book. There are pages after pages of lettering of "vernacular" typography. Interspersed are a few pages of hand-drawn lettering by the author. We're talking about 8-10 pages total of typography by Ed Fella himself. I would have preferred to see more of the author's own work with fewer photographic references.
Rating: 2
Summary: One man's primer of public publishing
Comment: Edward Fella's book of 1134 Polaroid shots of vernacular signs gives a flavor of what can be seen in most US public places, these are the roadside typographic shouts of local commerce. Because the business of America is business signs are everywhere, usually colorful and just asking to be captured by any passing photographer. To avoid looking like other photo books of public lettering and signage the author deliberately goes for a tight shot and most of the photos only show letter parts but as Lewis Blackwell says in his introduction, Fella is not interested in what the letters say.
With the tight photo cropping and a dull layout (all the photo pages are the same: nine, three by three inch Polaroid's, including their white border, butted up to each other, no captions or page numbers) I think this ends up as a very boring looking but nevertheless intensely personal book of public typography. The best images are the ones that have been produced by sign makers, or are obviously commercially printed. Vernacular signs, where someone has painted or scrawled some letters, are mostly produced by amateurs, who given the choice (and money) would much prefer to have something that looked professional, where any repeat letters look identical, have even spacing and all sit on the same base line. Vernacular neon signs do not exist because they can only be made by professionals.
Between the photos there are twelve sections showing the author's own creative typography, loosely based on the vernacular letters he has photographed and consequently showing the same amateurish feel and more critically in my view, a high degree of un-readability. This individuality to type is also reflected in the books production. The few text pages with two columns per page appear to have been pasted up so that paragraphs do not line up, the imprint page and the cover flaps have type that is deliberately unaligned This silly messing about with the text stops short of doing anything to the back cover barcode though, commerce wins in the end!
Rating: 5
Summary: ¿The Book I wish I'd Done¿
Comment: If I hadn't been so lazy, or thought this had been done already, or thought maybe no one would care to publish this, then I might have done this book myself a few years ago. I wanted to do something similiar but didnt.
However, I don't think I would have done as good a job as Ed did here. This is NOT a bunch of random snaps. The continuity of the medium and the cropping are what makes this a discplined, artful and well-done study. Nice work , Ed!
(So-follow your dreams like Ed did)
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Title: David Carson: 2nd Sight : Grafik Design After the End of Print by Lewis Blackwell, David Carson, Karrie Jacobs, John Kao, Chip Kidd, Robert M. Greenberg, Rebeca Mendez, Gertrud Sandqvist ISBN: 0789301288 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 November, 1997 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Typography 24 : The Annual of the Type Directors Club by Alexander Isley, Type Directors Club ISBN: 0060536144 Publisher: Harper Design International Pub. Date: 06 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $59.95 |
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Title: Chip Kidd by Veronique Vienne ISBN: 0300099525 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Some People Can't Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry by Julie Lasky, Art Chantry, Jamie Sheehan, Karrie Jacobs ISBN: 0811823652 Publisher: Chronicle Books Pub. Date: February, 2001 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Sterling by Jennifer Sterling, Steven Heller, Aaron Betsky ISBN: 1584230436 Publisher: Gingko Press, Inc Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $125.00 |
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