2666
Designer: Charlotte Strick
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Typefaces: Scanned woodcut type and Facade MT Condensed
This weeks project is Roberto Bolaño’s "2666" designed by Charlotte Strick. This package literally stopped me in my tracks. My wife and I were leaving the book store and I looked down at one of the tables and stopped and picked this up. It’s an amazing piece of work. It took all my restraint to not rip into the shrink wrap. After seeing the full package I am so impressed. You can tell every detail and part of this package has been carefully crafted. It is a beautiful work of art. Thanks to Charlotte for sharing her process with us.
—Charles Brock
Roberto Bolaño has a very literary, underground fan base that appears to be growing. It's a designer's dream to have a mysterious, numerical title to work with. I was a big fan of Rodrigo Corral's jacket design solution for "The Savage Detectives" (FSG, 2007), so that made it an even greater challenge to take on what is considered by many to be the late author's "magnum opus".
My process began with considering the numbers and how to create them. An early exploration used a spray painted technique that felt cold. I also played around with the idea of using three different typefaces for each "6" to reflect the multi-layered plot line and 3 paperbacks in the special slipcase edition, but that looked overly complicated and hard to read. Ideally, I didn't want to use a digital typeface, so I was pleased to discover the woodcut face that eventually made its' way onto the final designs. The numbers appear in different ways, vertical, horizontal, and stacked in two columns on the various surfaces of the designs. On the 3 paperbacks the horizontal numerals move down the stack as you move through the volumes. The title is both monumental and meaningless; Bolaño seems to be having fun with us.
The search for the images was, as always, informed by the text, but before I had read a word of the manuscript, the editor showed me a book of Gustave Moreau's work. (The artist is mentioned in the text.) Moreau was an 18 century French Symbolist painter, who might seem like an odd choice for a 19 century story that largely takes place in a fictional Juarez-like, Mexican bordertown, but the intricacy and terror of Moreau's "Jupiter and Semele" seemed fitting and unexpected choice for this often dense, mysterious, magical, and terrifying book. We decided to use it for both the hardcover jacket and the first volume of the paperback edition. It was important to me that the three pieces of art that make up the cover trio, were of different mediums but harmonized through color and texture. With the Moreau decided, I went in search of photographs of border town wastelands and considered the work of Seth Thompson and Alex Webb. In the end an abstract interpretation seemed more desirable. Cy Twombly's work provokes everything from near religious experiences for some viewers, to "My kid could have done that!" from others. For me, his mark making is urgent and human, violent, and beautiful. I like how it pairs with the drama of the Moreau, neither one of them taking center stage. The 3rd volume uses early 18 century hand-colored illustrations from Albertus Seba's Cabinet of Natural Curiosities, inspired by one of the character's obsession with seaweed. The box they are housed it is stripped quite bare and aside from the barcode, the type only prints in red. I wanted it to feel like you were pulling these books out of a generic-sort of brown paper bag. I love how the texture of the cardboard shows through all of the red type. The slipcase is foil stamped, and we simulated that effect on the paperbacks and hardcover edition by spot glossing the author name and title type.
It has been especially exciting to see this design in the marketplace, as producing a simultaneous hardcover edition and boxed set is such a rare treat. Many buyers and bloggers seem torn as to which edition to buy. For those who opt for the weighty 912 page hardcover, we've included Seba's sea coral in black and white for the endpapers.
12.8.08 // H3NR7 said:
That is EPIC.
What an Incredible job Charlotte.
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12.8.08 // Karen said:
Beautiful. Even the ARC for this looked special. I especially love the slipcase paperback edition.
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12.8.08 // Tim Baron said:
Yup, beautiful work and well thought through.
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12.9.08 // M. Kellner said:
It seems that only when art and commerce collide, commingle, cohabit, cohere, or somehow manage to occupy the same coordinates of space-time, that such obscure objects of desire as this are possible. The boxed, tripartite edition of Bolaño's novel was a design opportunity of fearsome potential, and I sure don't think anyone's even remotely disappointed.
As impressive as the single volume edition is, the boxed set is a triumph, or better, a conquest of design. There's something a little like pillow-talk about reading the process of the designer here; for anyone who loves books (and this package is a defiant, nearly psychiatric challenge to one's ideas of a normative definition of love) and appreciates, in a visceral way, their design, this edition inspires all the obsessed ardor of encountering The Desired. The sneakily brazen materials, finish, and typographical design of the box, it's nested ménage à trois of invitingly luxurious covers provoke a feverish and prolonged frisson for the biblio-smitten. So, what can one say? How to articulate a response? I don't know. Try to refocus one's vacant stare, rearrange the foolish grin on one's face, sheepishly ask, "Was it good for you?"
Gee, death, where is thy sting?
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12.10.08 // J said:
Charlotte,
very beautiful. it shows, the work and love you put into it.
Julia
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12.17.08 // STML said:
Hello,
I just found your blog via this post, as it's one of my favourite books, and favourite designs and formats, of the year.
I think your whole blog is great. However, please can you put the full post into your feed - I read a lot of blogs, and those without full feeds almost invariably get passed over. It's a shame I know, but since you don't carry advertising or any extra info on the site, I don't think there's any reason not to, and it would be really appreciated! (Would have put that in email, but can't find an address...)
Keep up the excellent work,
Yours,
James
booktwo.org
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1.2.09 // Ian Shimkoviak said:
Absolutely stunning. I have this book and I'm not ready to read it yet.
the choice of art is perfect to say the least.
