I love variety of typographic ornament found on those books, the attention to details and the perfect clean layouts. Examples below go through 1903′s leather bound bible, featuring gothic typography, book cover’s illustration hot foil stamping, beautifully balanced page layouts to amazing front cover’s title drop cap.

Overall, a beautiful collection of historical typefaces, ornaments, icons and layout inspiration and know how.

Ccredits:

• colymba logo set in Triple Condensed Gothic Bold by Red Rooster type foundry
• reverse text set in Solano Gothic Bold by MVB type foundry
• paper and duplexing by Büttenpapierfabrik Gmund
• letterpress by Typoretum

The only way to get the duplexed stock was straight from the Gmund paper mill, which provided the ready to print A4 sheets, however not too cheap the result looked great. (Note that local printers were not too confident about duplexing a 430gsm Mohair with a 300gsm Color System sheet due to the difference in weight.) The paper came delivered in a beautiful bespoke box made of Gmund Savanna Bubinga, an embossed wooded texture dark brown paper.

Due to the unusual texture of the paper, some letterpress printers were not too confident about the job either (even though the stock is certified with letterpress), but thankfully the brilliant TYPORETUM letterpress studio took on the job and produced some test prints (see below) that looked nice and sharp. The job is now being printed by TYPORETUM in the following week.

More pictures coming soon.

Linotype: The Film is a feature-length documentary film centered around the Linotype typecasting machine invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler in 1886. Called the “Eighth Wonder of the World” by Thomas Edison, the Linotype revolutionized printing and society, but very few people know about the inventor or his fascinating machine.

I love it already, it both calls out for the designer in me but also the geek, who always loved machines and crazy technology. Check out the trailer and why not also support them through Kick Starter.

Passionate about printing perfection

If you are passionate about print, materials and printing techniques, or just like pretty things, have a look at their site. You can also follow them through their blog, which I wish I had known about before, when they had the free paper giveaway, damn!

This is a new innovative and ‘educational’ initiative to make their range of speciality graphic papers (re-) discovered by the design, print and paper community. The complete series will feature ‘all’ Zanders graphic papers with different processes and finishing accompanied with their own technical/printing fact sheet.

The first edition take the lucky recipient of the mailer to Japan with Zanders T2000 with a fold-out flyer/poster featuring calligraphy and artwork printed in 2 colour. “T2000 … is to create new scope for creativity”.

All this will fit in a custom made portfolio box (to assemble yourself), printed with 3 PMS and 1 HKS colours on Zanders Zeta color, for a handy inspiring paper collection.

As a celebration, a 3 years design/photography project entitled A Better Project saw the light. From 2007 to 2009, 3×10 photographers from around the world have been briefed to document “the experience of one man’s spare time”, “their personal view of the modern city” and to report on companies/entrepreneurs “who have distinguished themselves thanks to a work policy which embraced sustainability, creativity and solidarity”.

The result is a 3 books set, 300x300mm hard back, each featuring the photographic work on  the high-quality paper range from Cartiere del Garda.

A Better Time, A Better City & A Better Business.

The first 2 using the GardaPat 13 KIARA 150gsm, while “A Better Business” feature the entire “Excellent Collection” of papers (GardaMatt Art, GardaGloss Art, GardaCover Hi-Fi, GardaPat 13 KLASSICA & GardaPat 13 KIARA), with each paper stock match to specific photographs that match best the surface to enhance the visual impact.

About Cartiere del Garda:
“A business that started 50 years ago with one production line, an entrepreneur, a hundred collaborators and a great deal of good will, Cartiere del Garda has become one of the most modern and respected paper mills producing woodfree coated products in Italy, and continues to build on its time-honoured ethos; the respect for the environment and consideration of the community.”

The 3 books were directed and designed by the Italian, Milano based design agency, Imille.

Photographers include:
A Better Time: Silvia Morara, Julien Oppenheim, Borut Peterlin, Kathryn Cook, Anja Teske, Johan Markusson, Matilde Gattoni, Ingvar Kenne, Sharron Lovell, Susana Raab
A Better City: Stuart Isett, Stephen Gill, Frank Rothe, Alexey Titarenko, Missirkov & Bogdanov, Massimo Siragusa, Weng Fen, Atul Loke, Jordi Bernadó, Yannis Kontos
A Better Business: Espen Eichhöfer, Stefanie Grätz, Yann Mingard, Amanda Calluf, Burkhard Schittny, Paul Kranzler, Rafal Milach, Ziyah Gafić, Fabio Mantovani, Wei Leng Tay

This great edition – first published in 1987 -reminds me in some ways to Robert Bringhurst‘s The Element of Typographic Style, but in a more straight to the point way (and maybe less in depth).

Sample chapters include the reading process, line composition and column type setting; all chapter and reflections illustrated with rich examples.

Written and designed by Jost Hochuli (graphic designer/typographer from the “modern Swiss typography”), Detail in Typography is available from Hyphen Press, Amazon, Typotheque and many other retailer and in various languages.