Mike and Kate Hyde are Bespoke Editions. Here's their idea: We've reached tipping point with ebooks; the physical book is, clearly, no longer the most appropriate medium for the delivery of everyday texts. But for important, classic and treasured texts, it is highly likely that the physical book will grow in popularity as a prized and precious artefact. The evidence is all around us.
Bespoke Editions is a one-off edition press; offering beautiful custom-made classic books, printed on demand and hand-finished to order. Personalised and unique, each edition will be made using specially selected cover papers and finishes. Personally, I think it's a great and timely idea. It's spot on; imagine being able to buy someone their favourite, classic novel, made to your unique specification. The idea totally works for me. Which is why I'm working for them.
It's been a while since I did any book work but over the last few weeks I've been helping Kate and Mike develop the layout and style sheets for the internal pages. Drawing on Hochuli's seminal book on book design and Tschichold's timeless book work, I've really enjoyed the understated discipline of book design again.
The editions will be in a Demy format and the page layouts will be based on the Van de Graaf Canon. After a set of tests, we've settled on the beautiful Hoefler Text for the typesetting and each title page will feature a carefully chosen typographic ornament that has some relevance to the particular book.
I'm pretty excited to be involved and will be reporting on progress as things move along but you can also hear from Kate and Mike on the Bespoke Editions blog.
Looks great! Munken is a great choice for paper.
Info is scarce on their site… I would like to know which digital press is used. : )
Posted by: Bert Vanderveen | 28 October 2010 at 11:57 AM
Hope to go into that kind of detail as things progress. Will find out from the guys at BE.
Posted by: Richrd | 28 October 2010 at 12:01 PM