Why Book Arts? Why Fine Printing?

I have tried for a long time to justify to myself my attraction to the book arts and fine printing. These are often explained as books which have special meaning not just as a book, but also as a cultural artifact, a textual object with physical characteristics, a work of art even. Some, indeed, are quite beautiful. But this, for me, has not been enough – beauty is only one aspect of these books which make them worth studying. In fact, appreciating and understanding the book arts leads to a deeper insight the very nature of written communication.

The effect, if not always the object, of the book arts and fine printing is to make one question their preconceived notions of just what a book is and should be. By default, the printed book is meant to get out of the way and let the text speak for itself: an unconventional font choice, binding style, or material would only get in the way. But this very observation highlights the fact that book design is far from neutral. Indeed, every detail of a book affects how it will be read, and ultimately, what its effect on the reader is.

What we call fine printing often appears to be just that: a printed book of exceptional quality in its printing, but not essentially challenging the concept of the book itself. Instead, through exceptional craftsmanship, the finely-printed book will "carry the personality of its maker – no less surely than that of its author and its subject," in the words of Stanley Morrison, best known for creating Times New Roman.

The book arts also offer the opportunity for an artist to express themselves through the medium of "the book." This book may feature unexpected and unique qualities which radically and inseparably shape the content of the book. In the words of the book artist Peter Koch, "By the intentional inclusion of visual and tactile properties as meaningful elements within the signifying projects of poetry we additively constitute a total printed language." (1) This is to say that in an artist's book (not just in one of poetry), the visual language of design melds with the verbal language of the text.

Why do artists' books and fine printing matter? By explicitly demonstrating that the book – or indeed, anything carrying information, from a label to website – is nothing without its attendant features such as font choice, binding style, and type of paper, we become aware of the need to develop a broader sense of what it means to be literate. Studying the book arts and fine printing gives us a framework through which we can interrogate the unspoken, but very present, meanings in everything that we read. Without such tools, the reader is unable to fully articulate the impact that a text has had on them; the writer, likewise, is unable to fully comprehend the impact their text will have on a reader. In short, as much as the book is a work of art, so much is reading the book its own art.

(1) Peter Koch. From Deadstart: a journal of letters, design and typographic printing.