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Q & A with Jason Godfrey, Bibliographic
by Dan
Author Q & A + Design & Typography / January 20, 2010
Bibliographic: 100 Classic Graphic Design Books (published by London's Laurence King) was one of my favourite books last year. It's an incredible cross-section of design books that would be a beautiful addition to any design enthusiast's shelf.
But Bibliographic is not – as the author Jason Godfrey points out in his introduction – a history of graphic design or even a definitive list of 100 books on the subject.
So I wanted to know how the selections were made.
Fortunately, I was able to speak to Jason and ask him a few questions about Bibliographic and what it took to be included in the of 100 classic graphic design books...
Dan Wagstaff: What was the inspiration for Bibliographic?
Jason Godfrey: There was a need for a illustrated resource of graphic design publishing. Many books and articles contained very good reading lists but I had always found them rather detached without the visual reference. The best graphic design books are important artefacts in the history of graphic design and many of the books are becoming difficult to find and access.
DW: What criteria did you use to select the books?
JG: The only rule that was applied throughout was that the books had to be visually interesting, there seemed little point in photographing books that would not look appealing on the page. That the books were designed by some of the cream of graphic design this turned out not to be a big problem but it did mean that some important critical analyses had to be put to one side.
DW: Did you ask other designers for their recommendations?
JG: Whilst mentioning to other designers that I was working on Biblographic I found that they were very keen to promote their own favourite titles and it did help extend the list and also confirm the importance of books that had already been chosen. As part of the book I asked about 20 designers to give me a list of 10 books from their own library, this was an idea borrowed from the designer Tony Brook at Spin who had earlier published a newspaper Spin 2 with reading lists from 50 designers.
DW: Was it difficult to decide which recent books to include?
JG: To gauge which newly published titles will come to be seen part of the canon of graphic design books is not the easiest of tasks. Looking back from a distance helps to establish the relevant trends and lends more perspective to any choices. Regardless the best books all seem to be those that can tell a good story. One recent book, Mark Holt and Hamish Muir's 8vo: On the Outside (Lars Müller Publishers, 2005) did just this, exploring the process of the studio's work and the effect of technological on this process and output in a thoroughly engaging book .
DW: There are photographs of every book included in Bibliographic. Were any of the books difficult to locate?
JG: A number of the books are from my own collection others I borrowed from friends and colleagues. Some were so precious I had to send the photographer Nick Turner over to where the their owner could keep them in sight at all times. A handful of books I could only locate at the St Bride Printing Library who were kind enough to facilitate their shooting.
DW: Were there any books you wanted to include but couldn’t access?
JG: Early in the process of compiling my list of 100 books I decided that many of the early examples of early 20th Century graphic design books particularly those of the typographic revolutions of the 1920s and 1930s would be too difficult to access as they are now the preserve of museums. It would all have taken me too far from my premise that Bibliographic could be representative of a working studio library.
DW: Which books came close to being in the 100, but didn’t quite make the final cut?
JG: Tough choices had to made particularly where an author or series of books were successful. Alan Fletcher is very well represented in the book and I couldn't justify putting in the excellent Identity Kits: A Pictorial Survey of Visual Signals (Studio Vista, 1971) a book he co-authored with Germano Facetti the then art director at Penguin Books. Another book that came very close was Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographical Style (Hartley & Marks, 1992) which I felt lacked the visual punch necessary for Bibliographic.
DW: Of the books you don’t own in Bibliographic, is there one that you particularly covet?
JG: The 1926 Deberny & Peignot, Specimen Général would be a welcome addition to my library. There was copy in a studio I worked for and I was forever using it as a point of reference or just to admire the elegant section dividers designed by Maximilien Vox.
Thanks Jason!
