The End of Print
My position on those early web page prototypes called books is clear: I love books, books are good, books decorate a room nicely. The codex is a robust plug-and-play interface. Hell, I’ve been reading the fucking things for years. Girls who wonder ou est la bibliotheque make me go all googly.
The above is a rare cover for a book that did not as yet exist, at least in English until the early 1980s and my first trip to Cologne. Version one – everybody seemed to think version one was rather good – was drubbed and kicked and held, noses pinched, at arm’s length by the sales force of Kiepenheuer & Witsch for being too mopey. Improved upon in later years.
I recently came in contact with this dreadful jacket for Demian. Almost made me not want to re-read it.
I find myself veering away from the usual disjointed bushwa about visible language and maps of the mind and centers that cannot hold toward a reiteration of thoughts from an article I read awhile ago, by that bright fellow Zeldman.
It would be interesting to establish the point in history – no doubt somewhere in the ad-soaked marketing-mad 1960s – when function lost its lustre, when writing became secondary to its presentation, when commercial artists became graphic designers and the cult of haughty ego took hold.