Book Arts and Photography

Type direction on spine of books

Ever notice that the title of some books are printed top down while a few are printed from the bottom up. A scholar may know the exact reason. I often find that spines printed from the bottom up were published outside of the United States. Not sure if other countries print titles in the same direction, but often the bottom up text was printed in Europe. I was looking for some typography books today and noticed the spine of Type Image Symbol a wonderful book by Adrian Frutiger

Charley Trujillo visits with faculty and students

Charley Trujillo is a small publisher and author. Several years after serving in Viet Nam, he wrote about his wartime experience in his book “Soldados: The Chicano Experience in Viet Nam.” He included stories of 19 fellow Chicano veterans from Corcoran, California. A great lesson for all of us is that his manuscript was rejected by dozens of publishers. It left him with no alternative, but to publish the book himself. In 1991 he received the American Book Award. He has a small publishing company called Chusma House Publishing which is located in San Jose, CA.

Lisa Gralnick’s Gold Standard Catalog

After several months of work, a recent project is finally off the press. My colleague Lisa Gralnick, is having a major exhibition at the Bellevue Art Museum (March 18 – August 1, 2010) in Washington State. For more information about the show, visit Lisa Gralnick: The Gold Standard. Working on collaborative projects is always a pleasure. You can see a gallery of photographs of Lisa Gralnick’s work. Phil Kovacevich from Seattle, Washington designed the catalog.

Jimmy Santiago Baca

Poet, writer and filmmaker Jimmy Santiago Baca met with students and staff at the Multicultural Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison recently. The focus of the meeting was to discuss how to build unity and increase awareness for Latino students. It was a pleasure to see such a well know writer and activist meet with students. You can see a photograph of Jimmy Santiago Back .