COURSE TITLE: The Art of the Book
INSTRUCTOR: Howard I. Gralla

In this digital age of web pages and electronic communication, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that printed books are still the most common way of delivering large amounts of information to a great many people. Every one of those books, and every book since Gutenberg's Bible, has been created by someone who made specific artistic decisions about every facet of the finished product. Book design, however, is an art that most people take for granted, since the average reader does not consciously notice the layout of a typical page. As designer Beatrice Warde wrote in her seminal essay The Crystal Goblet, the best typography should be unobtrusive, because, like a wine glass made out of pure crystal, "everything about it is calculated to reveal rather than to hide the beautiful thing which it was meant to contain."

This course will introduce students to the art of book design, typography and fine printing in 20th century America. It begins with a basic grounding in the process of bookmaking, putting into context the various components of the physical book. It then moves into the historical development of printing types from the inscriptions on Rome's Trajan Column to the explosion of desktop digital font development ushered in by the computer era. It will include an introduction to the principles of typography which apply not only to book design, but also to other forms of visual, textual communication, from posters to web pages. We will also cover a brief overview of the different printing processes, to understand the effect that letterpress, intaglio, lithography and digital output technologies have on the final product.

The subject of the book will be illuminated through study of the work of leading American designers and printers of the past century. The course will utilize the unparalleled resources of Sterling Library's Arts of the Book Collection and the Beinecke Library's Rare Book Collection, with a number of the class sessions being held within the libraries. Among the typographers and book designers whose work will be examined are Bruce Rogers, Daniel Berkeley Updike, Frederic Goudy, and Beatrice and Frederic Warde. The class will also study the intricate interaction of designer and printer by surveying the work of such important American printers as Robert Grabhorn, Elmer Adler, Joseph Blumenthal and Yale's own Carl Purington Rollins. In addition to the required readings, each student will independently research some aspect of fine printing in America for class discussion.

In parallel with the historical survey of the art of the book, students will undertake a detailed investigation into how a book is designed, in order to understand the interrelated aspects of book size, type style, readability, binding, paper, text block placement, aesthetics and dozens of other details. They will learn first hand the fundamentals of book typography; book design problems and procedures as they select and design their own book-related projects.

Weekly, graded, printing and design exercises with increasing complexity will be given for several weeks prior to midterm. Through hands-on out-of-class work in the fully equipped Presses of Pierson and Jonathan Edwards Colleges, students will receive actual practice in book design and printing as a creative art, learning to use basic techniques of book design and production, both modern and classical. Practical topics to be covered include typesetting, using both traditional hand-set metal type and computer-based graphic design applications; printing, using antique platen presses, modern cylinder proof presses and state-of-the-art computer-set photopolymer plates; and basic book-binding, including signature-sewn case binding and oriental stab-binding.

As a final project, each student will design, set into type and produce a limited edition book, of which one copy will be preserved for posterity in the Yale Library's Arts of the Book Collection. Examples of final projects from previous classes are available for review by the seminar committee.

WEEK-BY-WEEK SYLLABUS

Each class will be divided into two parts: the first being a discussion of the readings, and the second a critique of the weekly assignment or discussion of preparatory work leading up to the final project. Time will be allowed for instruction in design and printing, but students will be expected to prepare design and printing assignments on time outside of class.

BASIC BIBLIOGRAPHY

Howard I. Gralla is an Associate Fellow of Pierson College and a well-known book designer and production consultant. He has a MFA from the Yale School of Art, and has offered this seminar six times since 1978.