When the White Stripes approached us to publish a book of Autumn de Wilde’s photographs documenting their unprecedented Canadian tour, which included visits to every territory and province
and the band’s 10th anniversary celebration, we knew we’d need to give the book’s production extra-special attention, not least because the band’s aesthetics are so powerfully focused on the colors black, white, and red. And not just any red. Autumn told me a story of her and her daughter, Arrow, and Jack joking around about pink “being the enemy of The White Stripes.”
…though I’m not sure how much Jack was joking. Kind of joking. Anyway, it would be something we needed to keep an eye on in terms of proofing the 4-color photographs, for sure. We asked what color was the right color (actually we asked what PMS color was right, figuring that’s what they’d work with) and were told that the correct color was “Coca-Cola red.” Of course! Classic and easy to color match anywhere without a PMS book. When told this, our amazing printer, Shapco, went ahead and mixed their own custom ink to use as an extra hit of color throughout on the reds, which gave the great vibrant blast of color on the red-lit live images, and helped keep a strong presence in the red when through ambient light The Enemy threatened show in the highlights.
We also employed some other special production elements, which photographer Autumn and designer Jeri Heiden of Smog Design drew in inspiration from an out-of-print photography book by Ken Schles called The Geometry of Innocence, including (book nerd territory, hang on…) use of both matte and aqueous spot varnish to give our pages—often with black borders—more dimension. The photos printed with a gloss effect to bring out the deeper black and make the colors pop, and the borders printed matte so the images “pop” off the page.
Here’s the test proof sheet that we used to test the reproduction of portions of various photos at actual size, along with varnish and black border color combinations. You can see on Jack’s knee in the bottom right photo, and in one of the spreads above, where pink threatened to creep into the highlight before we beat it back with the extra hit of red.
While we were proofing in house, we had a totemic bottle of Mexican Coke (which is better than American Coke. No, no, it is…) at our side to proof against, and I’d meant to keep it as a memento, but I drank it on a thirsty day.
We also published the book in a landscape format to suit the amazing location photographs that Autumn captured with them on tour.
The book is available as part of a rather astonishing box set that the band is selling directly to fans, and is also available separately at bookstores and online. Autumn (the author of our Elliott Smith book) and I are now deep in the editing of a Death Cab for Cutie book that I’m excited to see out later this fall, just before Christmas.
Purchase The White Stripes: Under Great White Northern Lights.
Steve Mockus
Senior Editor
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Yes. Pink is the enemy of The White Stripes. Your image shows just how desperately the white stripes depend upon opposition. Sweet.