Chronicle Books Blog

As I get ready to be a new mom (now T-minus 2 months), I find myself swimming in diaper decisions, car seat queries, and the like. There’s one pure delight amidst all the slogs through online round-ups and reviews, and that’s picking out what I’m going to read to the little tyke. I’ve always had a soft spot for vintage children’s books. Last year I blogged about late nineteenth century picture books, and lately I’ve been obsessed with children’s books from the 1950s and ‘60s, especially essentially plotless ones where the illustrations take center stage.

A Kiss is Round, from 1954, is a simple poem by Blossom Budney that lists a lot of round things, and it’s the perfect excuse for Vladimir Bobri’s exuberant drawings. I love his drawing style, with its fine black lines and large swathes of color.

The Quiet Noisy Book (1950), written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, is a joyful exercise in midcentury design. Angular shapes and bold graphics make it a page-turner, as the text lists increasingly fanciful possibilities for what caused a noise.

My favorite recent find is Do You Hear What I Hear from 1960, written and illustrated by Helen Borten. Her illustrations, with their vibrant colors and dynamic layouts, are a perfect match for the text, which is a poetic exploration of sound.

What are your favorites from that era? Please mention any must-reads in the comments below.

Allison Weiner
Designer

I moved to San Francisco in 2009 to study graphic design. I have found it to be an inspiring city to live in and experience on a daily basis. It’s such a typographically rich city, whether it’s a Mexican taqueria sign in the Mission District or the countless ghost signage scattered all over the city.

As a graphic designer, I am constantly collecting random things for their typographic inspiration. I have a massive collection of postcards, erasers, matchboxes, business cards—the list goes on. One of my oddest obsessive collections is four years worth of Muni transfer slips. There is something so graphically pleasing about them. Each month is a new color. The grid is tight and the typography is clear and informative. I started collecting the transfer slips shortly after I moved here and four years later, boy, do I have a collection.

Collection from 2009

Collection from 2012

Something I didn’t expect when I started this collection was how the transfers could act as a kind of memento of my daily life. Looking back over these, I think about what was going on in my life. They have become precious to me not just for their graphic beauty but what they remind me of. I write notes to myself on some of the more important ones to remind myself later. For someone who has never been a journal keeper, it’s nice to have something to record memories.

“Giants game with Mike for his birthday. They won 3-2 against the Cubs.”

Do you have a collection that brings you inspiration? Mementos from travels? Ordinary objects from everyday life?

And remember, do not litter.

Sarah Higgins
Publishing Design Fellow

Oh, Providence! Between New York and Boston on more or less a Northeast axis, lies Providence, Rhode Island. This spring I traveled there at the invitation of the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) to be a designer-in-residence (DiR).

Woods-Gerry, RISD’s undergraduate exhibition space.

Apart from RISD, Providence, in true New England tradition, is home to a number of colleges including Brown, Johnson & Wales, Providence College and University of Rhode Island.

It’s hard to overestimate the influence RISD alumni have had on our art, design, and popular culture. Award-winning author-illustrators David Macaulay (Castle, The Way Things Work), Chris Van Allsberg (Jumanji, The Polar Express), animator, screenwriter, comedian Seth MacFarlane, artists Julie Mehretu and Kara Walker, gallerist Mary Boone, film director Gus Van Sant, cartoonist Roz Chast, graphic designer Shepard Fairey, and even dropout David Byrne, have impressed themselves onto our collective art-music-film-design consciousness. That’s the history, anyway.

In addition to integrating myself into the design classrooms as designer-in-residence, I took part in the school’s annual Design Portfolio Review.

Students register for Design Portfolio Day.

This year’s Design Portfolio Review day was one for the record books: over 160 companies saw nearly 650 students, and conducted 3,479 15-minute review slots at the Rhode Island Convention Center (phew).

Selection of students’ calling cards.

Dimensional illustration, student work.

My weeklong stint as DiR was an intensive one. However, the opportunity to step away from the routine and insert myself into a design education community was welcome.

Wall in graphic design studio.

I have taught at CCA in San Francisco, so I was curious to compare that experience with one a continent and educational philosophy apart. I should not have been surprised to find design-speak is understood regardless of “school” or locale: design problem solving and aesthetics are fundamental to the designer’s art.

The difference that I perceived is that the students in the classes I took part in were more enamored of, and conversant with, digital applications of their book/publication/communication designs than my recent experience had shown.

Prof. Hans van Dijk’s typography class: from print to app.

At the same time, the level of curiosity about the fate of the traditional printed book was high. In spite, or perhaps, because of the ubiquity of digital devices and content, the physical objectness of the book holds a fascination for these young designers. Reassuring news as bookstores are shuttered and readers decamp for the tablet.

At the same time that I was being exposed to designs-in-progress, the students peppered me with questions about the publishing process, the marketability of their concepts, and in some cases, the manufacturing process. For me this was a best-case scenario of an open exchange of ideas while immersed in the daily flow of classes.

Work from critic/instructor Ben Shaykin’s Booklab class: book design becomes interaction… transforming the book into an environment for “Fancy Rat.”

In one instance I had the opportunity to co-lead a workshop in Prof. Jan Baker’s class, “Book and Paper Arts.” To my delight, her students were drawn from across the design disciplines, a construct which reflects my predilection for an interdisciplinary approach to design.

Prof. Jan Baker’s “Book & Paper Arts” class.

The objective of the workshop was to introduce students to the notion that the book structure is an alterable, expressive art form. The results, based on the students’ thesis proposals, transformed their intellectual concepts into 3-dimensional statements, strong in visual content and which had the effect of reducing their theses into a series of illustrative, concentrated tangible forms.

An architecture student’s interpretation of a tunnel book.

Further examples from “Book & Paper Arts” class.

To round out my experience at RISD I gave a talk at the student union (“The Met”) entitled, “Move Over Don Quixote: Pushing the Boundaries of the Book,” something we at Chronicle have a history of doing. The talk was an opportunity to illustrate how Chronicle has embraced the physicality of the book to great success and in the process gave birth to a whole array of products that stretch the notion of what a book is. In that regard, artist Ed Ruscha probably said it best: “I love books, the physical objects of them.” We at Chronicle do too.

Michael Carabetta
Creative Director

A couple of times each year, the designers at Chronicle Books go on a retreat of some sort. We are thankfully spared such team building exercises as firewalks and leading one another around with blindfolds on. More typically we get to engage in some sort of amusing activity that also includes a glass (or two) of wine or beer. Last week we had one such retreat, a calligraphy workshop, that was by far the most aesthetically pleasing one that we have had yet, while also being fun and surprisingly relaxing. Yes, that’s right, calligraphy can be relaxing, especially when you have the genuinely sweet and encouraging teacher, Maybelle.

Maybelle is well known in the calligraphy world for her unique and pretty style. She has worked with us illustrating a few projects including Bridal Shower Games. Maybelle teaches calligraphy workshops in the Bay Area at Makeshift Society.

For our workshop Maybelle created the loveliest set of tools for each of us, carefully laid out around 3 tables. Each set included a personalized ink well, pen, nib, ink, a letterpress printed alphabet guide, a practice book, vellum and black paper.

We were all pretty taken with the inkwells that Maybelle’s woodworker husband makes for her classes.

Maybelle had us practicing our letters in no time.

Fellow, Dinah Fried, minded her E’s and F’s.

Tired Turtles Like to Letter by Senior Designer, Neil Egan.

Senior Designer, Alice Chau, tried her hand at some recipe titles from a recent cookbook.

I never would have guessed how fun calligraphy can be until I had spent a couple of hours doing it. I think most of us were also pleasantly surprised by how relaxing an activity it can be. And now that we are all set up with our very own inkwells, we can fill up our practice books on our own. If you are in the Bay Area and so inclined, I highly recommend Maybelle’s classes. They are a welcome opportunity to slow down and focus on one thing (that’s not a screen) for a little while. Refreshing!

Brooke Johnson
Senior Designer

Chronicle Books has history: We’ve been publishing culture and local interest titles since our founding in 1967. In time we’ve greatly expanded the number and scope of the books we publish, so much so that we now print three magazine-sized catalogs per season (one each for our Adult, Children’s, and Gift products). Today I can count over 200 printed catalogs!

Below I’ve highlighted some of my favorite general and Adult catalog covers. As you’ll see, the archive reflects both the growth in our company as well as cultural and design trends.

This 1969 brochure was the earliest promotional piece I could get my hands on. Though the cover typeface, Futura, was designed in the 20′s, it was widely used in the 50′s and 60′s as an all-purpose font (thus Wes Anderson’s decision to use it in all of his films).

Here we have lots more Futura! In addition, our name is set in blackletter type that reflects our former association with the San Francisco Chronicle.

In the mid-to-late 70s, we experimented with several different trim sizes, logos, and layout styles. My favorite of this bunch is the 1974 booklet featuring a hip cartoon (by Palo Alto cartoonist William Hamilton) and a logo made of stacked books and blocky type in a brown-on-tan color scheme.

Sparse deconstructed meals and colorful knit separates. We nailed the mid-eighties. Joking aside, this is when I really start to see a turn towards the modern Chronicle Books catalog. The trim size has settled, and we’ve featured food on a cover for the first time.

L: Photograph by Kathryn Kleinman from Salad: An All-Color Portfolio of Innovative Salad, A Feast for Palate and Eye. R: Illustration from Showing Your Colors: Over One Thousand Color Combination Choices for Fashion.

L: Photograph by Kathryn Kleinman from Openers. R: Photograph from The Cottage Book by Richard Sexton.

In 1992 we settled on our current logo, and this Spring 1993 catalog uses the Copperplate typeface that we still use today.

L: Illustration by Ward Schumaker from All My Best Friends are Animals Address Book. R: Photograph from Re-Arrangements: A Book of Flowers by Debra Heimerdinger.

L: Photograph from Cats in the Sun by Hans Silvester R: Painting by Mark Adams from Mark Adams: A Way with Color.

L: Photograph from Airstream: The History of the Land Yacht R: Photograph by Gert Weigelt from Black & White.

Today, we design our catalogs from the template that you see on the right.

L: Illustration by Seymour Chwast from The Push Pin Graphic. R: Illustration by Vito Costarella from Modern Dog.

L: Illustration by Lauren Nassef from The Where, the Why, and the How. R: Photograph from Take Away by Jean-François Mallet.

L: Photograph from Maddie on Things by Theron Humphrey R: Sculpture by Cara Barer from Art Made from Books.

Since our catalogs are printed for the eyes of those in the publishing trade, not consumers, it is especially exciting to present this collection to the world!

Laura Bagnato
Designer, MarCom