Hej. (Latter)
Hi. (Laughter)
Det gjorde jeg af to årsager. Først, fordi jeg ville give jer et godt visuelt indtryk. Men hovedårsagen til, jeg gjorde det, er at det er, hvad der sker med mig, når jeg tvinges til at bære en billig Lady Gaga mikrofon.
I did that for two reasons. First of all, I wanted to give you a good visual first impression. But the main reason I did it is that that's what happens to me when I'm forced to wear a Lady Gaga skanky mic.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Jeg er vant til en stationær mikrofon. Det er højtaleranlæggenes svar på praktiske sko.
I'm used to a stationary mic. It's the sensible shoe of public address.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Men I smækker denne på hovedet af mig, og noget sker. Jeg bliver bare billig. (Latter) Så undskyld for det. Og jeg er allerede afsporet.
But you clamp this thing on my head, and something happens. I just become skanky. (Laughter) So I'm sorry about that. And I'm already off-message.
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Mine damer og herrer, jeg har dedikeret de sidste 25 år af mit liv til at designe bøger. "Ja, BØGER. De indbundne bind med blæk på papir. De kan ikke slukkes på en kontakt. Sig det til jeres børn." Det startede alt sammen som en heldig fejl, ligesom penicillin. (Latter)
Ladies and gentlemen, I have devoted the past 25 years of my life to designing books. ("Yes, BOOKS. You know, the bound volumes with ink on paper. You cannot turn them off with a switch. Tell your kids.") It all sort of started as a benign mistake, like penicillin. (Laughter)
Hvad jeg virkelig ville, var at være grafisk designer hos et af de store designfirmaer i New York City. Men ved ankomsten i efteråret 1986 og efter en masse jobsamtaler fandt jeg, at det eneste, jeg blev tilbudt, var at være assistent for den Kunstneriske Leder hos Alfred A. Knopf, et bogforlag. Jeg var dum, men ikke så dum, at jeg afslog.
What I really wanted was to be a graphic designer at one of the big design firms in New York City. But upon arrival there, in the fall of 1986, and doing a lot of interviews, I found that the only thing I was offered was to be Assistant to the Art Director at Alfred A. Knopf, a book publisher. Now I was stupid, but not so stupid that I turned it down.
Jeg havde ingen anelse om, hvad jeg skulle blive del af, og jeg var utroligt heldig. Snart gik det op for mig, hvad mit job var. Mit job var at stille dette spørgsmål: "Hvordan ser historierne ud?" For det er, hvad Knopf er. Det er historiefabrikken, en af verdens bedste. Vi bringer historier til offentligheden.
I had absolutely no idea what I was about to become part of, and I was incredibly lucky. Soon, it had occurred to me what my job was. My job was to ask this question: "What do the stories look like?" Because that is what Knopf is. It is the story factory, one of the very best in the world. We bring stories to the public.
Historierne kan være alt muligt, og nogle af dem er faktisk sande. Men de har alle én ting til fælles: De skal alle ligne noget. De har alle brug for et ansigt. Hvorfor? For at give jer et førstehåndsindtryk af, hvad I kan vente jer. En bogdesigner giver form til indhold og samtidig styrer en meget fin balance mellem de to.
The stories can be anything, and some of them are actually true. But they all have one thing in common: They all need to look like something. They all need a face. Why? To give you a first impression of what you are about to get into. A book designer gives form to content, but also manages a very careful balance between the two.
Nå, første dag på min grafisk designeruddannelse på Penn State University kom læreren Lanny Sommese ind i lokalet, og han tegnede et billede af et æble på tavlen og skrev ordet "Æble" nedenunder, og han sagde, "OK. Første lektion. Hør efter." Og han dækkede billedet og han sagde, "Enten siger I dette," og så dækkede han ordet, "eller også viser I dette. Men I gør ikke dette." For dette er at behandle jeres modtager som en tåbe. (Latter) Og de fortjener bedre.
Now, the first day of my graphic design training at Penn State University, the teacher, Lanny Sommese, came into the room and he drew a picture of an apple on the blackboard, and wrote the word "Apple" underneath, and he said, "OK. Lesson one. Listen up." And he covered up the picture and he said, "You either say this," and then he covered up the word, "or you show this. But you don't do this." Because this is treating your audience like a moron. (Laughter) And they deserve better.
Og se engang, meget snart kunne jeg afprøve denne teori på to bøger, som jeg arbejdede på for Knopf. Den første var Katharine Hepburns memoirer, og den anden var en biografi af Marlene Dietrich. Hepburn-bogen var skrevet som en samtale, det var som om, hun sad overfor en og talte til en. Dietrich-bogen var en observation af hendes datter; det var en biografi. Så Hepburn-historien er ord, og Dietrich-historien er billeder, og derfor gjorde vi dette. Værsgo. Ren indhold og ren form, side om side. Bevar roen, de damer.
And lo and behold, soon enough, I was able to put this theory to the test on two books that I was working on for Knopf. The first was Katharine Hepburn's memoirs, and the second was a biography of Marlene Dietrich. Now the Hepburn book was written in a very conversational style, it was like she was sitting across a table telling it all to you. The Dietrich book was an observation by her daughter; it was a biography. So the Hepburn story is words and the Dietrich story is pictures, and so we did this. So there you are. Pure content and pure form, side by side. No fighting, ladies.
"Hvad er en Jurassic Park?" Hvad er historien her? Nogen genopfinder dinosaurer ved at udtrække deres DNA fra forhistorisk rav. Genialt! (Latter)
("What's a Jurassic Park?") Now, what is the story here? Someone is re-engineering dinosaurs by extracting their DNA from prehistoric amber. Genius! (Laughter)
Heldigvis for mig bor og arbejder jeg i New York City, hvor der er rigeligt med dinosaurer. (Latter) Så, jeg tog på Naturhistorisk Museum, og jeg så på knoglerne, og jeg gik i souvenirbutikken, og jeg købte en bog. Og jeg blev især slået af denne side af bogen og mere præcist det nederste højre hjørne.
Now, luckily for me, I live and work in New York City, where there are plenty of dinosaurs. (Laughter) So, I went to the Museum of Natural History, and I checked out the bones, and I went to the gift shop, and I bought a book. And I was particularly taken with this page of the book, and more specifically the lower right-hand corner.
Jeg tog dette diagram, og jeg lagde det i en fotostat, (Latter) og jeg tog et stykke kalkerpapir, og jeg tapede det over fotostaten med et stykke tape -- stop mig, hvis det går for hurtigt -- (Latter) og så tog jeg en Rapidograph pen -- forklar det for de unge -- (Latter) og jeg begyndte bare at genskabe dinosauren.
Now I took this diagram, and I put it in a Photostat machine, (Laughter) and I took a piece of tracing paper, and I taped it over the Photostat with a piece of Scotch tape -- stop me if I'm going too fast -- (Laughter) -- and then I took a Rapidograph pen -- explain it to the youngsters -- (Laughter) and I just started to reconstitute the dinosaur.
Jeg anede ikke, hvad jeg havde gang i, jeg anede ikke, hvor jeg ville ende, men på et tidspunkt stoppede jeg -- da at fortsætte ville være at gå for vidt. Og hvad jeg endte med, var en grafisk repræsentation af os, der ser dette dyr i gang med at blive skabt. Vi er i midten af processen. Og så smed jeg bare noget typografi på det. Meget basalt, en smule lig offentlig park-skiltning. (Latter)
I had no idea what I was doing, I had no idea where I was going, but at some point, I stopped -- when to keep going would seem like I was going too far. And what I ended up with was a graphic representation of us seeing this animal coming into being. We're in the middle of the process. And then I just threw some typography on it. Very basic stuff, slightly suggestive of public park signage. (Laughter)
Alle i bygningen elskede det, og derfor af sted til forfatteren. Og selv dengang var Michael på forkanten. "Michael Crichton svarer pr. fax." "Wow! Fucking Fantastisk Omslag" (Latter) (Bifald) Det var en lettelse at se det komme ud af maskinen. (Latter) Jeg savner Michael.
Everybody in house loved it, and so off it goes to the author. And even back then, Michael was on the cutting edge. ("Michael Crichton responds by fax:") ("Wow! Fucking Fantastic Jacket") (Laughter) (Applause) That was a relief to see that pour out of the machine. (Laughter) I miss Michael.
Og sandelig ikke om nogen fra MCA Universal ringede til vores juridiske afdeling for at høre, om de kunne kigge på at købe rettighederne til billedet, hvis nu de ville bruge det. De brugte det. (Latter) (Bifald)
And sure enough, somebody from MCA Universal calls our legal department to see if they can maybe look into buying the rights to the image, just in case they might want to use it. Well, they used it. (Laughter) (Applause)
Og jeg var spændt. Vi ved alle, de var en fantastisk film, og det var så interessant at se den gå ud i kulturen og blive dette fænomen og at se alle de forskellige afskygninger af det. Men for ikke ret lang tid siden faldt jeg over dette på nettet. Nej, det er ikke mig. Men hvem end det er, kan jeg ikke lade være at tro, de vågnede en dag og, "Åh Gud, den var der ikke i går nat. Ooooohh! Jeg var så fuld." (Latter)
And I was thrilled. We all know it was an amazing movie, and it was so interesting to see it go out into the culture and become this phenomenon and to see all the different permutations of it. But not too long ago, I came upon this on the Web. No, that is not me. But whoever it is, I can't help but thinking they woke up one day like, "Oh my God, that wasn't there last night. Ooooohh! I was so wasted." (Laughter)
Men hvis man tænker over det, fra mit hoved til mine hænder til hans ben. (Latter) Det er et ansvar. Og det er et ansvar, som jeg ikke tager let på. Bogdesignerens ansvar er trefoldigt: over for læseren, forlaget og mest af alt forfatteren. Jeg vil have jer til at se på forfatterens bog og sige, "Wow! Jeg må læse den."
But if you think about it, from my head to my hands to his leg. (Laughter) That's a responsibility. And it's a responsibility that I don't take lightly. The book designer's responsibility is threefold: to the reader, to the publisher and, most of all, to the author. I want you to look at the author's book and say, "Wow! I need to read that."
David Sedaris er en af mine yndlingsskribenter, og titelessayet i denne samling handler om hans tur til en nudistkoloni. Og grunden til, han tog derhen, er han frygtede sit kropsbillede, og han ville udforske, hvad der lå til grund for det. For mig var det bare en undskyldning for at designe en bog, som man bogstaveligt talt kunne tage bukserne af. Men når man gør det, får man ikke, hvad man forventer. Man får noget, der går meget dybere end det. Og især David elskede dette design, fordi ved bogsigneringer, hvilket han gør meget i, kunne han tage en tus og gøre dette. (Latter) Halløj! (Latter)
David Sedaris is one of my favorite writers, and the title essay in this collection is about his trip to a nudist colony. And the reason he went is because he had a fear of his body image, and he wanted to explore what was underlying that. For me, it was simply an excuse to design a book that you could literally take the pants off of. But when you do, you don't get what you expect. You get something that goes much deeper than that. And David especially loved this design because at book signings, which he does a lot of, he could take a magic marker and do this. (Laughter) Hello! (Laughter)
Augusten Burroughs skrev en biografi kaldet ["Dry"] ("Tør"), og den handler om hans tid i afvænning. I hans 20'ere var han en stor reklamechef, og som Mad Men har fortalt os, en alkoholiker. Det mente han dog ikke, men hans kollegaer skar igennem og sagde, "Du skal på afvænning, eller du bliver fyret, og så dør du."
Augusten Burroughs wrote a memoir called ["Dry"], and it's about his time in rehab. In his 20s, he was a hotshot ad executive, and as Mad Men has told us, a raging alcoholic. He did not think so, however, but his coworkers did an intervention and they said, "You are going to rehab, or you will be fired and you will die."
For mig skulle dette hele tiden være en typografisk løsning, hvad jeg kalder det modsatte af Skrift 101. Hvad betyder det? Som regel på første dag i Introduktion til Typografi får man en opgave, der lyder, vælg et ord og få det til at ligne, hvad det siger, det er. Så det er Skrift 101. Meget simpelt. Dette bliver det modsatte af det. Jeg ville have denne bog til at ligne, den lyver for dig, desperat og håbløs, måden en alkoholiker ville.
Now to me, this was always going to be a typographic solution, what I would call the opposite of Type 101. What does that mean? Usually on the first day of Introduction to Typography, you get the assignment of, select a word and make it look like what it says it is. So that's Type 101, right? Very simple stuff. This is going to be the opposite of that. I want this book to look like it's lying to you, desperately and hopelessly, the way an alcoholic would.
Svaret var det mest lavteknologiske, man kan forestille sig. Jeg satte skriften, jeg printede det på en Epson printer med vandopløselig blæk, tapede det til væggen og smed en spand vand på det. Vupti! Så gik vi til pressen, printeren satte en pletglans på blækket, og det lignede virkelig, det løb.
The answer was the most low-tech thing you can imagine. I set up the type, I printed it out on an Epson printer with water-soluble ink, taped it to the wall and threw a bucket of water at it. Presto! Then when we went to press, the printer put a spot gloss on the ink and it really looked like it was running.
Ikke længe efter den udkom lå Augusten på lur i en lufthavn, og han gemte sig i boghandleren og udspionerede, hvem der købte hans bøger. Og en kvinde kommer hen til den, og hun hoppede, og hun tog den til ham i kassen, og hun sagde til manden bag disken, "Den her er ødelagt." (Latter) Og fyren bag disken sagde, "Jeg ved det, frue. Sådan kom de alle." (Latter) Se det er et godt stykke printarbejde.
Not long after it came out, Augusten was waylaid in an airport and he was hiding out in the bookstore spying on who was buying his books. And this woman came up to it, and she squinted, and she took it to the register, and she said to the man behind the counter, "This one's ruined." (Laughter) And the guy behind the counter said, "I know, lady. They all came in that way." (Laughter) Now, that's a good printing job.
Et bogomslag er en destillation. Det er en haiku, om man vil, af historien. Lige denne historie af Osama Tezuka er hans episke Buddhas liv, og den er otte bind i alt. Men det bedste er, når den er på din hylde, får man et hyldebillede af Buddha, der bevæger sig fra en alder til næste. Alle disse løsninger afleder deres udgangspunkt fra bogens tekst, men når først bogdesigneren har læst teksten, må han være fortolker og oversætter.
A book cover is a distillation. It is a haiku, if you will, of the story. This particular story by Osama Tezuka is his epic life of the Buddha, and it's eight volumes in all. But the best thing is when it's on your shelf, you get a shelf life of the Buddha, moving from one age to the next. All of these solutions derive their origins from the text of the book, but once the book designer has read the text, then he has to be an interpreter and a translator.
Denne historie var en ægte gåde. Dette er, hvad den handler om. "Intriger og mord blandt 16. århundredes osmanniske hofmalere."
This story was a real puzzle. This is what it's about. ("Intrigue and murder among 16th century Ottoman court painters.")
(Latter)
(Laughter)
Jeg fik en samling af billederne sammen, og jeg så på dem, og jeg dekonstruerede dem, og jeg satte dem sammen igen. Og her er designet. Her er forsiden og ryggen, og den er flad. Men den virkelige historie begynder, når man slynger det om en bog og sætter den på hylden.
All right, so I got a collection of the paintings together and I looked at them and I deconstructed them and I put them back together. And so, here's the design, right? And so here's the front and the spine, and it's flat. But the real story starts when you wrap it around a book and put it on the shelf.
Ahh! Vi støder ind i dem, de hemmelige elskere. Lad os tage dem ud. Åh! De er blevet opdaget af sultanen. Han bliver ikke glad. Åh! Og nu er sultanen i fare. Og nu må vi åbne den for at finde ud af, hvad der skal nu vil ske. Prøv at opleve det på en Kindle. (Latter)
Ahh! We come upon them, the clandestine lovers. Let's draw them out. Huhh! They've been discovered by the sultan. He will not be pleased. Huhh! And now the sultan is in danger. And now, we have to open it up to find out what's going to happen next. Try experiencing that on a Kindle. (Laughter)
Hold mig fra det emne. Seriøst. Meget kan opnås med e-bøger: Lethed, bekvemmelighed, portabilitet. Men noget tabes: Tradition, en sensuel oplevelse, behageligheden af ting-hed -- en lille smule menneskehed.
Don't get me started. Seriously. Much is to be gained by eBooks: ease, convenience, portability. But something is definitely lost: tradition, a sensual experience, the comfort of thingy-ness -- a little bit of humanity.
Ved I, hvad John Updike plejede at gøre som det første, når han modtog et eksemplar af en af hans bøger fra Alfred A. Knopf? Han lugtede til den. Så løb han hånden over siderne, og den kradsende blæk og sidernes bøttekant. Alle de år, alle de bøger, han blev aldrig træt af det. Jeg er vild med iPaden, men tro mig -- lugte til den giver dig ingenting. (Latter) Nu skriver Apple-fyrene, "Udvikl duftgivende plug-in." (Latter)
Do you know what John Updike used to do the first thing when he would get a copy of one of his new books from Alfred A. Knopf? He'd smell it. Then he'd run his hand over the rag paper, and the pungent ink and the deckled edges of the pages. All those years, all those books, he never got tired of it. Now, I am all for the iPad, but trust me -- smelling it will get you nowhere. (Laughter) Now the Apple guys are texting, "Develop odor emission plug-in." (Laughter)
Den sidste historie, jeg vil tale om, er noget af en historie. En kvinde kaldet Aomame i 1984 i Japan finder sig selv på vej ned ad en spiraltrappe fra en hævet motorvej. Da hun når bunden, kan hun ikke lade være at føle, at pludselig er hun i en ny virkelighed, der bare er lidt anderledes fra den hun forlod, men meget lig, men anderledes. Så derfor taler vi parallelle eksistensplaner, lidt som bogomslag og bogen, det dækker.
And the last story I'm going to talk about is quite a story. A woman named Aomame in 1984 Japan finds herself negotiating down a spiral staircase off an elevated highway. When she gets to the bottom, she can't help but feel that, all of a sudden, she's entered a new reality that's just slightly different from the one that she left, but very similar, but different. And so, we're talking about parallel planes of existence, sort of like a book jacket and the book that it covers.
Så hvordan viser vi dette? Vi går tilbage til Hepburn og Dietrich, men nu forener vi dem. Så vi taler om forskellige planer, forskellige stykker papir. Så denne er på en halvgennemsigtig hinde. Den er en del af form og indhold. Da den er oven på det egentlige omslag, som er det modsatte, skaber det dette. Så selv hvis man ikke ved noget om bogen, tvinges man til at overveje en enkelt person, der skræver over to eksistensplaner. Og objektet selv lagde op til udforskning, interaktion, overvejelse og berøring.
So how do we show this? We go back to Hepburn and Dietrich, but now we merge them. So we're talking about different planes, different pieces of paper. So this is on a semi-transparent piece of velum. It's one part of the form and content. When it's on top of the paper board, which is the opposite, it forms this. So even if you don't know anything about this book, you are forced to consider a single person straddling two planes of existence. And the object itself invited exploration interaction, consideration and touch.
Denne debuterede som nummer 2 på New York Times Bestseller liste. Dette er uhørt, både for os forlaget, og forfatteren. Vi taler en 900-siders bog, der er så underlig, som den er fængslende, og indeholdende en klimaktisk scene, i hvilken en horde af små mennesker dukker frem fra munden af en sovende pige og får en schæferhund til at eksplodere. (Latter) Ikke ligefrem Jackie Collins. Fjorten uger på Bestseller listen, otte oplag og går stadig stærkt.
This debuted at number two on the New York Times Best Seller list. This is unheard of, both for us the publisher, and the author. We're talking a 900-page book that is as weird as it is compelling, and featuring a climactic scene in which a horde of tiny people emerge from the mouth of a sleeping girl and cause a German Shepherd to explode. (Laughter) Not exactly Jackie Collins. Fourteen weeks on the Best Seller list, eight printings, and still going strong.
Så selvom vi elsker udgivelse som kunst, ved vi rigtig meget, det også er en forretning, og hvis vi gør vores arbejde rigtigt og er lidt heldige, kan god kunst være god forretning.
So even though we love publishing as an art, we very much know it's a business too, and that if we do our jobs right and get a little lucky, that great art can be great business.
Så det er min historie. Fortsættelse følger. Hvad ligner det? Ja. Det kan, gør og vil, men for denne bogdesigner, side-vender, æseløre-pladsholder, noter i margen-tager, blæk-snuser, ser historien sådan her ud.
So that's my story. To be continued. What does it look like? Yes. It can, it does and it will, but for this book designer, page-turner, dog-eared place-holder, notes in the margins-taker, ink-sniffer, the story looks like this.
Tak.
Thank you.
(Bifald)
(Applause)