Hi. (Laughter)
大家好! (笑)
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.
我这样做有两个原因 第一 我想在视觉上给你们 一个良好的第一印象 但其实我这样做的主要原因 是我被强迫戴上 这个Lady Gaga风的古怪麦克风
(Laughter)
(笑)
I'm used to a stationary mic. It's the sensible shoe of public address.
我习惯固定式麦克风 那才是公开场合演讲标配
(Laughter)
(笑)
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.
但是 我头上被卡上这个东西后 怪事发生了 我也变得怪里怪气了 (笑)对不住大家 我都跑题了
(Laughter)
(笑)
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)
女士们 先生们 我花了二十五年的宝贵光阴 致力于设计书本 “对,书。就是把一沓上面有墨水的纸订一起。 你不能用开关关掉它。 记得告诉你孩子。” 其实我干这行也是无心插柳柳成荫 就跟当初发现青霉素似的(笑)
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.
我本来想的是 成为纽约市 一家大型设计公司的美术编辑 当时的情形是 1986年秋天 在经历了大批的面试之后 我唯一接到的聘书就是 阿尔弗雷德•克诺夫出版社的艺术总监助理 那是一家图书出版商 我承认我当时的确挺蠢的 但还没有蠢到让自己失业
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.
我压根不知道 我到底要干啥 不过我真的太走运了 很快 我就知道我的工作是什么了 我的工作就是问这个问题: “这些故事看上去像什么?” 因为这就是克诺夫的风格 它是个故事工厂 世上最好的故事工厂之一 我们把故事带给公众
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.
故事五花八门 有一些是真有其事 但他们有一个共同点: 他们需要看上去像个什么玩意儿 它们需要一副面孔 为什么呢? 就是给你 即将步入的世界一个第一印象 书籍设计师用形式来表达内容 同时 还要非常小心地使两者平衡
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.
犹记得 我在宾州州立大学平面设计培训的第一天 我的老师,Lanny Sommese,走进教室 在黑板上画了一张苹果的图片 在下面写上“苹果” 他说,“第一堂课,听好了啊。” 他把图片盖上,又说 你们要么说这个,”接着他又把字盖上 “要么画这个 不能两者同时出现。” 因为那样的话就是把观众当弱智啊 (笑) 观众可不是弱智
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.
你瞧 很快 我就能把这个理论 试用到我为克诺夫设计的两本书上 第一本是凯瑟琳·赫本的回忆录 第二本是玛琳·黛德丽的传记 赫本的书 是用非常口语化的语言写就的 就像她坐在桌子对面跟你聊天一样 黛德丽的书是一本以她女儿 的视角所观察出的一部传记 赫本的故事是用语言 黛德丽的故事是用图画,所以我们做了这个 你们来看 单纯的内容和单纯的形式,肩并肩 好好相处哟,两位女士
("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)
“什么是侏罗纪公园?” 是一个什么样的故事呢? 有人 从史前时代的琥珀里 提取了恐龙的DNA 把恐龙复活了。 小伙儿你行! (笑)
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.
有一点幸运的是 我在纽约市居住和工作 那儿的恐龙可是相当多啊 (笑) 然后 我去了自然历史博物馆 在那好好看了看恐龙骨架,然后我又去了礼品店 在那买了一本书 我特别喜欢书中的这一页 更具体点就是右下角那张图
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.
我选了这个图 我把它放到复印机里 (笑) 我又取了一张描图纸 我用一片透明胶带 把它贴到复印机上——如果我讲得太快了请告诉我—— (笑) 我又拿出一支绘图笔—— 告诉那边的小伙子那是啥—— (笑) 然后我就开始重建恐龙了
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)
我其实不知道自己在做什么 也不知道会整出个啥玩意儿 但做了一会儿之后,我觉得我得停了—— 再做下去看来有点太过火 最终我们看到的 图形中的动物是这个样子 这还没完 我又稍作了一点后期加工 简单弄了一下 顺便影射了一下咱们公园的标识有多简陋 (笑)
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.
出版社里人都挺喜欢它的 于是它就被送到作者那里去了 即使在当时 迈克尔说话也挺潮的 迈克尔·克莱顿在传真里回复到: “擦!这书封他妈的太帅了” (笑)(掌声) 看见这张传真从机器里出来的时候我才真正安心了 (笑) 我真想迈克尔
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)
果然 环球影业有人 打电话到我们法律部 问是否能买到这张图的版权 以备将来之用 好吧,他们最后真的用了 (笑)(掌声)
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)
我当时很激动 我们都知道那是一部很棒的电影 而且看到这成了一种文化 成了一种现象 还有各种衍生品 还真挺有意思的 但就在不久前 我在网上无意看见这个图 那可不是我噢 但 不管是谁 我禁不住会想 他们要是有天醒过来叫 “天哪,昨晚这可还啥也没的呀。啊啊啊啊啊! 我算是完蛋了。” (笑)
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."
想想 这个图画经由我的脑袋 到我的手最后到了他腿上 (笑) 这还真是种责任 不过这是种我不能轻易担当的责任 图书设计师有三重责任 对读者 对出版商 最重要的是对作者 我希望你看到该作者的书 会说,“哇!我得看看这本书。”
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)
大卫·塞达斯是我最喜欢的作家之一 这本合集的文章标题 是关于他的裸体主义殖民地之旅的 他去的原因是 他害怕自己身体的样子 他想探究一下原因所在 但这本书对我的意义是 我终于有机会 设计一本能脱裤子的书了 但即使你真这样做了 你也不见得就能看见你想看的 你得到的东西要深刻得多 大卫特别喜爱这个设计 因为在他做的很多书籍签名会上 他会拿支神奇的马克笔然后画个这玩意儿 (笑) 喂! (笑)
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."
奥古斯丁·巴勒斯写过一本传记 叫做《干燥》 记述了他在康复的事经历 他20几岁时 就成为一位相当成功的广告公司主管了 不过像《广告狂人》里一样,他是个疯狂的酒鬼 他本人并不以为然 不过他的同事都劝他说 “你要去康复中心,不然,你会被炒鱿鱼,你会死掉的。”
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.
对我来说 有一种排版法一直都靠谱 我称之为101型的对立面 这是什么意思呢? 通常在上印刷术简介课的第一天 你的作业是选一个字 然后把这个字写得像它所表达的意思 非常简单 我这个方法其实就是反着来 我想让这本书看上去像在撒谎 绝望无助地撒谎,就跟酒鬼一样的
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.
我用了你所能想象到的最没技术含量的方法 我设置了字型 然后用爱普生的 水溶性墨水打印出来 贴到墙上 再把一桶水浇上去 瞬间变样! 接着我们拿到出版社 打印机在墨水上加了点光泽 看上去真像在往下流
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.
出版没多久,奥古斯丁埋伏在一个机场 他藏在一个书店里 偷看谁在买他的书 有一位老太太走过来 她瞅了一眼 就把书拿到收款处 对店员说,“这本书印坏了。” (笑) 店员站在柜台后说,“我知道,女士。它们来的时候就成这样了。” (笑) 印刷厂的伙计们干的还真不赖嘛
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.
一本书的封面 是书的精华 也可以说 是这个故事的俳句总结 手塚治虫 在他写的 菩萨史诗中有一个很特殊的故事 这书总共有8卷。最棒的是 当它上了你的书架 你就得到了 一排菩萨,而且还是不同年龄段的 所有这些方案 是从书的内容发掘出来的 而一旦图书设计师读到了内容 他就变成了一位诠释者 和翻译者
This story was a real puzzle. This is what it's about. ("Intrigue and murder among 16th century Ottoman court painters.")
这个故事才是个真正的谜 就是这么回事 “十六世纪奥斯曼法庭画家的阴谋和谋杀。”
(Laughter)
(笑)
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.
那好 我就收集了一些画 我看着它们 解构它们 又把它们组合起来 所以 这就成了设计 对吧 这是封面和书脊 是平的 但当你用它包上书 放到书架上 故事就开始了
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)
啊!我们看到了 秘密情人 让我们再拉出来看看吧 噢!他们被苏丹发现了 他不会开心的 嗬!现在苏丹身处危险 现在我们需要打开来 看看下面会发生什么事 你能用Kindle这么玩么? (笑)
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.
别提了 说了我就来气 说真的 电子书籍提供了很多 轻松,方便,便携 但是有个东西一定不在了:传统 一种感官体验,那种物质特有的安慰—— 和一点点的人性
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)
你知道约翰·厄普代克 从阿尔弗雷德•克诺夫出版社拿到新书后 做的第一件事是什么吗? 他会闻闻它 接着他会用手摸遍书页 刺鼻的油墨 纸的裁边 从始至终 一本不拉 他从未厌倦过 当然我也觉得IPAD很好 但不骗你 闻它你可是啥都闻不到的 (笑) 这会儿苹果员工正在给工程师发短信呢 “赶紧开发气味分泌插件。” (笑)
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.
最后我要讲的是一个很有意思的故事 1984年 在日本有一个叫青豆的女人 发现自己正沿着立交桥 盘旋下行 当她到达底部时 她突然不禁觉得 她走进了一个新的世界 这和她离开的那个略有不同 像 但不一样 其实我们在说的是世界的平行层的存在 就像一本书和它的封面一样
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.
那我们如何来表示呢? 我们再回到赫本和黛德丽,但这次把她们合并 我们在讲不同的层面,那就用不同的纸层 这是一片半透明的膜 它是形式和内容的一部分 当它在纸的上面时 即反过来放 就成这样了 所以 即使你一点也不了解这本书 你也会不由自主地觉得这是一个人 跨越了两个层面的存在 这个书实物本身就引起了探索 互动 思考 和接触
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.
这本书一登场就居 《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜第二 这对于出版社和作者 都是前所未闻的 我们在讲是一本900页的书 它不仅好看而且很怪异 它的高潮片段居然是 一群小人 从一名熟睡了的女孩嘴里出来 然后把一条德国牧羊犬弄炸了! (笑) 不完全是杰基·柯林斯的风格嘛 十四周位居畅销书排行榜 印了8次 仍然势头不减
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.
即使我们像爱艺术一样爱出版 我们也很清楚 这毕竟也是生意 如果我们做得对 运气又不差的话 那伟大的艺术也能成伟大的生意
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.
这就是我的故事 未完待续 这故事到底看起来怎么样? 我知道 这种场景不仅可能 而且正在并且还会继续发生 不过对我这个书籍设计师 读者 旧书的收集者 在书上作批注的人 以及闻墨香的人来说 在我眼中这个故事是这样的
Thank you.
谢谢大家。
(Applause)
(掌声)