Hi. (Laughter)
哈囉。 (笑聲)
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.
我這麼做有兩個原因。 第一,我要給你們一個 好的第一視覺印象。 但主要原因是 這是當我被迫戴上女神卡卡怪異的麥克風時 就會做出來的事。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
I'm used to a stationary mic. It's the sensible shoe of public address.
我習慣用定點式麥克風。 那是公共演說的合理配備。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
但你把這東西夾在我頭上,有些事就發生了。 我變得很怪。 (笑聲)所以我很抱歉。 而且我已經偏離主題了。
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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)
先生女士們, 我奉獻我生命中過去的25年 用來設計書。 「對,書本。你知道,油墨印刷在紙張上集結成冊的東西, 你不能按開關把它關起來。 告訴你的孩子們。」 這一切的開始其實有點像是個良性的錯誤, 像盤尼西林。(笑聲)
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.
當時我其實想要 成為一位平面設計師, 在紐約其中一家最大的設計公司工作。 但當我到了那裡, 那是1986年的秋天,我參加了很多面試, 而我唯一入取的職位是 克諾普夫出版社(Alfred A. Knopf)藝術總監 的助理。 我當時很笨, 但沒有笨到拒絕接受這個職位。
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.
我完全不知道 我將要參與其中的是什麼, 所以我是極為幸運。 很快地,我知道我的工作是什麼。 我的工作是問這個問題: 「這些故事看起來是怎麼樣子?」 因為這就是克諾普夫出版社的存在價值。 它是個全世界最好的故事工廠之一。 我們把故事帶給大眾。
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.
故事可以是任何東西, 當中有些甚至是真實的。 但它們都有個共同點。 它們都長的像某個東西。 它們都需要一張臉。 為什麼?為了給你一個 你將得到的資訊的第一印象。 封面設計者賦予內容形體, 同時, 小心地在兩者間取得平衡。
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.
當我第一天 在賓州州立大學上圖面設計課程時, 我的教授,Lanny Sommese,走進教室, 在黑板上畫了一顆蘋果, 接著在下面寫上「蘋果」字樣, 然後他說,「好,第一課,聽好。」 他把蘋果圖案遮起來,他說: 「你要不就這樣表現,」然後他把字遮起來, 「不然就是這樣表現。 但你不能這麼做。」 因為這像是在說你的觀眾是傻瓜。 (笑聲) 而你的觀眾值得更好的。
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.
於是你瞧,很快地, 我可以將這個理論 用來測試我在克諾普夫出版社作的兩本書。 第一本是Katharine Hepburn的回憶錄, 第二本是Marlene Dietrich的傳記。 Hepburn這本書 是用會話體寫成, 就像是她坐在桌子另一邊告訴你全部的事。 Dietrich這本書 則是她女兒的觀察;是本傳記。 所以Hepburn的故事是字, Dietrich的故事是圖片,於是我們這麼做。 你可以看到。 純萃的內容和形體,兩個擺在一起。 女士們,不要吵架。
("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)
「侏儸紀公園是什麼?」 現在來看這個故事是什麼? 有人 藉由提取 史前時代琥珀中恐龍的DNA, 重新設計製造恐龍。 真是天才! (笑聲)
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.
幸運的是, 我住在紐約,也在這裡工作, 這裡有很多恐龍。 (笑聲) 於是, 我去了自然歷史博物館, 看了些骨頭,然後去禮品店, 買了一本書。 書中這一頁特別引起我的注意力, 尤其是右下角這部分。
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.
於是我取這個圖表, 將它放在一台直接複印機上, (笑聲) 然後我拿了一張描圖紙, 用3M思高膠帶 將它貼在複印紙上-- 阻止我如果我說太快 -- (笑聲) 接著我拿一支工程針筆(Rapidograph) -- 跟年輕人解釋一下這是什麼 -- (笑聲) 於是我開始重新架構這隻恐龍。
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)
我不知道我在做什麼, 我不知道我的方向, 但在某個時間點,我停下來 -- 這時候再繼續似乎就會過頭了。 於是我用這個我們看來是 動物活過來的圖像設計做為定案。 我們正在設計過程的一半。 接著我做了一些排版。 非常基本的東西, 有點令人聯想到公共停車場招牌。 (笑聲)
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.
公司內每個人都很喜歡, 於是我們把它提交給作者。 即使在當時, Michael是非常前衛的。 「Michael Crichton用傳真回覆:」 「哇賽!真他媽的好的封面。」 (笑聲)(掌聲) 看到這張傳真從機器跑出來時真令人鬆了一口氣。 (笑聲) 我想念Michael。
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)
想當然,環球影業 打電話給我們的法律部門, 詢問他們是否能購買此圖像的版權, 以供他們之後使用。 嗯,他們的確用了。 (笑聲)(掌聲)
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)
我當時真的非常興奮。 我們都知道這是一部驚人的電影, 能看到它步入文化中,成為一個現象, 而且看到它轉換變成各種不同的形體, 真的非常有趣。 但不久之前, 我在網路上到看這個。 不,這不是我。 但無論這是誰, 我忍不住想像有一天他們醒來時發現, 「我的天阿,昨天晚上還沒有這東西阿。噢! 我醉得一蹋糊塗。」 (笑聲)
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."
但如果你想想,從我的腦袋 到我的手,再到他的腳。 (笑聲) 這是有責任的。 而且我不輕看這個責任。 書本封面設計者的責任是三重的: 對讀者,對出版社,還有最重要的,對作者。 我要你看到一個作者的書, 然後說:「哇!我一定要讀這個。」
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)
David Sedaris是我最喜歡的作者之一, 而這本散文集的主要隨筆 是有關他去一個裸體主義的聚居地旅行。 他去的原因是因為 他害怕他自己的身體影像, 而他想要探索隱藏其中的原因。 對我而言,這只是一個可以名正言順 設計脫下內褲的封面的理由。 但當你這麼做時, 你達到的不同於預期。 你挖掘到更深層的東西。 David常常要簽書, 他特別喜歡這個設計,因為當他簽書時, 他可以用魔術筆畫這個。 (笑聲) 哈囉! (笑聲)
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."
Augusten Burroughs寫了一本回憶錄, 書名為「乾」("DRY"),有關他戒酒的日子。 當他二十幾歲時,他是個很有能力的廣告公司經理, 就如同影集廣告狂人(Mad Men)中告訴我們的,他是一個憤怒的酗酒狂。 然而,他自己不這麼認為, 但他的同事開了一個協調會,他們說, 「你要不就戒酒,不然你會被開除而且你會死。」
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.
到了我手上時,我用文字編排來設計這個封面, 我稱這個為文字編排學第一門課的相反。 這是什麼意思? 通常上第一堂文字編排學的課時, 你有一個作業,選一個字, 讓它看起來像它要表達的意思。所以這是文字編排學的第一堂課,對吧? 非常簡單的東西。 而這就是它的相反。 我要這本書看起來像是在對你撒謊, 歇斯底里且絕望地,像個酒精中毒者會做的事。
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.
於是我用了你可以想像到最低階的設計方法。 我設定好字體,用愛普生印表機 的水溶性墨水將它印出來,把它貼在牆上, 然後取一桶水往上灑。立即成效! 接著我們進行印刷, 印刷業者在油墨部分局部上光, 所以看起來真的很像在流動。
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.
在這本書上市後不久,Augusten埋伏在機場裡, 他躲在書店中 暗中監看買他書的人。 一位女士走到書前, 瞇著眼看著書,然後把它拿到結帳台, 她告訴站在櫃台後的男士:「這本書毀了。」 (笑聲) 然後在櫃台後的那傢伙說:「我知道,女士。全部的書送來時都這樣。」 (笑聲) 這印刷做的可真是好阿。
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.
一個書本封面 是精華。 如果你認同的話, 它就是故事的三行俳句詩。 Osama Tezuka 寫的這個故事 是佛陀的傳奇一生。 總共有八冊。但最棒的事是 當你把它放到書櫃,佛陀的生命展現在書架上, 從一個年紀轉變到下一個年紀。 全部這些封面設計想法 都源自書的內容, 但是一旦封面設計者讀過內文, 他必須身兼解說者 和翻譯者。
This story was a real puzzle. This is what it's about. ("Intrigue and murder among 16th century Ottoman court painters.")
這個故事是個真正的謎題。 故事的內容是: 「16世紀土耳其宮廷畫家間的陰謀和謀殺。」
(Laughter)
(笑聲)
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.
於是我找了這些畫作的合輯, 我看著它們,解構它們, 再把它們集合在一起。 所以,這就是設計,對吧? 這是封面和書脊攤平的樣子。 但當你把它包到書上放到書櫃時,真正的故事才開始。
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)
噢!遇到他們了, 暗通款曲的戀人們。把他們抓出來。 喝!他們被蘇丹王發現了。 他可不會開心。 喝!現在蘇丹王很生氣。 現在,我們必須把書本打開, 才能知道接下來發生的事情。 試著用Kindle(亞馬遜書店電子閱讀器)體驗看看。 (笑聲)
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.
別讓我打開話匣子。 嚴格說來。 電子書有很多好處: 簡單,方便,好攜帶。 但當中有些東西絕對被遺失了:傳統, 感官體驗,物質存在的安心感 -- 一點點的人性。
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)
你知道當由克諾普夫出版社發行John Updike的新書時, 作者拿到書的時候, 首先會做的事是什麼嗎? 他會聞它。 然後他用手滑過紙張, 碰觸刺激的油墨,和書頁帶有毛邊的邊緣。 這麼多年,這麼多書,他從不厭倦。 我支持iPad, 但相信我 -- 再怎麼聞它,你也聞不出東西來。 (笑聲) 現在蘋果電腦的員工正在打簡訊, 「研發內建氣味發射器。」 (笑聲)
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.
接著我要說的最後一個故事可不簡單。 在日本, 1984年時,一個名叫Anomame的女人 正要穿過一個下高架公路的 螺旋狀樓梯。當她走到底部時, 她不由得感覺到,突然間, 她進入一個新的現實環境中, 這跟她剛離開那個只有一點點不一樣, 但是非常類似,卻又不同。 於是,我們講到存在的平行平面, 有點像是書套和它覆蓋的書。
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.
所以要怎麼展現這個? 我們回歸到Hepburn和Dietrich封面設計想法,但現在我們將它們合併。 我們現在在說的是不同的平面,不同的紙張。 外面是一張半透明牛皮紙。 這是形體和內容的一部分。 把它覆蓋到印刷相反的書本紙板外面時, 它變成這個樣子。 因此即使你對這本書一無所知, 你被迫會認為 一個人兩腳分別踏在兩個存在的平面裡。 而這個設計本身就是要引起探索, 互動,關心 和觸碰。
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.
這本書一上市就登上 紐約時報暢銷書排行榜第二名。 這對身為出版社的我們和這位作者而言, 都是第一次的體驗。 我們在說的事一本900頁的書, 內容既奇特又令人信服, 還包含了一個高潮情節, 有一群小人 從一個睡著的女孩口中冒出來, 還造成一隻德國牧羊犬爆炸。 (笑聲) 這和Jackie Collins(英國暢銷女作家)的類型不太一樣。 這本書在暢銷榜上停留14週, 已經印刷八次,銷售量依然強勁。
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.
即使我們將出版業當作藝術般喜愛, 我們也十分了解這是樁生意。 如果我們做好工作,幸運的話, 好的藝術也可以成為很棒的生意。
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.
所以這就是我的故事,未完待續。 它看起來像什麼? 是的,它可以是,它的確是,它將會是。 但對這本書的封面設計者, 這是引人入勝的, 會折頁做記號的, 可以做很多筆記的, 可以聞油墨的, 這故事長的就像這樣。
Thank you.
謝謝。
(Applause)
(掌聲)