Catalogs / Erin O'Quinn

Regarding Beauty is an exhibition catalog devoted to the dialog regarding the changing nature of beauty over the past four decades of the twentieth century, from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The title, typeface, and white background are what drew me to it. It just stood out a little from the rest. The book is an inch thick, about 9x12 inches, and pretty heavyweight, due to the paper they used. The cover features a minimalistic picture of flowers, with an italic, oldstyle, serif typeface. The type is in all caps, with a line directly above and directly below the words, and has the last word of the title in a larger point size, a theme that is seen throughout the book. I thought the overall design was nice, and they used a serifed, effeminate (and a even a little fancy,) typeface throughout, which emphasized the subject matter. I particularly enjoy the table of contents, because it is unconventional and abstract, yet balanced. I also liked how they pulled the titles into the pictures of the opposite page, so that they could keep the same theme and also draw the eye into the picture as well.

 

My next catalog is called is a book on William Kentridge, called WK5, and is from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. The book is an inch thick, probably about 10x10 inches. In this book, the texture of the cover is a primary feature, where they used a woven fabric type of feel. The title of the book starts on the back cover with a big, black, bold san-serif W, and continues onto the front of the cover with the rest, K, and the 5 as a superscript. I'm not sure why they chose to separate the W from the K5, but the style of using the type on a gray textured background is reminiscent of the artist's work, who worked in black and white, with mediums like charcoal on paper. Again, in this book I enjoyed the table of contents, which featured bold text, capital letters and a sans-serif typeface clustered together at the bottom of the pages. At the beginnings of the chapters, the designer chose to incorporate text with image, similar to the catalog Regarding Beauty, a recurring feature that I like. 

What I can take away from this is the minimal design, unconventional contents page, and incorporating type with image. I also thought the textured cover was a nice choice, and such little touches can really show off the book without going overboard.