Glass
Emily Cooper’s beautiful poetry sparked a Regency-era architectural dive into deep [Yves Klein] Blue waters
A deep dive
Our design process for Emily Cooper’s wonderful first collection of poetry inspired a rich foray into Regency-era design, along the way exploring the patterns of cornices, the practice of steel plate engraving and the theme of dilapidated grandeur—what could be a more thrilling excavation?
We talked quite early in the process about creating a feeling of transparency within the cover—a notion of looking through the book—so the measured but ornate forms of the emblematic Georgian window always felt fitting: a linear and architectural aproach that sat timelessly with the themes of renovation and the cyclical nature of design.
When I showed Emily the initial palette, she immediately mentioned Yves Klein Blue, and it was these deep, rich, vivacious blues that felt so prevalent throughout the work—the blueprints of both restored and dilapidated grandeur, the ubiquity of the sea and even the concept of glass and what colour it ‘feels’.
Patrick turned a simple short collection of poems into a beautiful object that is as pleasurable to hold in your hands as it was to make. A wonderfully positive experience.
Into the groove
Following the thread of Regency-era design, I explored a vast gamut of architectural forms, architraving, cornices, wallpaper and typography. With the latter, I was very keen to use a chronologically relevant typeface that had stood the test of time for the body text of the book, and despite my innate ambition to find something unique and less omnipresent, good old Baskerville persevered throughout every round of my typographic tournament!
For the book’s title text—for which we eventually chose Masqualero Groove—I’d been keen to explore typefaces that had the decorative boldness of ‘grooved’ lettering, a style which took-off distinctly towards the end of the Regency period after being made possible via a new method called steel plate engraving. Beyond this period link, it was the title’s context within the window frame motif that really attracted me to this idea, both mirroring the linear grooves of the woodwork itself and evoking etched letters upon the glass, like the window of an ancient pub in some narrow, winding alley.
I worked with Frontwards Design for my first ever publication, Glass, with Makina Books. The attention Patrick paid to my poems, and the design features he conceived to be in conversation with them, meant this was a wonderfully positive experience. From the carefully selected typeface, to the Georgian inspired wallpaper on the inside cover, to the formatting choices of the pages themselves, Patrick turned a simple short collection of poems into a beautiful object that is as pleasurable to hold in your hands as it was to make.