Experimental Book Production Research

Pentagram is one of the worlds leading graphic design agencies and their website shows an archive of books they’ve produced over the years.

Nick Cave: ‘The Sick Bag Song’

“Pentagram has designed Nick Cave’s latest book, The Sick Bag Song. Written during Cave’s 22-city tour of North America, the book reproduces in full colour 22 sick bags filled with Cave’s scribbles about his encounters. Sitting somewhere between the styles of The Wasteland and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the book provides an intimate insight into Cave’s imaginative universe.”

Taking on the visual identity of an airline, this book chronologically orders each sick bag, from the start of his tour to the end of it. The book comes in a blue book box which is embossed with white lettering. The production and design of this book is so successful because it is simple yet communicates the idea well. The box which encloses the book gives the book a feel of quality almost as if it needs to be protected, and the visual style of an airline works perfectly to communicate the theme and concept of the book. 

The ‘Manifesto’ Series

“The “Manifesto Series” of discussions presented by the Storefront of Art and Architecture in New York invites artists, architects, critics and historians to participate in a spirited exchange of ideas about architecture. Established in 2010, the ongoing series is one of Storefront's signature programs and reinvents the manifesto form as a way to develop and encourage new thinking in short, concise events with a polemical context.”

“Pentagram has designed a new series of books based on the talks. Issued by Storefront in partnership with Lars Müller Publishers, the first two titles in the series are 01: Formless and 02: Double, with more to follow. The design for the series captures the immediacy and inventiveness of the talks with a dynamic format that rethinks the structure of the book as an object.”

The production and design of this set of publications is very interesting and experimental. Each small tactile paperback book is meant to be informal and immediate. The books are bound with one large saddle stitch and the edges are untrimmed, adding to the informality. The arrangement of the type alternates between being landscape, portrait and even upside down, contributing to the immediacy of the publications. This variation in orientation communicated the idea of architecture well as does the stab stitch binding which is so prominent it looks almost structural.