Graphesis by Johanna Drucker

The indomitable Minion is used throughout Johanna Drucker’s Graphesis, published by Harvard University Press. The red/white/black combination that is used on the cover (black and white text on a red field) is used repeatedly throughout: the main text is black with footnotes and captions in red; chapter openings are black text on a red field on the left-hand page; the table of contents is white and red text on a black field.

Graphesis is one of a series of metaLAB publications.

The typographical hierarchy is structured using size, colour, and weight. The red cover uses white for the primary title, Graphesis, and black for the author and sub-title. The text on the cover is centered; a row of plus signs provides a decorative and typographical divider between the author and the title. The borders are decorated with a series of rules on the left, and other typographical and pseudo-typographical elements: a series of circles coloured in black and white in various combinations of octants and quarters, triglyphs, and so on. Necker cubes, Susan Kare’s bomb (from the original Apple Mac), genealogy symbols, Darwin’s finches (engraved by John Gould), Charles Sanders Peirce’s set/graph notation and other designs that i don’t recognise make an appearance on other parts of the covers.

Minion makes a good choice of font family for typesetting the book and the book design makes good use of the family: body text in roman, bold, italic, small caps, captions, footnotes, headers, displays.

The book is beautifully typeset and printed on alkaline paper. I commend its design to everyone.