Last Call! + My rant against cheap books.
Final hours for INFO WE TRUST and a behind-the-scenes look at our production design
To hype my INFO WE TRUST Kickstarter I’ve stepping up this newsletter’s cadence. We will return to our regular rhythm with the start of summer.
Kickstarter is now counting down the final hours for my remastered Info We Trust funding campaign. This email is your last call to join over 300 backers (!) to make this book real.
I appreciate your enthusiasm. Read on for a final look behind-the-scenes of my remaster.
Remastering Materials
Info We Trust Remastered is my director’s cut. I’ve improved every aspect of the book: content (text, marginalia, illustrations), design (layout, color system, typography), and production (materials and construction).
It’s a privilege to correct and enhance the book’s original production quality.
Lorenzo Fanton, designer extraordinaire, advised me to always sell the story, not the vehicle for the story. So, against his advice, I want to tell you about the vehicle for Info We Trust.
Here’s my rant about modern books. I have a library of hundreds of information-graphic books, dating back to 1705. Maybe it’s survival bias, but the poorest-quality books on my shelves are those printed in the past decade.
I don’t mean the quality of content—writing and graphics—is the worst. I mean the production quality of today’s nonfiction books is mostly abysmal. Their paper is slippery, their “perfect” glued bindings fall apart, their inks are out of registration, their bindings are flimsy, their trim sizes are poorly chosen for reading, and their covers are designed to sell on Amazon, not sit on your shelf.
These issues could be forgiven if these books were produced cheaply to make them affordable. But most are relatively expensive given their quality.
In part, I started Visionary Press to avoid being embarrassed by my book’s construction quality. To do it right, I’ve learned you have to go to printers in Europe and endure the hassle of importing pallets of books. It’s worth it.
Our production specs hold all the keys to make a great book:
Ink. Info We Trust features a lot of blue. All blue text and illustrations will be printed with a spot color—a blue ink—not a process combination of overlapping CMYK inks. Printing with an additional ink ensures all blue designs will be beautifully crisp.
Paper. Heavy (100g) rough paper will have the weight and texture that feels good to the touch. Books are objects you touch a lot.
Binding. Sewn signatures and hard-case binding will give this book a chance to survive your ownership.
Cover. The cover will have a subtle bumpy texture, selected after reviewing the most beautiful swatch book I’ve ever held. (It includes paper simulations of numerous reptile skins, among other paper magic.)
Plus, a bonus design flourish for the cover:
Info We Trust is completely hand-illustrated, intentionally human and rough. Yet, its original cover design was a vector illustration. This disconnect between cover and content always troubled me.
I addressed this gap by painting the cover design on a canvas, photographing it at high resolution, and recreating my nighttime tree-cylinder visual metaphor. (If you’re curious about the cover’s meaning, you’ll enjoy reading the book’s preface!)
It’s been a lot of fun introducing Info We Trust to you, via this newsletter and the book’s Kickstarter campaign. I will be working on its production for the entire summer.
Thank you for reserving your copy of Info We Trust. As I finish writing this newsletter, we have only 47 hours to go.
Onward!
—RJ
always love your attention to detail and craft 😊