MWhere I’ll be:M
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Nowhere special.
Send me an invitation!
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Typographical Data in Books (or: A Tale of Long, Long Ago)
Posted in Writing 23 January 2010 10:17 Back in the olden dayes…
(…when I was but a wee lad…)
It was fairly common to see a note in the back of the book that read something like this:
A Dark and Stormy Night at the Morgue was set in 12-point Baskerville Old Face and printed on 80-pound 100% linen rag stock.
So my questions are:
- Whatever happened to that note? Why don’t we see it anymore?
- When was the last time you did see it?
- Is that something you ever went looking for?
- Would you like to see it come back? If someone handed you a magic scepter and said “You’re emperor of the universe! Make stuff happen!” would this be on the list?
It’s not a quiz. You don’t have to answer all of them, and there’s neither a grade nor a prize, but I am curious.
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All she wants is to hide her scarred face. All he wants is to take the perfect portrait. 
Who are you, that you should forget the Lord your maker, who has stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the Earth? 
Doesn't the sun always come up again? 
You cannot be yourself until you know who you are. 
Fear is a powerful enemy. But it’s a powerful ally, too.
Sometimes, life just isn’t like a storybook.
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Levi,
When it’s at the back, this page is usually called a colophon. It was common in books that were produced with a lot of care, or in limited edition or other “special” books but started to disappear when letterpress when out of style. Then credits moved to the copyright page before beginning to disappear altogether. Are people just less interested? Everybody has 100 fonts now? I always enjoyed them, particularly when they would give some background on the font and its designer. Maybe you should bring the colophon back in your own books?
.-= Joel Friedlander´s last blog ..By: 6 Copyright Page Disclaimers to Copy and Paste, and Giving Credit — The Book Designer =-.
I think maybe I will. I think, especially as self-publishing accelerates, that such information would be helpful. It’s funny that i never really thought about doing this until last night, and yet every time I’ve gone hunting through published books for some particular feature or to identify the typeface or whatever, I’ve looked for it.
Apropos of not very much at all, there’s a restaurant next to the local bookstore (Village Books) in a town not far from me called the Colophon Cafe.
I still see that from time to time in books from smaller publishing house. Specifically, I’m talking about little poetry paperbacks. Rarely is it in mass-produced books from big houses.
As to if it’s useful or not – it never really did anything for me aside from make me wonder if the font was copyrighted or something. Since a copyright would make the publishing house have to mention it or something. I doubt that’s the case, but that’s what I always think about when I see that.
I think it used to be quite common, but then, as Mr Friedlander points out, there used to be quite a bit more care put into books, and pride taken in them, also.