All Things Considered

The Travelling Barmaid
Posted by Simon Lewin

The image below is a page from 'The Travelling Barmaid', published by New North Press. I had the pleasure of seeing a copy of this when I visited Graham Bignell's London studio earlier in the year...

"I taught Lisa Rahman and fellow students from Chelsea College of Art typography in my studio and she became quite devoted to the intracasies of type setting. She came to me with a proposal to set some stuff in her own time for her degree course and gradually the book came about. Ewelina is a friend of hers who had endless stories of the life of a barmaid. Lisa recorded these and then set about designing a book for her degree show.

Although not too well printed, I could see an interesting artist book in the making. She got a 1st for her degree and the book was entered and shortlisted for the 2008 D&AD Awards. At the end of her course I asked if I could publish it and set about choosing different paper, slightly different layouts, printing the book over a period of 3 months. All the stories are in colour with information about where the type came from and the production details added in black ink. We also discussed and improved the binding which was done in-house."

The edition is 135 copies, hard bound with decorative paper and cloth covers. The book costs £300 - this is a pre-publication price and will rise within the next few months.

Copies of the book are availble from New North Press, Standpoint Studios, 45 Coronet Street, London N1 6HD. E-mail: graham.bignell@talk21.com

Posted by Simon Lewin on April 7th, 2009