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Snowflake Bentley border
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From: paula brandt <paula-brandt>
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:56:12 -0600
I am reminded of two other books published in 1998 with double texts--Burleigh's HOME RUN and BRIDGES ARE TO CROSS by Sturges. Both of these books present additional information on the same page as the story line. In HOME RUN, that secondary text (my own term--I don't know what the official terminolgy is) is presented in baseball cards placed below the story text. In BRIDGES ARE TO CROSS the secondary text is set in a smaller type and is located below the boxed story text. In both of these books, the layout of the spreads is identical from page to page. The predictability of the layout helps the reader easily discern which text is whch. SNOWFLAKE BENTLEY, on the other hand, does not have a predictable layout-?ch spread is different. Some pages do not have the secondary text, sometimes it appears once, sometimes twice. How, then, to solve this design problem of drawing attention--but not too much attention--to that text, and how to make it clear that it is secondary to the story and not get the two texts confused? Put the text in a box with a sky blue background? That would work, but it would be awfully plain and the
"weight" of the spreads would be unbalanced in many cases. Why not add snowflake ornaments to that border, in the same bright white as the pages? That way, whenever one sees that border--as Leda pointed out--it is perfectly clear that this is the secondary text (plus its smaller type size). This gives the book a certain amount of predictability without being distracting. It's simply a decorative border for the secondary text. The focus of this book is the extraordinary life of Wilson Bentley, not snowflakes. The point is not to see how many hundreds of woodcuts of snowflakes the artist can make, nor is it to refocus children's attention from Bentley to having them spend hours studying the snowflake illustrations to see if they can catch the illustrator in a goof! The design decisions that were made for this book were absolutely correct (did you notice the snowflake blind stamps under the dust jacket on the cover?), in my opinion.
Also, if you haven't turned to the very last page of the book, you really must. That is where you'll find a photograph of Bentley and three pictures of his photographs.
Congratulations are due to Jacqueline Briggs Martin for bringing Bentley to our attention and for bringing him to life, and to Mary Azarian for helping us visualize his life and times, and to Houghton Mifflin for publishing a truly unique book.
Paula Brandt, Coordinator Curriculum Laboratory N140 Lindquist Center University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242
31935V18 paula-brandt at uiowa.edu http://www.uiowa.edu/~crl/
Received on Fri 05 Feb 1999 08:56:12 AM CST
Date: Fri, 5 Feb 1999 08:56:12 -0600
I am reminded of two other books published in 1998 with double texts--Burleigh's HOME RUN and BRIDGES ARE TO CROSS by Sturges. Both of these books present additional information on the same page as the story line. In HOME RUN, that secondary text (my own term--I don't know what the official terminolgy is) is presented in baseball cards placed below the story text. In BRIDGES ARE TO CROSS the secondary text is set in a smaller type and is located below the boxed story text. In both of these books, the layout of the spreads is identical from page to page. The predictability of the layout helps the reader easily discern which text is whch. SNOWFLAKE BENTLEY, on the other hand, does not have a predictable layout-?ch spread is different. Some pages do not have the secondary text, sometimes it appears once, sometimes twice. How, then, to solve this design problem of drawing attention--but not too much attention--to that text, and how to make it clear that it is secondary to the story and not get the two texts confused? Put the text in a box with a sky blue background? That would work, but it would be awfully plain and the
"weight" of the spreads would be unbalanced in many cases. Why not add snowflake ornaments to that border, in the same bright white as the pages? That way, whenever one sees that border--as Leda pointed out--it is perfectly clear that this is the secondary text (plus its smaller type size). This gives the book a certain amount of predictability without being distracting. It's simply a decorative border for the secondary text. The focus of this book is the extraordinary life of Wilson Bentley, not snowflakes. The point is not to see how many hundreds of woodcuts of snowflakes the artist can make, nor is it to refocus children's attention from Bentley to having them spend hours studying the snowflake illustrations to see if they can catch the illustrator in a goof! The design decisions that were made for this book were absolutely correct (did you notice the snowflake blind stamps under the dust jacket on the cover?), in my opinion.
Also, if you haven't turned to the very last page of the book, you really must. That is where you'll find a photograph of Bentley and three pictures of his photographs.
Congratulations are due to Jacqueline Briggs Martin for bringing Bentley to our attention and for bringing him to life, and to Mary Azarian for helping us visualize his life and times, and to Houghton Mifflin for publishing a truly unique book.
Paula Brandt, Coordinator Curriculum Laboratory N140 Lindquist Center University of Iowa Iowa City, IA 52242
31935V18 paula-brandt at uiowa.edu http://www.uiowa.edu/~crl/
Received on Fri 05 Feb 1999 08:56:12 AM CST
