Poetry Anthologies
Showing front cover and 2 sample pages
the taste of nashi
A poetry anthology
haiku poetry by New Zealanders
A 126-page national anthology of haiku poetry on textured cream paper. Haiku are fastidiously crafted 3-line poems using extreme economy with words that capture a universal "Aha!" moment that works for any reader in any culture. The clients were so pleased with the finished book that they nominated it for a design award. Briar's Books was able to get calligraphers in Japan to create the kanji characters used on the cover. The characters read "Haiku Collection". As Japanese unfamiliar with haiku written by western poets the calligraphers spent an entire week looking for the most appropriate kanji, rejecting "masters of the haiku" for a phrase meaning "a group of haiku poets who are friends."The book was an exercise in balancing shapes against each other in pleasing and different ways on each double-page. I felt like an artist rather than a layout operator getting a book to print. Because we were using paper and card stock a bit outside the usual range special care had to be taken to make sure the cover colours remained true and that it all worked well together.
Take Back our Sky
NZ Poetry Society
A5. 132 pages: Poetry anthology (NZ Poetry Society). The title of the anthology, Take Back Our Sky was based on the theme of one of the prize-winning poems about the eviction of state housing tenants into unwanted "superior" accommodation in an urban environment. So the cover design sought to convey the idea of cityscapes swallowing up wide NZ sky. The layout of a poetry anthology can get tricky. Often poets have a detailed physical shape to their poem that they want retained, e.g., one of them was in the form of a question-mark, so more artistic effort goes into it than into layout of regular text. Author-distributed through established channels.
Waking Echoes
Nola Borrell
A NZ haiku poetry anthology
76 pages of poems and prose poems from the pen of one of NZ's most prolific writers of haiku and haibun poetry, Nola Borrell. Nola wanted this book illustrated with 12 full-page photographs. Fortunately one in my own collection suited the cover nicely and complemented her own in other parts of the book. We chose a lightly textured paper for this book and a satin finish to the cover. The usual detailed attention went into choosing and finely balancing the verses to best visual effect