Martin Pecina—Fine Book Design, Designing books and Magazines
F. Petrák, R. Malý: Kamarádi z abecedy
Friends from the Alphabet were created by Fratišek Petrák in 1991 and published by Archa as a picture book for the youngest children. More than twenty years later, the book is published again with a different approach. Each letter is supplemented by short poem by Radek Malý and also with an interactive opposite page. Each page spread offers much space for creative activities. Therefore, children are encouraged to color or modify letters, to find a way out of the maze or print clowns’ noses ... Imagination has no limits and is purely up to the children and their parents or teachers, how freely the will use our workbook. Since the book offers inspiration, but doesn’t make any limits.
Sto nejlepších českých básní 2012
Another “Best Czech Poems”. Just the typography and funky gold frames, which define individual thematic sections.
Martin Pecina: Knihy a typografie; 2011, 2012
This work is a contribution to the practically nonexistent genre. It deals with the process of designing books from the designer's point of view, and provides essays on writing, reading, bibliophila, books and bookshelves. However, it also works as a practical guide useful when designing novels and fiction, poetry books and scholarly publications as well. It contains chapters on the factors that usually remain hidden to the reader (if done professionally). The work focuses on readibility, choosing materials and even minor typographical details, significantly affecting the undestanding of the typeset text. Published in 2011, 312 pages, See more photos and buy Czech edition.
Jan Balabán: Dílo I—III
After like two years and a half, we finally released the complete works of Jan Balabán in four volumes. If you’ve got all of them, you can also assemble them into a nice visual story.
Milan Děžinský: Tajný život
One of the many typographical findings kept at my home: letters from communist boards. The title (“A Secret Life”) matched them perfectly. It’s like a secret enclosed in a cardboard box, letters, numbers, life and time.
Pavel Hnilička: Sídelní kaše
Originally, this was supposed to be the whole serie of pocket books on architecture. In the end, a single title comes. Sídelní kaše appeared already in 2005, but this second edition has dramatically different layout based on “axonometric” illustration. And also the signal color, which gives a better rhythm and structure to the book.
Radek Malý: Světloplaší
Radek Malý’s poems are light shy. Each light source shifts them to the very edge of a page.
Jeffrey Eugenides: Hra o manželství
“Impossible triangle” is the classical optical illusion. But have you ever tried to make it of paper? That's even more fun, requiring some combinatorics. The result is a bit strange love triangle accompanied with deformed typography.
Jakuba Katalpa: Němci
Soft and plump german Gummibären contrast with puristic display typeface. Together, they form a link to one of the major themes of the novel, German sweets shipping to Czech address.
A. V. Frič, R. F. Frič: Indiánská knížka
Czech traveler A. V. Frič meets his seventy years grandson, old Paraguayan Indian Rodolfo. And explanatory notes by Yvonna Fričová complement their voices. Two Czech typefaces, two colors and a pile of illustrations inspired by the original Čamakoko tribe drawings together with linen binding and gold embossing are resulting in the book which seeks only for superior graphic design.
Erlend Erichsen: Národní satanista
Erlend’s black metal novel truly deserved some satanic symbols. So I covered the fore-edge with some pentagrams and sixes, just to have fun a bit. Photo on the cover shows one of the gargoyles on the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. It has some fundamental attributes of any metal band frontman—guitar, long hair and a protruding tongue, springing a waterfalls of words. Typeface used: Jannon by František Štorm, the biggest Czech satanist ever. The most fun we enjoyed at the gig connected with the publishing of the book: Seeing the publisher with a “Christian spiritual basis” attending a black metal concert was funny itself. But when it was said that Christianity should be destroyed, it became hilarious!
Kateřina Tučková: Žítkovské bohyně; 2012 →
This book is all about the “goddesses” from Žítková, a small village in Moravia. It is said these women were able to heal people and predict the future, but they were also persecuted by the communist regime. The cover contains a manipulated painting by Antonín Mánes combined with the silver embossing and a beautiful paper. Thans to the matching typefaces form an extensive type family Tabac, we were able to design quite a nice, well-arranged book, including many police and official documents.
Tranches de carrés sur tranches de cercles
The title of exhibition held in Paris Saline Royale d’Arc-et-Senans could be translated as slices of squares on slices of circles. This strange name reflects the most importatn subjects: squaring the circle, Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, universe, chaos, utopia and arts. The catalog has two beginnings, each from one side, called dos-à-dos by the French. Pleasant piece of work with a bit complicated typesetting.
Virginie Despentes: Dítě apokalypsy
The title speaks for itself: Apocalypse Bébé or The Apocalypse Baby. Well, I’ve met this particular “baby” in front of one legendary gay club here in Brno, Czech Republic. And from the first moment I knew that all the photos had a huge potential. They did.
Editorial plan Host; jaro
Spring editorial plan 2012 follows the simple design solution made two years ago: It is derrived from the design elements used on upcoming book covers.
Host, literature magazine; May
May issue illustrated by Martin Groch: Albert Camus in Algeria, Mariusz Szczygieł, Bohumil Hrabal, reviews, essays and everything else. Number six will come before the summer, but then we’ll take a rest for a while, I swear. See larger images on Picasa.
Host, literature magazine; April
Fantasía group, poems, theatre, India, typography, illustrations and one signal color. The details slightly change, all paragraph and character styles slowly expand, but the design principles are still the same. See larger images on Picasa.
Host, literature magazine; March
That was quite a success at the end, I hope. Illustrations are nicely complemented with the pictures from the exhibition named Mushrooms (held in Brno). Indeed, the whole editorial office really needed some magic mushrooms, otherwise we would’t make this all in time. See larger images on Picasa.
Host, literature magazine; February
Magazine—unlike the book—is a never ending story. This issue dedicated to Martin Jirous, initially looked miserable. But we somehow handled everything, as we always do. Illustrator Martin Groch remains with us, as well as ligatures and a giant typography. See larger images on Picasa.
Literární časopis Host
Two colors, two type families, two ligatures and two different types of paper. Host magazine changed its design and structure. Now we are trying to join more art and illustration with literature, good typography with great and readable content. Magazine logo containts that old-fashioned ligature “st”, which refers to the history of a printed word. And the same trick with two homemade ligatures “st” and “ct” is repeated in all headlines. A credit for excellent illustrations goes to Martin Groch, Vladimir 518 and Jaromír 99. See larger images on Picasa.
