Since late 2013 I'm working with Modo Infoshop, the alternative bookshop in Bologna, as editorial designer for their narrative editions.

 

The re-issiue of John Berger's La tenda rossa di Bologna was a desire since day one of our partnership.
The first edition was quite similar in format, but was printed in London more than a decade ago, in Italian language only and in few copies.

 

This re-issiue was quite long, and it took a time span of 8 month during 2015, because we wanted to realize a "classical" book with some illustration but, as bibliophiliac as we are, the obsessive attention to details, and the needs to stay into a budget (to avoid an excessive final book cost), drive us in a long journey.

 

At first we started to define the product we would like to read, how to keep in hands, how it have to be "feeled", the binding...
The owners of the bookshop have focused their attention on a young illustrator artist, Guido Volpi, to enrich the original text.
After some reading of the John Berger's text, we realized some main points of the book, and so guido started drawing.

 

Meanwhile I defined the grid and styles.
Typography was set with the font already used for the other books I realized for them: Zocalo.

The book is an half-cloth hard cover.

It was printed in offset by Tipografia Irnerio on Favini Shiro Echo paper. The cover is 2 color print (black and pantone). The end papers is 1 color print. First signature was 5 color print. 

The book had 88 pages and it is 12,5 x 17,5 cm format.

There was an hard work on illustrations files, to preserve Guido's style on such paper and in such small book format.