Matching form to function

[larryhammer]

   It's not like designers at Penguin Classics are lacking
          the knowledge
Of how to handle hexameters. Why then their failure
          to use it
In Raeburn's recent translation of Metamorphoses?
On an average page, there's barely three verses that's
          typeset within
A single line, with all others continued with vast
          indent—
And most roving over a single word. The pages are
          ugly,
Everything awkward to read. The font size is generous,
          though,
So why not reduce it a point and gather more verses
          together?
   Nor does it help that the poem is written in thumping
          sub-Longfellow,
With all of the beats but now with just one third the
          sonority—
Dietetically versed. Avoid this volume. Feh, and more
          feh.

---L.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

LOL!!

this is too funny.

at least they give you margins, sounds like. I picked up a paperback--not poetry, admittedly--that went to within less than a quarter of an inch of the paper, and down into the gutter in the center. Why? Why???

but yeah, unnecessarily ugly, that Penguin.

[larryhammer]

The outer margin is fairly generous as well, but that's the norm for works with line numbers. (If you haven't already, you can see this when you Look Inside at the link.)

---L.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I just looked, and giggled when I saw the one
word
down on the next line, just as you indicated in your little
review.

It's like a badly formatted e-mail or something. But great cover art. And wide margins.

[larryhammer]

Penguin knows how to package attractively. And, usually, how to design the interior well. So why did they let us down here? Why?

---L.

[kateelliott.livejournal.com]

feh, indeed.

and heh.

We don't got to show you no steenkin' type design

[wdonohue.livejournal.com]

This is what you get for taking the lowest bid on the typesetting. Or the book designers drank their lunch that day. Maybe both. Robert Bringhurst is weeping.

-- Brian out --

Re: We don't got to show you no steenkin' type design

[larryhammer]

What gets me is that someone in-house had to approve the design -- with its way higher than you'd expect page count. They're paying more per book than they need to, because of this.

---L.