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In his recent biography entitled, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor, Brad Goochdescribes how O’Connor (1925-1964) avoided using any word twice on the same page. I avoid repeating words in paragraphs, but entire pages? That sounds like a stretch. It is, and that’s the point. Fresh, inventive expression of similar ideas adds to voice, creates a more forceful narrative, and improves the reading experience. Like jogging new, unexplored miles every morning.
Flannery O’Connor’s works at Amazon
Little, Brown and Company updated its logo for its adult and children’s divisions. The renovation involved abandoning the image of Boston’s Bulfinch Monument and replacing it with a combination of an “L” and “B” suggestive of keys from a vintage typewriter. Little, Brown publishers Michael Pietsch and Megan Tinsley sought an identity that would be shared by both the adult and children’s divisions as they have done previously, and would also function more effectively across multiple media, in advertising, and online.
The revamped logo was designed by Lance Hidy, co-founder and art director at David R. Godine, former art director at the Harvard Business Review and consultant to Adobe Systems and Eastman Kodak. Many will recognize his work in the timeless Ansel Adams “Yosemite and the Range of Light” hardcover.
The design, which features the Silica typeface, emphasizes Little, Brown’s focus upon writers and writing over time. Few people use typewriters any longer, yet the typewriter key design is instantly recognizable, echoes our enduring experience with books, and recognizes our relationship with the keyboard to translate ideas and stories into text on the page or screen.
The LB typewriter keys reflect self knowledge that should build confidence in readers. Writers will appreciate its identification with the craft of writing and editing books. Does this brand identity authentically express Little, Brown and Company’s vision, goals, values, voice and personality? Does it reinforce loyalty to the house that Evelyn Waugh, P.G. Wodehouse, A.J. Cronin, C.S. Forester, J.D. Salinger, Lillian Hellman, William Manchester, Nelson Mandela, and Peter Hamill helped build? This writer and reader believes it will. Time and Little Brown’s author and title selections will decide.
In a recent e-mail to customers, Jesse Douma of the The Writers Store in Los Angeles writes that his father, Dan Douma, co-founder of the The Writers’ Computer Store, has died. This is a loss to the writers’ community everywhere.
In 1982, Dan co-founded The Writers’ Computer Store with Gabriele Meiringer as a resource for writers on Santa Monica Boulevard in West L.A. It became a thriving hub for writers and filmmakers, provided world-wide mail-order services, training and support, a writer-oriented newsletter and special events geared towards creative writers, principally Hollywood screenwriters, but novelists as well. The rest is history. With success they moved the store to Westwood Boulevard and changed the name to The Writers Store. Jesse will soon move The Writers Store again to a new location in Burbank.
By 1982, Dan and Gabriele had witnessed the rapid adoption of the Atari 2600, Commodore 64, IBM 5100, Apple I, Apple II, IBM 5120, TRS-80, the IBM PC, Kaypro II, DEC Rainbow, and saw the personal computer’s potential for transforming the writer’s process. At that time, veteran and aspiring writers throughout Southern California were still using Smith-Coronas and Selectric II’s late into the long writer’s night. The clacking of long-throw keys, the impact of metal type hammering away at paper, and return bells filling the air on summer nights – Muzak of the creative life – were about to be replaced with muted keyboard clicks and the whir of hard-drives.
Just as Dan and Gabriele were getting the shelves stocked in their new Writer’s Computer Store, the era of personal computers dawned for real. Apple, already light years ahead, was soon to introduce the Macintosh. Others followed. The staff and consultants at The Writers Store were always up to speed on the facts, features, and benefits of every hardware and software configuration.
The staff at the Writers Store have long been valued colleagues. When I lived in Los Angeles, I stopped by the store occasionally to see what new books and software were available. Dan, Gabriele, and Jesse have always been helpful. No return to L.A. is complete without checking in.
Notices
Variety 7 June 2010
Los Angeles Times 10 June 2010
