Second edition of this inventive early artist’s book for children of all ages by graphic designer and educator Keith Godard—known for exhibition design, wayfinding, and public art—and his first self-published book project. Published by his imprint, Works, in 1975 following a small initial run in 1970. Approximately 8 × 8 inches, printed wrappers, 48 unnumbered pages on variously colored stocks, extensively die-cut throughout. Itself reduces the language of the book to its most elementary components—shape, color, sequence, aperture, and page—then sets them in motion. Circles, triangles, bars, and other geometric forms search for and encounter one another across changing fields of orange, yellow, blue, gray, and cream. Die-cut openings allow forms on succeeding leaves to enter the composition before the page is turned: the physical construction of the book becomes the mechanism of its narrative. At once graphic-design experiment, book object, and playful meditation on identity, with affinities to the experimental books of Bruno Munari.
An exceptional presentation copy from the estate and working library of Massimo and Lella Vignelli, inscribed by Godard on the inside front wrapper, “To Massimo / Keith Godard 77.” Additionally bearing the Vignelli Associates library stamp on the rear wrapper. The association is particularly resonant: a designer-to-designer presentation of a book devoted to the fundamental vocabulary of graphic form, given by Godard to one of the defining practitioners of modernist graphic design. Hinges weakened; binding otherwise sound. Light bumping and rubbing to extremities, with minor soiling to front wrapper.
Second edition of this inventive early artist’s book for children of all ages by graphic designer and educator Keith Godard—known for exhibition design, wayfinding, and public art—and his first self-published book project. Published by his imprint, Works, in 1975 following a small initial run in 1970. Approximately 8 × 8 inches, printed wrappers, 48 unnumbered pages on variously colored stocks, extensively die-cut throughout. Itself reduces the language of the book to its most elementary components—shape, color, sequence, aperture, and page—then sets them in motion. Circles, triangles, bars, and other geometric forms search for and encounter one another across changing fields of orange, yellow, blue, gray, and cream. Die-cut openings allow forms on succeeding leaves to enter the composition before the page is turned: the physical construction of the book becomes the mechanism of its narrative. At once graphic-design experiment, book object, and playful meditation on identity, with affinities to the experimental books of Bruno Munari.
An exceptional presentation copy from the estate and working library of Massimo and Lella Vignelli, inscribed by Godard on the inside front wrapper, “To Massimo / Keith Godard 77.” Additionally bearing the Vignelli Associates library stamp on the rear wrapper. The association is particularly resonant: a designer-to-designer presentation of a book devoted to the fundamental vocabulary of graphic form, given by Godard to one of the defining practitioners of modernist graphic design. Hinges weakened; binding otherwise sound. Light bumping and rubbing to extremities, with minor soiling to front wrapper.
