From ink to pixel to ink

I love books. I love reading books but I also love books as objects. And if you’re a designer—or passionate about design—chances are, you also love books. There’s something about the book, as an object, that managed to survive across all the various societal and technological changes.

In the 2010s, during the peak iPad era, people thought paper books were doomed. What’s the point of printing something when you can get hundreds, or even thousands of books inside a single device? And I’ll be honest with you, I went through that phase myself. For years I was only reading on an iPad. And it was great. Until it wasn’t.

There’s something about a printed book that technology can’t replace. I can’t tell you exactly why but I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. Reading a book, handling a book, smelling the ink and the paper, seeing it age over time, those are things that can’t be reproduced in the digital space.

I love books. I love when people pour their hearts and souls into creating great books. And I’m not just talking about the writing. Or the photographing. Or the illustrating. I’m talking about caring about the book itself, as an object.

That’s one of the reasons why I keep buying every book Craig Mod makes. The man knows how to make great books. And you can feel it. You can instantly tell he loved the process as soon as you pick up one of his books.

I never had to make a book myself. I designed a few, back when I was studying graphic design more than a decade ago. But I did experience firsthand what it means to care about creating a great book. That’s because I watched Carl and my brother working together to create the first volume of the Minimalissimo Selection series. The final product is an incredibly simple object but creating simple objects is painfully hard.

Before websites like Minimalissimo were a thing, you had to buy books to find visual inspiration. And now you have books created as a result of years of curation of those same websites. From ink, to pixel, and back to ink.

The iPad didn’t manage to kill books the same way smartphones didn’t manage to kill traditional photography. The more we digitize the world the more analogue, physical objects become important. And as creators, it’s important to care about creating quality objects. Because as they say if is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

A final note about the lovely book Carl made. It was a limited run and there won’t be a second edition. But, there are still copies left so if you want one I suggest you act fast. Carl was also kind enough to set up a 25% discount for the readers of this site. Just use the SELECTION25 code at checkout.

Also, if you love books, and coffee, and great filmmaking, Antonio Carusone created an amazing promotional video for the book that I’ll embed down below.