Red Stones | about the book

I always have to laugh when people ask me to talk about my “design process.” Remember, one of the conventions of good design is Beatrice Ward’s crystal goblet—it should be invisible. There are, of course, other schools of thought on the matter, but I love working in the background, so it works for me. It’s why I played organ, it’s why I prefer organizing to answering phones, it’s probably why I’m a goalie, it’s why I design books instead of writing them.

So: here’s my process. Thirty-plus years of looking at books. Thirty-plus years of making images. More than a decade absorbing specific conventions of typography and studying the details of typefaces. A few years of engaging with the physicality of making texts, printing from metal type on presses from the wooden common press of Franklin, to the iron handpress of the nineteenth century newspaper, to the proofing presses of the mid-twentieth century. Constantly thinking about proportions, line length, visual relationships.

Add to that some intense contemplation of the physical components of books—the paper, the glue, the stitching of a fine hardcover—and you arrive at a place where you can make a book in your head. Take it all, put it together, make it disappear.

It doesn’t always work quite the way you think it’s going to, of course—you learn new things about margins every time, and it takes a while to learn to translate what something looks like on a computer’s monitor to what it will look like with different means of production.

That’s what you’re always striving towards: a book that doesn’t interfere with the text, placement of images and titles that enlightens rather than clouds, and that will be pleasant to the reader’s eye whether or not they know precisely why.

Regina Schroeder
Malden, February 2016


REGINA SCHROEDER does design to fuel her hockey habit, and has produced a tidy pile of poetry, prose, and exhibition catalogs for various authors and visual artists. She tells people she was raised by anarcho-syndicalist wolves in the wilds of Chicago, which is only a little untrue. She works in anachronistic media whenever possible, but is always happy to investigate contemporary methods when those serve her purpose. Of late, her work has been primarily in design with forays into fiber. She hasn’t done anything on the internet in over a year, so her website is hopelessly out of date.