Onchi Kōshirō Book Design vs Private Press
恩地孝四郎の装幀 / プライベート・プレス
Both sit in Publishing and Editing, so the question is not what they belong to but how they behave. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
Onchi Kōshirō Book Design
Book design that treats the cover as a print in its own right rather than as a frame for a picture. Representational illustration gives way to abstract shapes and flat colour, and the title lettering sits inside that surface as one of its parts.
Private Press
A movement answering industrialized printing: type, paper, composition and binding unified under one ideal, remaking the book as a total work of art.
| Onchi Kōshirō Book Design | Private Press | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1910s–1950s | 1891–1930s |
| Family | Publishing and Editing | Publishing and Editing |
| Kind | Style | Style |
| Cues | Covers built only from abstract shapes and flat colour, with no representational illustration / Title lettering drawn by hand rather than set in type, sitting on the same surface as the image / Few colours, with form made by overlapping planes instead of outlines / The bare colour of the paper left showing, with the image laid straight onto it | House-designed type / Handmade paper, hand presses / Margins designed by the spread / Illustration united with text |
| Best used for | Covers for poetry and collected works made as a print rather than as a holder for a picture · Few color printing where even the title lettering belongs to the image surface | Limited-run poetry and commemorative books designed whole, from paper to type · Publishing where the object itself must state the maker's convictions |
| Type | Title lettering drawn by hand instead of set in type, on the same surface and at the same weight as the image | One type throughout, with the fewest possible changes of size |
| Composition | The cover composed as one surface rather than as a picture with lettering added to it | Work by the spread, fore-edge and foot margins beating gutter and head |
| Material | Few colors and no outlines, form made by overlapping planes, the bare paper left showing and counted as one of the colors | Letterpress impression on handmade paper, red headings printed as a second pass |
| Caution | Setting a representational picture into a frame turns the cover back into a place to put a picture, and the surface stops being a print. | Borrowing only the decorated initials and the handmade paper leaves the text setting loose and yields an expensive antique looking pamphlet. Read it as a publishing movement about production, labor and quality. |