Page 1: Great Expectations

Seventy Graphic Solutions

edited by Lucienne Roberts and Rebecca Wright

Now in its second edition, Page 1 is an unusual typographic experiment designed to explore the relationship between graphic design, typography and the reading of a page. It collects the responses of 70 international graphic designers to the same brief – to lay out the first page of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, a text that directly references lettering as Pip searches for clues about his family from the letterforms inscribed on their tombstone.

Contributors were invited to explore, challenge or celebrate the conventions of book typography. Each layout is accompanied by a short rationale explaining the designer’s decision-making process. Conceived to be of interest to designers and non-designers alike, readers will be surprised by the attention to detail and level of engagement with the narrative on display, and aficionados of Dickens will be charmed by the idiosyncratic approaches to this much-loved text.

Paperback | 320 pages | GraphicDesign& | 2012/2013