Joseph Churchward is a new book from the accomplished Clouds Publishing company that profiles one of Aotearoa's best-kept design secrets and the one WE are most proud of. The fact that Joseph Churchward is a cousin to our Editor/Fashion Director Rachael Churchward ensures this book will be high on our want/need list. Long have the Churchward Maori fonts hung in our home and been an inspiration to Rachael - who fell in love with handsome typography at an early stage in her life - and long have we seen them as art.
If you want a copy of Joseph Churchward Clouds Publishing suggests a pre-order is in order. They also sent a succinct press release about the book that we felt summed it all up - so we'll publish it in full with a few pics from the book:
Clouds publishing, the Jan van Eyck Academie and Colophon (The Netherlands) present a new publication: ---------------------------------
Joseph Churchward
---------------------------------
April 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9582981-1-7
---------------------------------
Edition: 550 bound, 25 unbound
Softcover, 297 x 210 mm
278 pages plus dustjacket and photograph insert
Colour and black/white images
English
---------------------------------
RRP: NZ $140 / €70
Hand-lettering is superior. Samoan-born New Zealand-based alphabet and advertising designer Joseph Churchward (b.1932) is simply and absolutely the best-kept secret in New Zealand graphic design. The alphabets of this inveterate hand-lettering hold-out, over 600 of them, are only just being rediscovered and redeployed by a new generation of graphic designers who are fascinated by the intense aliveness of his designs, forming, as they do, the spine of a 60s-80s New Zealand vernacular. David Bennewith, the composer of this volume, while studying at the prestigious post-academic Jan van Eyck Academie in The Netherlands, undertook sustained research into Churchward’s work, and assembled this spirited analyses of his cult oeuvre. Bennewith’s emphasis was on making as a form of research, so the book tracks the usage of Churchward’s work and is structured as an on-going, open conversation between users. This gorgeously designed, limited-edition publication presents an overview of the work of Churchward, compiling archive material, correspondence, realised and un-realised designwork, and alphabet designs. Visual material is interspersed with essays on aspects of Churchward’s practice by New Zealand and overseas writers and designers. Joseph Churchward attempts to tell the story-in-process of New Zealand’s most prolific designer of letters to date, and is presented on a range of paper stocks (printed variously in Wellington, Heerlen, Groningen, Maastricht, and bound in Nijmegen). It comprehensively details Churchward’s myriad, type designs – a total resource for type geeks of all ages. It includes a dustjacket that is also a typeface ready-reckoner poster. Edited and designed by David Bennewith. Texts by Rebecca Roke, Daniel van der Velden and Paul Elliman. Photographs by Ann Shelton and David Bennewith.
Joseph Churchward is available from Clouds and selected bookshops in New Zealand; Australia (via Idea Books); Germany, Austria, Switzerland (via Vice Versa); The Netherlands and elsewhere (via Colophon), for NZD$140 (incl. GST).For further information visit:
http://www.clouds.co.nz/joseph-churchward/
