The cover is printed in metallic silver and black on uncoated, vellum-surfaced paper. It is an optical double square—meaning it’s not actually a double square, but a rectangle with its proportions tweaked to feel like one. The typographic scheme contains multiple axes: the title rotates around the horizontal axis; the artist’s names around the vertical, with a corollary: rather than a simple centering, the names align on the first common letter of each, working from top to bottom: e, then j, then a, and so on. This conceit follows through the book. It is symmetrical, but the symmetry is broken. (Please clap.)

One of the reasons we were able to get away with such a narrow proportion is that the reproductions allowed it. Most of the work in the show was either vertical or squarish in proportion—the wider format pieces could be handled with a crossover. Folios are set to the outside edges of the page, and in some cases will overprint reproductions (see figure 4). As a rule, we won’t do that, but in this case it activated the page in an interesting way, almost as if it were a frame looking down into the artwork.

The book is composed principally in Fra tisek Storm’s Walbaum Text, in one column weighted toward the gutter: a traditional arrangement. The page’s horizontal axis forms the origin for text elements: the essay hangs from it, and other items—display type, epigraphs—rest on it. The essay is illustrated in context, each cited work shown as close as possible to its citation.

Inside, the text block runs the length of the page. Captions are independent of the page’s x and y axes; they are symmetrical within themselves, and can appear anywhere on the page. Here, the caption is placed in a position of glide reflection symmetry in relation to the Art Gym window.

Each artist is allotted eight pages of the book, which includes a personal statement and a biographical sketch (an arrangement similar to the catalog for Art Gym’s previous large survey).

Within each allotment and when practical, the artist’s works are shown in relative scale.

Derek Birdsall called white space “the lungs of the layout”; we once had a corporate client refer to it as “non-value-added space,” which we’re noting here just for posterity. This spread and the following give a good example of how important white space can be for pacing. Here, the white above and below frames the image, but also compresses it: the white both establishes a base for the values in the image (the shadows are richer for the contrast) and keeps the eye looking at the installation as a whole.

Here is a detail of the same work, presented as a full-bleed spread. The eye is free to roam where it will, but the transition between the two spreads gives the reader a sense of moving into the work.