Beautiful Books: The Dilettantes by Michael Hingston

At the start of last year’s school year, we published a handful of University survival tips from the pages of The Dilettantes, by Michael Hingston (Freehand Books, 2013). We hope you’ll find guidance and solace in its words once again – though this time around, we’re looking at letterforms, not life lessons.The Dilettantes’ design speaks well to the book’s setting: a blend of frenetic student advertising boards and the brutalist aesthetic of Simon Fraser University’s principal Burnaby campus. The text is interspersed with newspaper snippets, coffee-stained style guides, text message conversations, and other student life ephemera. The back French flap opens to reveal a stylized map of the campus, with a few bears added in for good measure.The design of The Dilettantes was brilliantly conceived of and executed by Natalie Olson (Kisscut Design). The book has been lauded by the 2014 Alberta Book Awards, where it won the Book Design Award, and received an honourable mention from the Alcuin Society for their 2014 design award for Prose Fiction.The book’s author also praised the design: “It’s like you pulled the cover straight from my vision board,” he was quoted to say, “and I don’t show that to anyone but my cat.”You can learn more about Natalie’s design process with this book here.

At the start of last year’s school year, we published a handful of University survival tips from the pages of The Dilettantes, by Michael Hingston (Freehand Books, 2013). We hope you’ll find guidance and solace in its words once again – though this time around, we’re looking at letterforms, not life lessons.The Dilettantes’ design speaks well to the book’s setting: a blend of frenetic student advertising boards and the brutalist aesthetic of Simon Fraser University’s principal Burnaby campus. The text is interspersed with newspaper snippets, coffee-stained style guides, text message conversations, and other student life ephemera. The back French flap opens to reveal a stylized map of the campus, with a few bears added in for good measure.The design of The Dilettantes was brilliantly conceived of and executed by Natalie Olson (Kisscut Design). The book has been lauded by the 2014 Alberta Book Awards, where it won the Book Design Award, and received an honourable mention from the Alcuin Society for their 2014 design award for Prose Fiction.The book’s author also praised the design: “It’s like you pulled the cover straight from my vision board,” he was quoted to say, “and I don’t show that to anyone but my cat.”You can learn more about Natalie’s design process with this book here.