Behind the curtain: Elizabeth Goodspeed details the history-rich book design of The New Antiquarians

As someone who is deeply fascinated by the treasures of archiving (with her own abundant archive of ephemera), who better to create the book design, cover art, and the visual world for an ephemera-inspired hardcover, The New Antiquarians, than designer, art director, and educator Elizabeth Goodspeed? Written by writer, art historian and curator Michael Diaz-Griffith, the book delves into the world of antique collectors from the next generation, showcasing their unconventional approaches to living with history. Goodspeed worked closely with Diaz-Griffith and the teams at Monacelli and Phaidon to craft a visually stunning publication that feels appropriately historic and enticing.

One of the standout elements of the book is the eclectic typography, drawing inspiration from the typographic compositions of 18th and 19th-century book design, which she primarily sourced from the National Library of France. Goodspeed combines a variety of sans and serif typefaces, and plays with them throughout – from heavy usage of italics to stacked and centred type. “In some ways,” she says, “I found that the title pages of these old books felt a bit like a refined version of the wood type posters we often associate with the 19th century; the product of typographers designing from a point of utility, and mixing and matching whatever faces they had to fit the space rather than trying to perfectly match everything like you see in more contemporary and modernist typographic approaches.”

“In creating my own take on the historic references,” she continues, “I wanted to avoid trying to actually mimic the patina of anything old in terms of tactility (i.e. no Papyrus) and instead use modern adaptations or revivals that had the same spirit and general construction of some of the antique faces found in these older books (Caslon, Bodoni, Venus, etc.) but with the support and detail-orientation of a digital typeface made in the 21st century.”

To achieve this goal, the body text is set in Henry, 205TF’s version of Garamond. This font brings a delicate sense of formality to lengthy paragraphs, particularly when italicised. On the other hand, the chapter headlines, title page, and jacket spine use Albertus in all capital letters, paying homage to the classic style of Roman square capitals.

“Chapter numbers are set in the Art Deco-inspired Top Tune JNL from Jeff Levine, contributor names in Canada Type’s swashy Monte Cristo – the latter script itself not being something you would typically see typeset in old books, but which reflects the handwriting you might see adorning old ledgers and journals,” Goodspeed notes. “Captions and subheads are set in the utilitarian Styrene A by Commercial Type, and inspired by the style of sans serif typefaces popular among early 20th-century engravers.”

For the cover, Goodspeed used a lot of the same typefaces along with a custom-designed script title, inspired by Ivy by Daylight Fonts, to add a touch of grandeur and extravagance to the book. “I liked having the spine, the title page, and the half title all use slightly different versions of the book title, as it felt very true to the mismatched type in the period references I looked at,” she adds.

To ensure thematic consistency throughout the publication, Goodspeed established a solid foundation by maintaining consistent typographic layouts and elements across each chapter, while also ensuring it reflected the unique style and perspective of its featured collector. “In a funny way,” she tells us, “This seemed like a good metaphor for the act of collecting; almost everyone in the book collects the same items – chairs, tables, textiles, figurines, etc. – but the surface decorations, material, and aesthetic period that each object was made in render them all fantastically different. I felt that having a more regimented foundation would allow me more space to play with more visible cues like colour and illustration for each subject, and to explore maximalism while still making something that felt very readable and parsable.”

Curating the decorative element of the publication – spot illustrations, borders, and colour palettes – was a collaborative effort between Goodspeed and Michael Diaz-Griffith, with whom Goodspeed shares “similar ways of thinking about visual matter and culture.” “We both think of most aesthetics, no matter how niche, as a network of historic and contemporary allusions – and we seem to always know what the other means no matter how obtuse or poetic that melange of ideas may be. So, to guide the process of choosing spot illustrations, colour palettes, and borders, Michael made me a profoundly wonderful spreadsheet with an evocative one-liner describing every subject. Bios ranged from ‘George Nakashima as a Shaker’ to ‘Harry Houdini, Industrial Designer’ and ‘Alvar Aalto (before he was a star).’

Goodspeed also drew inspiration from the photography of each collector’s home, often finding motifs or details that sparked ideas for spot illustrations and borders. Some spot illustrations were literal representations of items found in the subject’s house, while others captured the overall sensibility and style of the collector. “For example,” she notes, “a collector who focussed on classical antiques naturally ended up with a simple Greek Meander, while a collector who seemed to love to play with pattern clashing in her interiors ended up with four contrasting borders inset in each other.”

“Every border and spot illustration had a different process in terms of actual creation – some are pulled quite literally from public domain ephemera and printed matter, while others are a combination of elements I drew myself, mashed up with bits and pieces of textures borrowed and stylised from the collector’s own collection. In terms of the process, I’m an avid collector, so most of the things I used were things I had already scanned from books I own on historic furniture or ornament, save for some subjects where I needed something very specific, in which case I spent a lot of time looking through the Flickr commons or the French National Library.”

The colour palette was carefully considered, with the aim of achieving a balanced representation of light and dark background colours throughout the book, avoiding using too many dark hues associated with antiques while also ensuring a broad representation of colour. Goodspeed implemented a system where the foreground colour of each subject’s chapter became the background colour for the following subject’s chapter, creating a visual link and an interplay between light and dark backgrounds. “In terms of actual hues, all systems and rules aside,” she says, “I was relatively intuitive with what felt right, which also considering the photos and descriptors from Michael.”

The book jacket and case further contribute to the overall aesthetic. After exploring various framing devices, Goodspeed settled on curtains due to their symbolic representation of interiors that serves as a metaphor for the home as a stage for experimentation and play. The use of curtains adds a touch of theatricality and maximalism, emphasising the passion and eccentricity of the collections.

“Once I had zeroed in on the idea of the framed curtains, I started looking at lots of ephemera from theatrical production design, old interior design catalogues, and other references, but much of it felt a little too dense and over-rendered. I came across the illustration by Aubrey Beardsley – which I found accidentally while looking through the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s online collection of public domain work – and instantly fell in love with it as a cover option. I loved the overall look of the curtain, and I also felt Beardsley’s ethos as a mark-maker was aligned with the overall aesthetic of the rest of the existing book. I did a bit of ‘retouching’ to simplify it a bit and make it work for the cover size and shape, but otherwise, it’s mostly untouched from the original. One of my favourite details was having the curtain peek up slightly in the bottom left to show the publisher’s logo! As for the back, once I settled on the Beardsley, it felt right to try to find another piece by him to use as fodder so the linework and style would match. He’s not an illustrator who draws a lot of furniture, but I did spot a corner of a table in the back of another illustration of his that I found on the Met’s website, which I redrew into a full illustration. I also placed a fan and a candelabra from a third Beardsley illustration onto the table to add a little more visual interest. We went through quite a few colour iterations but ultimately landed on something that felt like old meets new, serious meets playful, with the dark navy and the bright chartreuse.”

The case design initially stemmed from the idea of using a rectilinear border, but evolved into a playful and meta concept. It featured a collection of different borders, framing each other and subverting the traditional single formal frame of a book jacket. “The only way I could think of reflecting all the different themes and aesthetics in the book through a border was to in fact just show... a bunch of different borders together. I also liked the kind of cheeky vibe it gave – the inside borders are treated more seriously, but here they could break out of their shell a bit and become a bit meta by simply framing other borders, and it also felt like a bit of a subversion of the classic book jacket with a single formal frame.”

Elizabeth Goodspeed

The New Antiquarians