PROJECT DESCRIPTION

"A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes" is the first monograph on the American modernist designer. In her lifetime, Liebes was called “the greatest modern weaver and the mother of the twentieth-century palette.”

The book’s cloth cover and exposed spine reveal process and technique and honor the tactile, hand-woven nature of Liebes’s weaving. Alternating gloss and matte paper finishes invite a warm read to essays pages while highlighting full-color images. The typefaces, Century Old Style and Wedding Gothic ATF, are in dialogue with letterheads and other ephemera from Liebes’s time and mirror the extensive archival research materials that drive the editorial narrative.

Liebes was known for her bold, inventive color choices, many of which are presented throughout the book through thoughtfully juxtaposed woven samples, the interplay of bright yellow thread peeking through the sewn book forms, and then further elevated by their interactions with the book’s teal endpapers.

Four interstitials—Color, Texture, Glitter, and Materials—identify core elements in Liebes’s design process. Close-up details of woven samples relay—through print—the tactility and materiality of Liebes’s textiles. According to Hyperallergic: “The photos exude such fibrous presence that it seems like you could actually feel the velvety chenilles, fluffy tufts, loopy fringes, crinkly plain weaves, smooth bamboo slats, translucent acrylic rods, and slubby twills.”

The book is ultimately a celebration of color, materials, collaboration, and process—a testament to Dynamo Dot herself.

BOOK INFORMATION

Trim Size: 8 x 10 in

Number of Pages: 256

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Typefaces: Century Old Style, Wedding Gothic ATF

CREDIT INFORMATION

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Book Designer: Estudio Herrera

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