The exhibition was opened last Thursday with Jost Hochuli’s presentation of the topic – a wide-ranging history of book-making in St Gallen. A set of demountable cases came from Switzerland as part of the exhibition. The Library’s own cases have been removed to accommodate this. This familiar exhibition room has, for the moment, a surprisingly different feel.

The exhibition ‘Book design in St Gallen’ opens this week at the St Bride Library and runs for two short weeks. It is a chance to see material that will not be around ever again in London, and to hear talks about the subject. This Thursday Jost Hochuli will speak at St Bride’s, and on Wednesday 17 March a gang of the usual suspects will offer their views.

On 24 March Peter Campbell will be in conversation with Julian Bell, another painter and writer about art, at the London Review Bookshop.

International Project Space, at Bourneville (Birmingham, UK), is the host for a Hyphen Press exhibition opening on 17 March and running through to 30 April.

This Friday the lively events programme at the St Bride Library offers a conference on Design for music / Music and design. Another strong reason to get to St Bride’s this week: to catch the splendid ‘Designing information before designers’ exhibition before it closes.

Last Saturday morning, the two Bach Players CDs were included in a roundup of recent Bach recordings on BBC Radio 3’s ‘CD Review’ programme (one can listen back to this on the BBC website for the rest of this week). Presenter Andrew McGregor had good words to say about the discs, and he found time to play three whole tracks to represent their great diversity of material. He also summed up why these discs are different from the average classical music CD: each is shaped by an idea, and the varied component parts work together to represent that idea. So they go a different route from the familiar ones of presenting similar pieces by a single composer, or stringing together pieces to showcase a certain artist. McGregor said: ‘It’s a lovely way of providing a different kind of context for Bach’s music, especially with Hugh Wood’s thoughtfully illuminating notes. The Bach Players have gone an unusual route with these recordings, teaming up not with an established label but with a book publisher specializing in design – Hyphen Press. Bach arranging and arranged is the first volume, Every one a chaconne is the second; I hope there’ll be more.’ There will.

As from today we are reducing the price of Fred Smeijers’s Type now, from £17.50 to £10. The book was made on the occasion of the award of the Gerrit Noordzij prize to Smeijers and surveys his work up to then (November 2003). Given Fred’s remarkable productivity as a designer, one might say that this survey is out of date. But a large part of the book is addressed more generally to the conditions of making typefaces now, culminating in a manifesto for designers in the digital age. This discussion, we think, hasn’t been superseded – or discussed enough. So the book is still worth getting. We are working now on a second edition of Fred Smeijers’s Counterpunch. The changes will be significant: certainly enough to make those who have the first edition want to have the second too.

Books are zero-rated for Value Aded Tax in the UK, but CDs are not. From this week, the rate of VAT on CDs goes up from 15 to 17.5 per cent. This has prompted us to raise the price of the Hyphen Press Music CDs from £14 to £15. But, given the present exchange rates of the UK-pound to the euro and most other currencies, this may not mean much to buyers outside the UK: one would still pay significantly more on the European continent for CDs of this kind.

Thanks to everyone who sent greetings and good wishes for the new year. If we haven’t acknowledged you, it’s only because we’re buried in the processes of making and selling books and CDs. This year should see at least one major new work published (to be announced here soon), and the reappearance of some tried-and-tested books from the back catalogue.

Every one a chaconne, the new release from Hyphen Press Music, is Editor’s Choice of new vocal CDs – with five stars (= ‘exceptional’) – in the January 2010 issue of Classic FM magazine. Opening his perceptive remarks, Andrew Stewart writes: ‘There’s something about the openness of sound, the sheer quality of music-making and the sense of connection between performers and composers that makes this a very special recording.’ Elsewhere, the magazine suggests: ‘It’s heartening in these cash-strapped times to see our Editor’s Choice slot occupied by a brand-new British label. If you choose to buy the recording, you’ll be supporting a great venture and your ears will be in for a treat, too.’

We have received copies of the next book, Peter Campbell’s At …. This goes on sale officially at the end of this month. At … is a collection of the author’s columns about art, applied art, buildings, townscape, nature, and more, written for the London Review of Books. Campbell is a typographer and book designer, and illustrator, as well as now someone who writes for publication, and his work – the design, drawing, and writing – fits well with our idea of what aesthetics might be and do. The form of our book tries to live up to the standard of its text: accessible, humane, serviceable, well-made. Printed by Die Keure in Bruges, the binding is by Binderij Hexspoor and uses their Otabind process.

It has always been difficult to see our books in France. But copies of most of them are now on sale at Section 7 Books in Paris. For more about this initiative, read this discussion.

The Hyphen Press catalogue for 2009–2010 was ready (as is traditional) just in time for the Frankfurt Book Fair. New books are announced here, and every in-print title is shown too. As with last year’s catalogue, at the centre is an ‘almanack’ of texts and images that relate to our new publications.

On Thursday 5 November (while the English are busy letting off fireworks), if you are in Zurich there is a chance to learn more about E.C. Large. Roland Früh will be at the Corner College, to present our books by and about Large. The mycologist Patrick Romanens will also be talking. Our books will be on sale, and those attending will have a rare chance to see some of Large’s paintings of British toadstools.

An exhibition of the work of the English printer Desmond Jeffery opens at the St Bride Library in London tonight. This is the first chance for the public to see something of his production.

A report of the launch of HPM 002 for subscribers and friends.

Through this month and next, some of our core books are on display and for sale at the Kunstverein in Amsterdam.

Every one a chaconne, the second recording by The Bach Players has just arrived in physical form and will be launched publicly at the group’s concerts in Cork, Norwich, and London in the coming week.

In another of those warehouse discoveries, a few copies of the late Peter Burnhill’s Type spaces have come to light, after we had declared it out of print here (our North American distributor still has some left). There are several reasons to get hold of this book, which we are unlikely now to reprint. The most important reason is that, in effect, it puts forward a new theory of typography. Along the way, you can find advice on how to determine linespacing (‘leading’); after digesting this you will never need to spend time agonizing over this fundament of text-setting. And the book is a model of industrial production, especially in its binding. These last few copies are for sale only from this website.

This week we received copies of Modern typography in Britain: a very packed and rich set of discussions, which will surely come to define its still too little comprehended subject. The book is at the same time Typography papers 8, and continues Typography papers’s work of publishing fully serious, lively and comprehensible articles.

At Motto, in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

One of the most pleasing aspects of publishing is to see translated editions of your books appearing. Italian, Spanish, and now Korean editions of Modern typography have been made in recent years. Meanwhile our own second edition of the work is out of print and awaiting a reprint, with corrections and small updatings. We hope that that book can be made later this year.

The next Hyphen book, Modern typography in Britain: graphic design, politics, and society – a special issue of Typography papers 8 – is now at the printers. It will be published in September.

We now have copies of this book, which this month goes on sale generally in the UK, the Netherlands, and elsewhere in Europe. It is of course also for sale from our website. Those in North America – to whom we can’t sell from the website – will need to wait at least a couple of months before the books reach our distributor’s warehouse there. The book joins the Hyphen small-format paperback series: this one comes with flaps and an Otabind binding.

‘Einzelgängers’ – it takes one to know one. Hyphen Press Music is joint winner of the best record label of 2009 in the Prelude Classical Music Awards 2009. This is the annual poll conducted by Kees Koudstal, who is both chairman of the jury and its only member.

For a foretaste of Typography papers 8, have a look at Paul Stiff’s ‘Mitteleuropa and Bethnal Green’ (‘Mitteleuropa’ = Central Europe). TP8 is a special issue of the irregular but still serial publication, and for once it will carry a title or subtitle: ‘Modern typography in Britain: graphic design, politics and society’.

From 2 to 3 April the Information Design Association in the UK is holding a two-day conference at the University of Greenwich, London – admirers of Christopher Wren’s work will have good reasons to go and then get distracted.

This website has been offline for the last three days, for inexplicable technical reasons, but is now restored.

A recent tidying of the office turned up an offprint from the journal Matrix (no. 21, 2001), which published two pieces written on the occasion of the publication of our book Anthony Froshaug. Looking at them again, they seem worth reviving – to explain something of the process by which that book was made (just as this piece explains how another of our books came into the world).

From this week to the end of June, Robin Kinross is living and working in the Netherlands: taking up this year’s Fellowship at the Konkinklijke Bibliotheek [Royal Library]. The position is run jointly by the KB and the NIAS (Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences). Building on a theme of his book Modern typography, Kinross is doing research on paper sizes and their standardization. His only duty is to prepare a public lecture on his topic, to be delivered (and also published as a pamphlet) in June. Meanwhile the Hyphen Press office is being run by his assistant, Roland Früh. Work on the new books goes on. The transformer has this week reached page-proof stage.

Early public reactions to our first CD – given the hopeful catalogue number HMP 001 – have been encouraging.

Bach arranging and arranged, the first recording by The Bach Players, and the first issue from Hyphen Press Music, is now finished and awaiting formal release next month.

On Thursday 27 November at 7 pm Jost Hochuli will give a lecture on ‘Systematic book design?’ – the question mark is important here – at the St Bride Foundation. This is a rare occasion and we look forward to hearing Jost Hochuli’s latest thoughts, which will doubtless be sharp and precise. Hyphen Press will be present and Hochuli’s two books Designing books and Detail in typography will be on sale. For more information, go here.

Next month Hyphen Press Music is publishing its first CD: Bach arranging and arranged by The Bach Players. In this conversation Nicolette Moonen, the artistic director of the group, talks about the background to the recording.

We have received our first copies of Sugar in the air and Asleep in the afternoon. Our accompanying book, God’s amateur, is with the printers now: we expect an advance supply of it in a few days’ time. The three books will be formally published in early December, after the main shipment of the novels is with our UK distributor.

Next week Stuart Bailey and David Reinfurt – Dexter Sinister – present three nights of talks at Somerset House in London, which will create the content for the next issue of Dot Dot Dot (no. 17).

On 15 October, in a talk at this year’s Cheltenham Literature Festival, Robin Kinross will attempt to explain what typography is.

Now that we are preparing to publish CDs, a reader has suggested that we consider selling Swiss chocolate (‘in various point sizes’) and sweaters (‘Norman-Potter-style pullover with cross-patterns’). These are good ideas. But we will probably draw the line at E.C. Large T-shirts.

Not for the first time in the history of publishing, a book that had been declared ‘out of print’ makes a return to availability. We have discovered 25 copies of Counterpunch (the edition of 1996) at the bottom of a box, covered by copies of another book. We are glad to be able to sell these now from this website (only). After these copies have sold, there really will be none left.

Copies of Hochuli’s Detail in typography have arrived in London. The book is officially published later this month. We are very pleased with the production qualities of the book. The binding, especially, is a marvel of industrial production: completely strong and completely flexible.

We are now selling copies of the book Edward Wright: readings, writings, published last year by the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication, University of Reading.

Jost Hochuli, author of Designing books and Detail in typography, is responsible for an exhibition of the remarkable book production of his home town of St Gallen. While his own work is also shown, Hochuli insists that ‘Buchgestaltung in St Gallen’ is an exhibition of, as he puts it, work by his close friends Rudolf Hostettler and Max Koller, by his former students and other colleagues. ‘Buchgestaltung in St Gallen’ opened in April at the book fair in Geneva, but will be shown in St Gallen itself from 7 to 29 June 2008.

We have just received finished copies of our new catalogue of books. This is the first full printed catalogue we have made. Every in-print title is represented, in specially made photographs, and there is a retrospective display of the covers of all the titles we have produced. Bound into the booklet is an ‘almanack’ of short texts.

Among the speakers at the Friends of St Bride Library Conference on 15 and 16 May is Karel Martens. He will show some of his (very) short movies and then engage in unpremeditated dialogue with Robin Kinross.

We are present at the London Book Fair (14–16 April) c/o our new UK distributor, Publishers Group UK. Go to stand i205 to see some books and the new catalogue.

From the beginning of April our books will be distributed in the UK by Publishers Group UK. After many years with Central Books we are sad to be leaving them. But PGUK will provide a combined sales and warehousing service: the books should get into the shops more.

We are announcing some new titles for publication in the course of 2008, which will add more than just numbers to the list.

Prompted by this nice review, we can confirm that a second edition of the book is in preparation. We hope to publish later this year: busy schedules permitting. Fred Smeijers is revising the text, to take account of new evidence and to include some of his further thoughts. The original files of the book have been lost, so we would have had to remake the pages in any event. This necessary fresh start is stimulating plans for the design of the new edition.

From today you can buy books directly from this website. We hope this service will be useful, especially to buyers who live away from the metropolis, and in areas that our distributors do not reach. (Customers in North and South America, Australia, the Netherlands, should still buy from bookshops or from our distributors there.) Please let us know what you think of the service.

We are taking part in the London Book Fair, at Earls Court, from 16 to 18 April. Find our books at the stand of our representatives, Troika, stand Z640.

The Hyphen Press website appears today in a new form. There are many added and altered features, providing much content beyond the simple description of the books we publish. The old ‘Column’ section – which in retrospect seems to have been a sort of proto-blog – is now made more visible, and will become a backbone of the new website. It is now called ‘Journal’, and includes short pieces of news about Hyphen activities, comments on and links to things that interest us, and some longer articles. All the text on the site is searchable. The books are now shown in photographs, rather than scans, and we will provide downloads of sample pages. Later this year we plan to add a shop from which books can be bought online.

In collaboration with the graphic design practice Polimekanos we are planning to publish books that can be placed in areas contingent to design, which illuminate design, and which are also good contributions to their own fields. The present programme of publishing on design will continue alongside the new branch. The first of this Hyphen New Series, as we are calling it, is Morton Feldman says: a book of interviews with and lectures by the American composer Morton Feldman. It will be launched on Friday 24 March at the Conway Hall in London, with a concert of Feldman’s music, readings from the book, and a reception.

We now have printed sheets of The stroke; finished copies should be available in Europe before the end of the month. Typography papers 6 is running as late as its quality will be high; we expect finished copies in December.

From this month, Hyphen Press books are represented to the book-trade by Troika.

A new forthcoming title is added to this website today: an English-language edition of Gerrit Noordzij’s De streek. The book appeared first in Dutch in 1985 and was reprinted in 1991. As Noordzij explains in his foreword to the original book, it takes some steps on from his earlier work, the English-language The stroke of the pen (published by the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, 1982). For our edition, the Dutch text of 1985 has been translated by Peter Enneson (in Toronto), working in dialogue with Noordzij. We hope to publish by late September.

As well as Typography papers 6, expected now in early summer of this year, we are working on two new titles: the first English-language edition of a work of fundamental thinking, and an extended and fully documented critique of one of the eternally unresolved topics of typography. Full details will be revealed in due course.

The much delayed second edition of Robin Kinross’s Modern typography is now finished and available.

We are very pleased to announce that Hyphen Press is taking over publication of Typography papers: the distinguished, occasional, book-length work from the Department of Typography, University of Reading. In-print back numbers can now be ordered from Central Books. The next issue (number 6) is due for publication in spring 2005.

The first ‘Martens book’ is out of print now, and we will not reprint it. But this new title is just going into production. It should be in the shops before summer begins.

Coen Sligting in Amsterdam now has a representative in the Nordic countries. Booksellers in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, should send requests for books and orders to sligting[at]xs4all.nl.

Greetings to friends and colleagues for the new year. Instead of a greetings card, you may like to look at a snowy image of the place in which we now work, run by Workplace Co-operative 115 Ltd. The project is shown also in the current (December 2003) issue of Domus magazine, with an article by Tanya Harrod on the building and the intentions behind it. New titles are in the pipeline for publication by Hyphen in 2004–5, and will be announced here soon

All Hyphen Press books can now be bought direct from the website of our UK distributor, Central Books.

The next Hyphen Press title to be published will be Peter Burnhill’s Type spaces. Page make-up and proofing of the book is in its final stages.

A paperback edition of Jost Hochuli’s long-lasting Designing books is now available in Europe. It will be released in North and South America later in the year.

We are posting a new column today. This is a survey, written by Linda Eerme and Robin Kinross for Domus magazine, of the present state of publishing in architecture and design.

Our reprint of Harry Carter’s A view of early typography: up to about 1600 is published in Europe today. In some weeks’ time copies will be available in North and South America, via Princeton Architectural Press, and in Australia, via Books at Manic.

The new editions of Karel Martens: printed matter / drukwerk and of Norman Potter’s What is a designer are now finished and have been published in Europe. Copies of both titles are on their way to the USA and will be available this spring in North and South America through Princeton Architectural Press.

In North and South America, all Hyphen Press titles are now distributed by Princeton Architectural Press. In Australia, all titles are distributed by Books at Manic.

After too many months of languishing in outdated and bug-filled form, this website now reappears in a ‘second edition’, thanks to the energy and commitment of designer-programmer Matt Patterson. All the information has been checked through and updated. We hope that visitors find it easier and more consistent in use. Two new ‘columns’ have been added, and we plan to add to this section more regularly

It is almost a year since the last news item was added. Several small bits of information on the site are out of date, and there are aspects of its design and functioning that need attention. We are now working on an overhaul, and hope to put up a ‘second edition’ in September. There will be two new columns, links to Amazon, and the whole thing will be reprogrammed to help viewing and also maintenance of the site. Meanwhile, we can report that Anthony Froshaug is with the printer. The book will be published in the UK on 12 October. We are planning an open meeting to launch the book: on 10 October at the Conway Hall, London WC1. Advance copies may also be available at the ATypI conference in Leipzig (we hope this event will happen!).

We are working hard towards publication of the next books, Anthony Froshaug and Typeform dialogues. They will appear in 2000. Please have patience, and understanding for the sisyphean labours of the small publisher. The wait will be worth it, we are sure. Beyond these books, we are planning a series of small-format paperbacks that will include a revised edition of What is a designer, a new edition of Modern typography, and other texts that have proved themselves.