DESIGN
The project is framed to honor book and material history. It pushes against its own restrictions to push the field and practice forward. The title of this project plays off the title of Virginia Woolf's feminist text.
"A Library of One's Own" acts against the notion of the "library" as a distanced body of works one either curates, or borrows and accesses material from. The privatized, elite tradition of rare book collecting also provides potential for a pun on "own."
The pale blue headers and backgrounds of this site pay homage to the original bluestockings.
The typeface of Playfair was "influenced by the transition of late 18th century writing/printing technology; when quills were replaced by pointed steel pens. It’s also influenced by typefacer John Baskerville and William Martin’s typeface for the 'Boydell Shakspeare.'"
Playfair, as this project intends to, references the past while driving for innovation. For progress. It also doesn't hurt that "Playfair" becomes a pun for a potential future of rare books.
The blog tags are not curated by subject, as in an analog library card catalog, but by how the book was encountered by and resonated with the collector.
The bluestocking blue buttons flash red—built-in cloth bookmarks to help guide you around the Library.