[okfn-discuss] "Open Shakespeare Edition" Book Design

Wed Feb 18 09:39:04 UTC 2009

For a while we've been thinking that as part of the Open Shakespeare
project it would be nice to produce an "Open Shakespeare Edition" of
the Shakespeare texts.

By an 'Edition' we meant something designed as a book and suitable for
printing: so nice frontpieces, with everything typeset properly etc.
This could then be downloaded and printed or even offered in dead-tree
version ourselves using print-on-demand.

Recently, we've made a start on this endeavour using the moby XML
sources, xsl and latex [1]. An example of the results can be seen at:

  <http://www.openshakespeare.org/images/anthony_and_cleopatra.pdf>

As a cursory look at that will show, while the body of the play
doesn't look too bad, the front-page isn't so hot. It would be nice to
improve this (as well as the front-matter generally). So, questions
for people:

1. We probably want the help of designers here. If so, how can we get
some involved?

  * Is there anyone on this list with expertise?
  * Should we run a design competition?
  * Are there good lists to try for this?

2. What kind of general look should we go for? E.g. could have:

  * Ultra traditional (but perhaps with some mods e.g. replacing std
'copyright' section with something about pen knowledge)
  * Or, something quite irreverent e.g. Hamlet by 'Bill' Shakespeare,
with a funny ('pun') drawing (see the example on
<http://okfn.org/wiki/ShakespeareBookDesign>)

Regards,

Rufus

[1]:<http://knowledgeforge.net/shakespeare/trac/timeline>