Allegory of the Cave Painting

Book coverAllegory of the Cave Painting
Book coverAllegory of the Cave Painting
Book coverAllegory of the Cave Painting
Book coverAllegory of the Cave Painting

The unusual process used for the printing of Allegory of the Cave Painting, a book full of critical reflections and deliberations about cave paintings, is rainbow printing. Here it has been used for the entire book. It entails gradual shifts back and forth in the colour of the ink, here based on a mix of copper and red, shifting to black from one section to the next to create the impression of infinite variety. The cover too is printed by this method in a single pass. The overall effect is that the entire run ranges from red/brown covers to deep black copies, giving each individual book a unique cover.

 

The judges were impressed by this fluid character, but sometimes felt the information was presented in a rather heaped-up and crammed-in way that is not always particularly subtle. Nor is it always easy to find one’s way through the book, partly because the content is not a little abstruse. The cream paper, on the other hand, was deemed a good choice – and the cover is compelling. There was also praise for the excellently legible typography, and the panel thought the parallel of the dots on the pages was a great success.

Edition: 2015
Author: Mihnea Mirca, Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei (ed.)
Language: English
Publisher: Mousse Publishing, Milan (IT)
Graphic designer: Remco van Blader, Corine van der Wal, Amsterdam
Lithographer: Raddraaier, Amsterdam
Printer: Raddraaier, Amsterdam (interior and cover in rainbow printing)
Binder: Hexspoor, Boxtel
Size book block (w x h x d in mm): 130 x 210 x 28
Number of pages: 456 p.
Print run: 1,200
Price: € 26
ISBN: 978 88 6749 116 2
Font and foundry: Garvis Pro (James Todd), Yonder (Remco van Bladel)
Binding style: sewn Otabind with flaps
Material: 80gsm Olin Rough cream 1.4 (interior), 160gsm Conqueror Contour cream (cover)