Encounters with all these colourful and intriguing items in their heyday must have
figured large in the child’s world, regardless of the prevalent state of literacy; and to the
leisure environment of more recent generations it is only necessary to add those letters,
symbols and pictures which are made in light and on the electronic screen.
The Orbis Pictus of Comenius (1659) is acknowledged as the forerunner of the modern
textbook and of the picture book as well, but it may provide a fresh angle of approach to
stress that Comenius’s visionary plan as an author could not have been realised without
his genius as a book designer. The basis of his layout is that parts of a picture are
numerically keyed to two parallel texts (Latin and vernacular) on each opening. Terms
correspond across the columns in roman and italic, with other typographic ‘voices’
assigned to the few essential linking words. Devising pictorial content and composition,
planning each topic to fit two facing pages, and writing to length, are additional
triumphs of authorship: in twentieth-century terms it is evident that Comenius was
working to a tight plan or grid.
Provision was made in the Orbis Pictus for all possible modes and speeds of readership
and study, in a book which acknowledges no dividing line between learning and
enjoyment. This uncommon fusion of design skills resulted in an exemplar for books of
its kind for generations to come; and later publishing history is full of similar examples
where a successful formula has been widely adapted or imitated. Until recent times an
author or publisher of a book which presented visual complexities would have looked
naturally to the printer for help; and it is the declining competence of this resource
which has seen the rise of the professional designer, just as the practical builder made
way for the architect in the design area.
Artists and book illustrators have often worked closely with book printers, but such
alliances did most to expand the visual potential of the children’s book during the
nineteenth century, when the figure of the publisher emerged as a more vigorous
entrepreneur as well. Although much has been written about the great Victorian
illustrators and their work, such historians as Ruari McLean, in his standard works and
in his account of the publisher Joseph Cundall and his circle have provided a fuller
context for some of the more elaborate productions of that fertile age. The Home
Treasury series, conceived and edited by Henry Cole and published by Cundall, was, in
McLean’s opinion, outstanding in design terms (McLean 1976:4–12).
The pioneering American book designer Bruce Rogers wrote about his work with a
directness that is still valid and readable today, and he had this to say about the
relatively late emergence of typographic design as an occupation:
It is only within the past two or three decades that the book designer has emerged
and established himself as a professional, frequently with his own facilities for
carrying out his designs for his clients.
It is still the practice in many publishing houses and large printing-offices for the
elements of a book to be planned and ordered piecemeal by different departments.
This is a regrettable procedure which can hardly result in satisfactory book
making. The book should always be considered as a whole and all instructions for
materials and design should emanate from one desk.
Rogers 1943/1979:4CHILDREN’S BOOK DESIGN 455