Guest Post: James Miles, ‘TLS Adverts A and B’

Last December we put an advert for George Calderon: Edwardian Genius in the Times Literary Supplement and, naturally, as the resident typesetter and “designer-ey” type on the Sam&Sam team, I was the one who made it. It was a lot of fun and in this article I want to talk a little about the process.

The starting point was pretty much this:

It is a handwritten design template by Sam1 with the key points he wanted to include in the ad.

The first thing I did was to get these details into a basic design shell on the computer so we could visualise how they would look. We quickly realised that space on such an advert is deceptive, and it becomes cluttered very rapidly. Here’s a printout of that first mock up with red pen notes by Sam1.

But this was still great progress! We were in fact almost there at this point — it just needed colour, tuning, and a lot of polish.

The first idea was to incorporate this image of the Kremlin somehow.

The reflection on the glass in the frame meant I had to take it at a somewhat awkward angle, where you miss the very bottom of the image, but we weren’t interested in that part anyway and I was able to neaten it up a bit and extract this:

Which led to the following design, with the image as a sort of “faded watermark”:

I actually really like this one, and having a chance to share it is the main reason I asked Sam1 if I could write this article. I thought Calderonia readers would find it interesting!

However, the more we looked at it, and compared it with the adverts in an actual copy of the TLS, the more we felt we needed to try something else, at least so we could then choose between “A” and “B”, as it were.

Looking through the TLS, the advert that really stood out to me as being the cleanest, clearest, most no-nonsense and — crucially — the most fitting with the style of the paper itself was the following:

So naturally I mocked up a George version employing a similar design, but with the red that Sam1 advised as being most associated with Calderon.

We really tried to streamline it!

Much as I like the Kremlin variant, this is what we ended up choosing and I think we made the right decision.

This article isn’t a technical “how to” guide, like my typesetting series on here, but I will mention that the software I used for all of this is “GNU Image Manipulation Program”, essentially a free-to-use Photoshop that I find increasingly excellent for all manner of graphics work. When designing these adverts, we have each element as a “layer” which can be moved and tweaked to match whatever our feeling is. I say “feeling” because there was a lot of instinctive decision-making, with both Sam1 and me sitting at the computer adjusting elements here and there. Something I was particularly pleased with was the program’s “Drop Shadow” filter, which gives the book that…well that “drop shadow”! It’s something you almost don’t even notice, but if that shadow isn’t there then the entire advert looks completely amateur. Now I come to think of it, perhaps if I had put the drop shadow on the Kremlin one we would have felt it was a better contender? Anyway, learning little details like this is one of the things I find most satisfying about my Sam&Sam work.

Thank you for reading. If you have any questions about designing an advert like this, feel free to post a comment and I will reply!

SOME RESPONSES TO GEORGE CALDERON: EDWARDIAN GENIUS 

‘This meticulous yet nimble book is bound to remain the definitive account of Calderon’s life’ Charlotte Jones, The Times Literary Supplement

‘The effort of detection, it must be said, was worth it. The biography is a delight to read.’ Emeritus Professor Laurence Brockliss, The London Magazine

‘It is a masterly synthesis of your own approach with scholarship and very judicious discussion of the evidence.’ Emeritus Professor Catherine Andreyev, historian

‘This comprehensive, meticulously researched and highly readable biography, which the author describes as a “story” rather than an academic biography…’  Michael Pursglove, East-West Review

‘A monumental scholarly masterpiece that gives real insight into how the Edwardians viewed the world.’Arch Tait, Translator of Natalya Rzhevskaya’s Memoirs of a Wartime Interpreter

‘The book is written with great assurance and the reader always feels in safe hands. I liked the idea of it being a story and I read it the same way I would read a novel.’ Harvey Pitcher, writer

‘Presents the Edwardian age, and Calderon in particular, as new and forward-looking.’ Emeritus Professor Michael Alexander, in Trinity College, Oxford, Report 2017-18

A review by DAMIAN GRANT appears in the comments to Calderonia’s 7 September post.

A review by JOHN DEWEY appears on Amazon UK.