Updates from The Digital Press

Last spring was one of the quieter seasons for The Digital Press at the University of North Dakota. We had some things “in the works,” but only published the lovely little NDQ@90 volume in collaboration with our friends at North Dakota Quarterly.

As so often happens in publishing a slow season anticipates a more hectic one and we’re thrilled to admit that we now have three (and maybe four!) books in production right now. We’re also working to revive, at least for a moment, the University of North Dakota Press, to publish the memoir of an important UND alumnus.

As a bit of hat tip to the UND Press, I decided adopt a design that took a bit of inspiration from one of my favorite UND Press publications: Louis Geiger’s The University of the Northern Plains: a History of the of the University of North Dakota, 1883-1958 (Grand Forks 1958).

For the memoir that I’m currently producing, I adapted the line under the chapter title from Geiger’s book, and the drop caps for the first words. It helps, of course, that this book starts with one of my favorite line in any book that I’ve published: “Regrettably, I did not know three of my four grandparents.” 

The other two books are more conventional and as a result, offer less room for design decisions and only one is in production far enough to share:

It has affinities with the design I developed for the Deserted Villages volume that came out a few years ago. More than that, it shares the large font, significant margins, and mild-blue hyperlink text of my house style (which I think makes my books better suited for screen-based reading).

The final book of the little gaggle is by far the most complicated. It is book that will accompany, the final publication of the Eastern Korinthia Archaeological Survey data. It will be a richly linked, data-rich, publication that will have parallels in design and approach to Visualizing Votive Practice.  

The fourth book that’s simmering on the back burner is on Merrifield Hall… that book is mostly done and deserves a longer post!