Illustrations for Elements of Style?
October 19th, 2005 | Published in Books & Reading
Wait, start from the beginning… why does a book on typographic style need illustrations? Even better, how does it help or make the book better? I’ll answer it for them: it doesn’t need illustrations, and the illustrations do not help or make the book better or clearer. Was the question even asked?
But while “The Elements of Style” has never lacked fans or dutiful adherents, appreciation for this slim volume takes a turn toward the whimsical and even surreal this week, as the Penguin Press publishes the first illustrated edition, featuring artwork by Maira Kalman, and the young composer Nico Muhly offers a finely wrought “Elements of Style” song cycle, to be given its premiere tonight at 8 in a highly unusual, if oddly appropriate, concert setting: the Rose Main Reading Room of the New York Public Library.