First impressions matter a lot, and no one knows this more than book designers.
In “Secret Lives of Books,” an exhibition at Filipinas Heritage Library in Makati that wraps up this weekend, Karl Castro shows us the many books he’s done over 12 years — from the colorful and playful design for Ricky Lee’s Si Amapola Sa 65 Na Kabanata to the spare but high-impact treatment he gave Jake Verzosa’s photography book, The Last Tattooed Women of Kalinga.
Books publishing is on an upswing in the Philippines. According to figures shared by National Book Development Board, there were 9,480 books published with International Standard Book Number (ISBN) last year — almost 40% more since 2007.
Castro first designed a book when he was a freshman at University of the Philippines Diliman, where he later served as layout artist, managing editor, and editor-in-chief of the Philippine Collegian while majoring in Film. Coconuts Manila asks him some questions.
How were you introduced to book cover designing?
I’ve been an avid reader since I was a kid. Since then, I’ve been very aware of the physical properties of the book: the binding, the paper, the printing, the weight, etc. And when I was around grade 4 or 5, I had a major fascination for calligraphy; calligraphy books were my introduction to the history of writing, the evolution of books, and I guess, in that way, to the historical underpinnings of book design.
So I guess you can say that I’ve been aware of book design at a very early age. I’d also like to note that I don’t just design covers, I also design the book’s interiors. People generally think that book design is about covers, but really, it is the main text where the reader spends most of the time engaged, so that is just as, if not even more important.
My first book, I designed when I was 17. I was a college freshman then, in 2004. In my high school, the Philippine High School for the Arts, the creative writing majors need to come out with a book as their thesis project. My friend Marie La Viña, who was one batch lower than me, was putting together her book of prose poems, and she asked me to design it. Karenina and Humanity’s Sad Gun was a small run of 300 copies, and until today, I treasure that book.
What’s a typical day for you?
My typical day is spent in my home studio. I wake up at around 5:30am (if I’m lucky) or around 9ish (if I’d had a late night). I check the previous day’s work to see if the effect is still the same. Then I make a list of the day’s goals and tasks — and usually, I try to keep it realistically short.
Most of the day is spent attending to work-related tasks: actual designing of books or publications on InDesign, revising layouts, or reading manuscripts, or just pondering. I’d take breaks to eat, sometimes nap, sometimes watch old TV series online to rest my head.
Sometimes I’d go out on a grocery errand or something just to get out of the studio. Sometimes I’d end the workday early and start work on a painting or weaving project. Then, in the evening, when my brain is tired, I rest.
What is the most difficult part of your job?
The most difficult part of the job is balancing all the interests at stake in a publication. One has to be aware of the concerns of the author, the reader, the publisher, the funder (if any), the illustrator or photographer, the editorial staff, the distributor or bookseller. Outside of these, there’s also the historical or long-term future value of the book, which I also have to think of. Designing a book has to respond to all these. So the most difficult part is choosing the best design strategy that will do justice to all of these considerations.
Do you have to work closely with the author or the publisher?
I have to work closely with the publisher, yes. The publisher is the boss, not necessarily the author, and it is the publisher who has command responsibility, who sees the bigger picture in which the book will exist.
Describe the evolution of book designing in the Philippines from the Spanish period to now.
Book design in the strict sense was brought to here from the West, through the Galleon Trade. In that sense it follows a similar trajectory to that of the West: the importation of presses, the creation of type foundries based on foreign material.
Heroes in the national pantheon, like Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Graciano Lopez Jaena, and Emilio Jacinto, were exposed to books and newspapers through trade and migration. These learnings they applied and sought to replicate back home.
However, the book is not the only mode for knowledge transmission here. The Philippines has a long history of the oral tradition, like chants, epics, and performative rituals. Some ethnolinguistic groups have their own styles of writing, like the baybayin which is still alive in the Hanunoo Mangyan communities; these are letters inscribed with a pointed stylus or knife onto bamboo.
Elsewhere, there are many other aspects of material culture which function, like books, as documentation: textile design, painting, sculpture, personal embellishment, architecture. These different aspects of recording overlap and continue to influence book production in the Philippines until now.
What is your advice to those who want to get started on book designing?
You have to love to read. In the process of book design, you’ll have to read and reread so many times over, and there’s no way out of it. You also have to read the material in order to really understand it, and a good understanding of the material is the basic requirement for you to be able to make a good book design.
You have to be patient, because book design is tough, meticulous, stressful, and the amount of material to ingest, the considerations you have to balance, these things can weigh down on you. It is also not the most lucrative industry out there. So if you don’t love books, and if you prefer a more glamorous and easy-money kind of field, it’s best to move along.
You have to be inquisitive and interested in culture. Making books is speaking to particular audiences, in particular time periods, and one must be aware of the book’s larger contexts and implications. If you are not interested, the book design might strike a dissonant chord in relation to its actual objective or value.
Secret Lives of Books: Karl Castro, Book Designer runs until June 5 at Filipinas Heritage Library in Makati.
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