Essay: ‘Dark Matter and Trojan Horses’ e-book now on-paper, on-demand

Print-on-demand version of 'Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary''

A consistent request over the last couple of years has been for a physical version of my e-book for Strelka Press, 'Dark Matter and Trojan Horses: A Strategic Design Vocabulary' (Read the background to that book here.)

Potential readers either wanted a physical version for various reasons—to work with as class material in a university context; for reading preference, or didn't want to use Kindle or iBook or Bookmate—yet still wanted to read it. In fact, one of my reasons to saying 'yes' to series editor Justin McGuirk's kind request for a book in the first place was a plan to publish in both e-book and print-on-demand format, moving from the former to the latter based on demand, interest and results. Although I was very happy to be writing for Strelka, one of the more interesting schools around, and also to be writing in great company, I was also interested in exploring issues of format. (They've also subsequently built up quite a catalogue - tip: the Metahaven book is a corker, and the new Till et al looks good too …)

Well, Strelka Press have now launched some very good print-on-demand versions of all their e-books, including 'Dark Matter…'.

I grabbed a copy a few weeks ago, and can report that they're really well-done. I still think print-on-demand needs to be done properly, as a service, but this is a big step forward by Strelka, in terms of design and content. They've written a good blog post about their approach to the design. (I note they've also tweaked their approach to the design of the e-books too.) Though Dark Matter… was not exactly an image-laden book, given I was writing for e-book originally, the diagrams work much better on paper. And books handle well, of course—while this one is not exactly mid-'60s Pelican in terms of editorial, hey, it feels the same.