Dizaina Studija. Telpa Forma Laiks

ILIANA VEINBERGA talks to director REINIS TUKIŠS and editor AINĀRS KAMOLIŅŠ of the new publishing house 1/4 Satori

Two in one, or an entity called the literature and philosophy portal 1/4 Satori, which has existed in the World Wide Web for its fifth year now, this autumn gained its own “brother (or sister) in name”– the publishing house 1/4 Satori! Why do ideas inspired by the virtual digital environment need this “old-fashioned” tangible manifestation? And how is this all related to design?

The literature and philosophy portal Satori.lv has challenged many ideas, ideals and a morality, arguing both about the mission and essence of philosophy and about what is good and bad literature; what it is like in our country and what it is like on other shores. In relation to some discussions, oil has been poured on the fire by the fact that the portal creators as well as a large part of its readers are young people with a democratic attitude to concepts such as tradition and the literary canon. That’s why the fact that the creators of this portal have established a publishing house is worthy of note, the aim of which, in their own words, is “to flood the Latvian literary space with fresh blood and to supplement a number of theoretical discourses. Practically this means – to publish new authors, whose literary contribution seems bright and significant, and to translate authoritative foreign authors, who can expand the understanding of the local audience about a number of significant philosophical and cultural themes.” The most fascinating part of this process is that commercial factors are secondary, while qualitative book design is especially significant...

Dizaina Studija: Why have the owners of the internet portal ¼ Satori.lv decided to establish a publishing house – isn’t a virtual environment enough? What is the aim of the publishing house?  
Reinis Tukišs: To my mind there are many fields in which the virtual environment and the tangible environment do not compete. I am pretty sceptical about the so-called e-books as potential replacements for printed books. It seems that the internet is a very competitive media, when we are talking about short text – news, articles, essays, short stories and poetry, although for a lot of reasons longer texts are much more comfortably read in a tangible format. In light of this, the publishing house is like a continuation of the portal, or an expansion – call it what you will. It could be said that one of the aims of the publishing house is to make those texts accessible which due to their size it is not possible to publish on the internet. It is an attempt to expand the themes that are addressed in the portal.

DS: What type of publications are published by 1/4 Satori currently and in the future, what is the target audience? Do the publishers see a dissatisfied component of Latvia’s reading audience?  
R.T.: The target audience is the residents of this country who, for various reasons, take an interest in various cultural fields, particularly philosophy and poetry. “Take an interest in”, are the most significant words, it seems, because at the moment the focus of the publishing house is on literature, which could very qualitatively interest readers about the themes of “philosophy”, “literary theory”, “Barthes”, “Kafka” and others. For this reason we are publishing the Oxford University series “A Very Short Introduction”, which is simultaneously competent, easily understood and interesting summary of various cultural themes.
Another focus is local authors, who, to my mind, have great potential and who are able to offer something fresh to add to the local literary landscape. For example, Ilmārs Šlāpins’ poetry book significantly differs from other poetry books which have been released recently in terms of content.
I think a potentially dissatisfied group in the audience of readers is those people who would like to explore various philosophical questions more deeply, but they do not have access to literature in Latvian in which they could begin to explore, for example, about the philosophy of Nietzsche.  

DS: What is the publishing house’s perspective on the design of books it has published and will publish? R.T.: At 1/4 Satori design is not just the packaging, but an attempt to supplement the content of the book, to offer a new perspective: how to view it. For example, in the case of Blackburn’s book, the monkey on the cover obviously contrasts with the content of the book, and this can be interpreted as an ironic reminder about the narrow opportunities to completely understand the “big issues” addressed by the book. The ink spots on Šlāpins’ book and the four different cover designs invite one to view the book and its content as a potential accident, which – very possibly – it really is. The excavators on Ingmāra Balode’s book cover allows one to see many profane attributes in the fine poetic world of the author. And so on. To my mind, the ideal book design reveals something new about its content.

DS: Do the books on philosophy, which are also published by 1/4 Satori, have some other design strategy which differs to poetry books?
Ainārs Kamoliņš: The main function of books on philosophy – the same as any other book – is to communicate the message which is found in the text. Therefore the overdone “artistic” design of a publication could disturb work with the book and understanding of the thought encompassed there, which is the primary task of philosophical texts. I would like a publication to be noticed not because of its bright covers, but because of its ascetic and tasteful design. In my opinion the most successful examples of philosophy books can be seen in the Cilvēks un sabiedrība (Man and Society) series and also in the books published by Liepnieks un Rītups. Of course, I also like the design of Simon Blackburn’s Domā (Think).  

DS: What is the significance of design in book publishing generally? Do you fulfil some of your ambitions and ideals through your activity, or do you take the potential “consumer” into account?
R.T.: I do not like a majority of the design of books published in Latvia. To my mind, most of the designs look as if they have been arbitrarily created and they don’t correspond to any graphic design standards, and also can’t be related to a concept of “good taste”. There are, of course, pleasant exceptions, such as, for example, Neputns and Liepnieks un Rītups.
Our global ambitions are fairly modest – to publish books which each have a well-considered visual concept, which follows formal graphic design standards and at the same time contains valuable content.

DS: Publication costs, funding sources – how much of this does 1/4 Satori dedicate to design needs? How significant overall is the design part of the budget?  
R.T.: We have been relatively lucky in this sense, because the designers with whom we work, for example, Dagnis Skurbe, Ernests Mucenieks and Ēriks Šulcs, are very successful in the commercial field and they know that 1/4 Satori is quite a non-commercial business, and therefore willingly create book designs for “revolutionary prices”, as you jokingly suggested.   

DS: There are many types of designers – according to what criteria does the publishing house choose its book designers?
R.T.: In the case of 1/4 Satori our book designers are people with whom we have similar interests and who I value highly in a professional sense. For example, I have known Dagnis Skurbe, who is currently our main designer, for a long time. Incidentally, he created the designs for the portal Satori.lv, which have changed over time – I think, four times. I know his possibilities and professional interests, which in our case are usually similar. Dagnis’ field of specialisation is expressive lettering, which is currently a very popular design trend globally. Its influence can be seen both in the design of Blackburn’s book and the design concept of the series “A Very Short Introduction”.  
As the book authors often have quite a large influence in terms of their published works in 1/4 Satori, both Ilmārs Šlāpins and Ingmāra Balode themselves chose their book designers, searching for the most appropriate designers for their texts.  

DS: What do your publications look like on the background of other Latvian publishing houses? How important is the aim to stand out? Will you participate in book design competitions?  
R.T.: Of course we will participate in design competitions, but this will not be an end in itself. We have no particular wish to stand out. We simply want the books to look well thought-out and enjoyable and to relate to answer to various academic design criteria. In our designs we want to play upon the leading design trends globally. In Latvia’s case it is possible that this is a special kind of “standing out”. Hopefully.