The Fourth Quarter

Books about clubs can leave people who aren’t members of the club feeling lost. Why would any normal person care about a battle over dues or what was served for dinner in January 1982? We can’t answer that question. This book hits all the boring marks. But it is not boring. It is a record of what designers, publishers, printing salespeople, curators, and librarians in Boston were thinking about and doing between 1980 and 2005. The Society of Printers is the oldest graphic design organization in the country and it’s interesting what and who had their attention—and what and who didn’t.

But now a personal note: When we were young, we came across the predecessor to this book, The SP at 75, in a used bookstore in Syracuse, New York. We’ve no idea why we bought it—and that goes double for why we read it. But it was our introduction to the Society of Printers and its community of designers in Boston. Without the SP, there would be no Katherine Small Gallery. So sometimes these clubby books do serve a purpose for those not in the club.