"THE GOLDEN GOBLET" EDITORIAL TYPE
"The Golden Goblet: the Guerrilla Girls and their War on Invisibility" is an anthology of essays by Beatrice Warde and Alice C. Chave. The essays are titled The Crystal Goblet, or Printing Should be Invisible, and The Guerrilla Girls' Reckoning, respectively. The pairing was inspired by an extreme distaste for the rigidity of Warde's essay and, thus, the impulse to pair it with a bold counterpart to her argument. In choosing an essay about the Guerrilla Girls’ movement, the publication was led in a direction based on rebellion against invisibility and subversion of unjustified authority.
A quieter, reserved beginning accompanies Warde’s text, is abruptly interrupted by the Guerrilla Girls’ letter, and then continues with a pertinently-phrased Guerrilla Girls’ publication acting as a transitional element between the two essays. “You’re seeing less than half the picture” is recontextualized to visually render Warde's disregard for the artistic potential and validity of typography. Therefore, ending the book on this image ties up loose ends while also reminding the reader of the piece's overall argument.
The most strenuous part of the making process was that which handled how the two texts would ultimately interact and be digested. Initial iterations included the two essays directly interacting on each spread, but it was later decided that strategically separating them would enhance clarity and the pace of one's reading. The insertion of the Guerrilla Girls’ letter spread was meant to foreshadow the entrance of Chave’s essay, and also to actively disrupt Warde’s argument just as she first starts pursuing it.
Typography II, Fall 2017
