Thoughts on culture, publishing and design.
Comments on our processes, coding and content.
Note by Chad Rossouw
17th February 2021
So I wondered if I could build a single page app, and explore React in conjunction with Wordpress. The first step though was to set up custom endpoints using the WP REST API. I was surprised at how intuitive and powerful this process is.
Note by Matthew Blackman
03rd February 2021
2020 proved a disappointing year for our publication of South African classics. We attempted to get the copyright for Peter Abrahams’s Path of Thunder, a book on interracial love just before the beginning of apartheid proper. Sadly we were not able to acquire it but are delighted to hear that Faber and Faber will be republishing Abrahams’s novels.
22nd October 2020
A book and a website are two very different animals. Matthew reflects on the importance of resources, and the challenges of converting a book into a website.
13th October 2020
The challenge of this redesign was trying reflect the core principles of creating engagement and insight into the artworks and artists themselves, while moving away from the white grid with black text.
18th August 2020
In 1976, someone threw a petrol bomb into an office at Lovedale. Terrified that irreplaceable historical artefacts might be destroyed, the publishing house transferred its records to Rhodes University. In the course of the move the original typescript of Mhudi surfaced…
I needed a typeface that could hold up on relatively cheap paper and that was legible and compact. To offset this, the typeface needed to have a little elegance. Finally, the aim of the series is to reintroduce African fiction from the 20th Century, so I needed something bookish, but definitely not nostalgic…
