The book “Brief Records for the Memorial to the Victims of Communism 1940–1991”

We are glad to report that another book has been published, titled “Brief Records for the Memorial to the Victims of Communism 1940–1991”. This time the volume number was 8/6. The client was the Estonian Memento Union.

Our contribution to the book was digital data processing, layout, photo editing and the design of the cover. Naturally we also handled all the communication and coordination with the printer, diPri.

Laying out short records

A collection of brief records is a different task for the typesetter than narrative text. Every record is short and there are thousands of them, which means every decision repeats across the whole book: column width, type size, the gap between records and how the name, date and place are distinguished.

Use of space matters here too. Half a millimetre gained in line spacing means dozens of pages fewer in a substantial register — and that goes straight onto the printing invoice. At the same time the saving must not come at the cost of legibility: the book is used for looking things up, not for reading through, and the eye has to move quickly between records.

The same series

From the same series we have also laid out “Register of Those Deported from Estonia 1945–1953”, “Register of Those Deported from Estonia 1940–1941” and “Crimes of Communism in Estonia — Supplementary Register”.

You can browse the book here.