Imperfect – A bike ride from NYC to SF

Leo Tolstoy once wrote that every happy family is alike, whereas every unhappy family is unhappy in their own way. Likewise, every perfect book is perfect in the same way. This book does not belong to the category of perfection. Indeed, it is imperfect in numerous ways.

The text above is from the back cover or our book Imperfect. It is in many ways a curious book. It lacks covers, but comes in a box. When opening the box the reader first finds a single leaf note printed on one side. This note serves as an instruction as to how to handle the book so that reading is possible. The first words on the note tell the reader: “You will need a knife”.

The reason for such a strange mandate stems from the fact that the edges of the books are not trimmed. Meaning that in order to enjoy the contents of the book the reader has to cut open the pages themselves. Now at first this might seem like unnecessary attempt at making something different only for its own sake, but this would be a mistaken notion. In our books we always look for some reason for choosing a particular form, and Imperfect is no exception.

To explain why this form was, if not essential for the book, then at least beneficial for telling the story I will however need to take you on a small detour first. But in the end I promise that everything will be clear(er).

In a previous post I shared with you how we tried (and failed) to gather funds for a bike trip across the United States. But even despite our much lacking financial acumen we managed to make it to New York City. On the 3rd of June 2016 our great bicycle adventure began from the corner of the 17th St. and 2nd Ave. Our destination was the Pacific Coast, though at this point we didn’t dare tell anyone about it. We just said we were on our way to Delaware, and even then we were met with ill-hidden skepticism.

If you think that riding a bike across a continent wouldn’t be difficult enough by itself, we decided to raise the stakes and combine it with an art project. We had previously written and published books about our adventures, but these books had been conceived of and made after the journey already had ended. One example of such a book is Tour d’Europe in which we told the story of us cycling from our hometown Porvoo in Finland to Nice by the Mediterranean Sea.

The project we now envisioned was different, and in a sense simple enough – each day we would send out a postcard. In these postcards we would document our journey, where we went, how we felt, who we met, and what we thought about. Kaisa would illustrate and write the cards, whereas I would hop into the post offices to get the stamps cancelled by hand, as to provide the artifacts with yet another level of information.

The recipients to the cards were my young niece and nephews Alwa, Edwin, and Wilhelm, who at the time of our trip were 3, 6, and 8 years old and lived in Helsinki, Finland. Our reasoning was that the kids were at this point too young to understand or even care about the antics of their old relatives, but that in the distant future they might wish to learn about what we had done.

That we called our book Imperfect was born out of the fact that in making it we had to give up much of the control a graphic designer takes for granted. This is to say that there was a built-in randomness into the process. There was no chance to edit the already sent pages. Nor did we know what would happen the next day. Or even which cards would actually make it across the ocean. Making the book was for all intents and purposes an analog live-streaming of our adventure.

The more we thought about postcards, the more miraculous they began to appear to us. A postcard is not restrained by the same boundaries that control us: It crosses not only spatial borders, but temporal ones as well. Postcards speak to us in a voice that is simultaneously static and dynamic. Their voice is static inasmuch that which is written with ink on paper stands, but dynamic in the sense that their voice will have a different tone and meaning when read fifty years from now, compared to being read today. Which is to say that the meaning of the postcards will grow along with the kids.

The cards took their own road. We rode on ours. Fields of green turned into prairie, and prairie turned into mountains, forests and desert. Then one day in August we stood on the shore of the Pacific Ocean. And just a few days later we rolled over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco. Against all odds we had crossed the continent. Our expedition was now over.

The next adventure was turning all this into something publishable. Our experiment of documenting our journey had been a success, at least as far as we were concerned. So why not share it with the world? First we sought permission from the kids, it was after all their cards we wanted to publish. To our great relief they granted us permission. Or at least cared too little to actually forbid us from moving forth with our book plans.

But you are really here to hear about the typography, right? Well, we’ve got you covered! The typeface we chose for our book is Cheltenham. It is a roman influenced by the aesthetic sensibilities of the Arts and Crafts movement, and drawn by Bertram Goodhue and Ingalls Kimball in 1896 in New York. It is a well-known typeface, and one with a fair share of idiosyncrasies. Characters that have, while much loved, also been at the receiving end of some criticism. The venerable American printer and historian of typography Daniel Berkeley Updike wrote: “Owing to certain eccentricities of form, [Cheltenham] cannot be read comfortably for any length of time.”

We could think of no typeface better suited for our book than Cheltenham. It is far from perfect but makes up for any such deficiency with a most charming personality. The missing old style figures for the typeface were drawn by our trusted lettering artist Teo Tuominen in the fall of 2016. He is also the person to credit for the beautiful script on the back cover post card.

Along with the instructions on how to handle the book, the book block itself and the box it came in, we also included a map. This map depicts our slow progress across a continent, with statistics underneath to further illuminate what took place and where. But the main thing we sought to convey with the help of the map was all the kindness and help we received throughout our journey. While it might seem bleak at times, this trip imbued the two of us with a strong conviction that there still is hope for humanity, even when it doesn’t always feel that way.

Postscript

Once the book was published we hosted a party to celebrate in its honor. The posters shown below advertised the event. The images depict our feelings regarding the journey: The underdog who took a serious beating but still remains standing, and the strong pioneer lady who is prepared to fight for what she believes in. In the third one you can see young Alwa being held by me. (She got to participate as the representative of the kids, as the brothers had already made their appearance in another project of ours. But that is a story for another time.)