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STICKY fingers

About STICKY fingers

'STICKY fingers' is a somewhat irreverent moniker we have adopted for a new digital imprint of the Porcupine's Quill. The imprint will offer short, attractive, informative editions that explore the intersection between Canadian literature and the book arts. These editions will draw on archival material from back issues of the Devil's Artisan, newly formatted and packaged exclusively for mobile devices.

Each chapbook in the series will be available in ePub for iPads and Android tablets, and Mobi for Kindle devices, and will retail for $2.99. Back issues of the Devil's Artisan will continue to be available in print from Abebooks and in PDF from our proprietary eStore and from Magzter. And the Porcupine's Quill will continue to print books on the Heidelberg KORD at the shop on the Main Street of Erin Village as we have done since 1974.

Everything is new under the sun, and yet, nothing changes.

Print culture, right handy.

The Porcupine's Quill is all about print culture. Our mandate has always been to preserve the culture of the printed word by using 20th-century offset printing technology to simulate the quality look, and feel, of a 19th-century letterpress product. Which is not to say that we are Luddites; we (mostly Stephanie) are not, but we (mostly Tim) do insist on a sophisticated awareness of typography that manifests itself in Rod McDonald's Cartier Book embedded in each digital file. Old-style figures and true-cut small caps included. We care about letterforms—it is what we do. Whether on paper or on a tablet makes little difference, but we do letterspace small caps. It's important.

Now Available

Coach House at Fifty

Coach House at Fifty
A Retrospective

by Various Authors

Coach House at Fifty looks back at an underreported slice of the complex history of one of Canada's most celebrated small, literary publishers, and particularly the impact of changing technologies on book design and production at the shop on bpNichol Lane in the shadow of Rochdale College.

Featuring texts by Dennis Reid, John Maxwell, Tim Inkster and David Slocombe.

Fabulous Peculiarities

Fabulous Peculiarities
The Art of Tony Calzetta

by Tom Smart

This edition traces the artistic evolution of Canadian artist Tony Calzetta, whose penchant for experimentation and ability to both work within and subvert the rules has resulted in a unique and complex but unified aesthetic.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Lewis Caroll
wood engravings by George A. Walker

This edition of Lewis Carroll's beloved classic celebrates Alice’s spectacular adventures as well as her equally spectacular artistic heritage with a uniquely modern twist: over one hundred whimsical, eccentric and darkly humorous wood engravings by the ‘Mad Hatter’ of Canadian graphic arts himself, the award-winning George A. Walker.

Seth's Personal Canadian Vernacular

Seth's Personal Canadian Vernacular

by Seth

This edition examines the inspiration for and evolution of the personal graphic style of Canadian cartoonist and designer Seth. It considers the influence of printed ephemera on the notion of Canadian style, and grapples with the importance of place and the difficulty of conveying Canadianness in design.

The Fleming Files: Allan Fleming's Life and Works

The Fleming Files
Allan Fleming's Life & Works

by Various Authors

The Fleming Files: Allan Fleming's Life & Works delves into the wide-ranging body of work produced by Canadian graphic designer Allan Fleming. His designs, familiar not only to typophiles, have become part of the Canadian landscape, from the iconic CN Rail logo to stamps for Canada Post. Learn all about this fascinating designer through eleven articles featuring over fifty images to add illustrative accompaniment.

Other Fingers in preparation include features on icons of the Canadian book arts such as Allan Fleming, James Reaney and Frank Newfeld as well as wood engravers Gerard Brender à Brandis, George A. Walker, Rosemary Kilbourn and Alan Stein.

About the Type

Carl Dair

Carl Dair

Our ebooks are typeset in Rod McDonald’s Cartier Book, a digital rendition of Carl Dair’s original Cartier, which was presented as a centennial gift to the people of Canada in 1967.

Apart from Cartier, Carl Dair (1912–1967) is perhaps best remembered for his Design With Type, first published in 1952 then revised and republished in 1967 by the University of Toronto Press.

Rod McDonald has worked both as a freelance typographic designer and on staff at renowned typesetting companies such as Mono Lino and Cooper & Beatty in Toronto. His commercial typefaces include Cartier Book, his interpretation of Canada's first typeface; the Laurentian family, originally developed for Maclean’s; Smart Sans, named after Canadian design pioneer Sam Smart; Slate, Egyptian Slate, ITC Handel Gothic and the Gibson typeface, which McDonald produced in homage to the late designer, John Gibson.

About the Logo

STICKY fingers logo

The STICKY fingers logo conveys the unique, somewhat cheeky character of the imprint while also paying homage to the rich history of Canadian print design. The type, set in Cartier Book, consists of an fi ligature on a burnt orange background. The shape is reminiscent of a monotype sort (a piece of type representing a letter or symbol) and the ligature is a rather transparent reference to the 'stickiness' of our name. The background colour is a nod to Carl Dair's seminal book, Design With Type, and the manicule is a recent acquisition from Canada Type.

Stephanie

STICKY fingers will be curated, coded, produced and managed by Stephanie Small, who completed her Masters in Public Texts at Trent University with a particular focus on the eBook and who has accumulated an impressive catalogue of ePubs she has produced for a number of corporate and individual clients. For the past several years, she has acted as the digital sales and marketing specialist at the Porcupine's Quill. Stephanie is based in Windsor, Ontario.

The Porcupine's Quill would like to acknowledge the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. The financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) is also gratefully acknowledged.

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