Writing machines.

I will never underestimate the power that fonts and layout have on the message of a book after reading Writing Machines. I truly found it challenging to read, what with all the font and size changes. I was distracted by the writing so much that I realized just how much the presentation of a book means to the reader. I am the type of person who does literally judge a book by its cover. There are books that I tend to enjoy reading more because of the cover. I like soft cover books with soft pages, like the Scribner copies of all of my Hemingway novels.

Speaking of Hemingway, I wonder what his work would be like placed in this sort of setting. His simple and concise way of writing would surely be fun to change around a bit, whereas I would be completely opposed to changing the text of the "Blankness as a signifier" article because it was already hard enough to read without an text changes.

The ideas that I had from reading this book were summed up completely in this sentence: "Tracing her white-gloved fingers over the rich papers, Kaye thought about the interplay between materiality and mind these beautifully crafted objects initiated" (74).

Materiality is something that I have always paid attention to before in reading books, but I never grasped the idea enough to give it a name, or even to think about it as Kaye did. While Writing Machines was written by N. Katherine Hayles, under her name is the name of the book's designer, Anne Burdick. Since when do books have designers? I mean, sure, children's books and some other novels have illustrators who design the cover, but to have an actual designer for an entire book places such importance on the materiality of the book. It says that books are more than just words and text--books are an art form.

With the increase in audio books, with them being sold online through the popular iTunes and with their extreme convenience for those who are on the go, I suppose that the hard copy books take pride in their ability to use materiality. Just like with hard copy newspapers as opposed to daily news websites, designers are stepping it up so that newspapers are appealing to the reader.

To me, works like "A Humument" are more of an art form than an actual piece of text. I am not sure that I have the patience to sit down and read something like that, but I would like maybe a portion of it framed to hang on my wall. While freedom with design is important, and as I mentioned before, a way to take advantage of materiality, I feel like the reader is who you are serving and function should definitely be thought of when creating the form. I do not feel that the pages of "A Humument" are very reader-friendly. While I do understand that this particular piece is an example of abstract art, this sort of form would not work with a serious piece of text that needs to be completely taken in.

I think that form needs to take into account the reader and the message that the text is trying to convey. Just like when a word is set as bold to denote importance, the form of the text should just be conveying the message of the text in a visual way to complement the power of the words.