Our Vision

Even the smell of a book is important.

In the fall of 2002, when we founded Chin Music Press, Yuko, David and I knew we had to find a designer who would understand that statement. Along came Craig, straight out of university and willing to work for peanuts (which is all we had to offer) if we allowed him to make something special. Kuhaku is the result.

While we made Kuhaku, Craig and I had many conversations about publishing. I told him to stretch the limits as he planned the design for Kuhaku, and I would rein him in when he went over budget. That push-pull relationship helped us create Kuhaku while also forging our joint vision for future books.

Here's what Craig has to say about it:

"'Literary objects' is a term that came to be sometime in the middle of 2003, when Bruce and I were discussing what type of book we wanted to make. I longed for well-made books. I had had the pleasure of running into a few up to that point and had always thought to myself, 'Now this is how books should be made, dammit.' Bruce was focused on putting out tight, cutting prose. No loose ends. In essence, I wanted design that fit the content, and Bruce wanted content that sang.

"So it came to be that we realized we didn't want to make everyday 'books,' but instead objects where form, content and purpose were well thought out and executed with passion. We wanted to produce good, focused literature that was wrapped in bindings and papers and smells that interlocked with the content in a way that we hoped people who enjoy well-made things could respect and hold onto -- literature in the form of a well-designed object. Literary Objects."

That sums it up pretty well, I think.

- Bruce Rutledge

Our Muses

Red Canoe's elegantly designed City Secrets: Rome was the first book Craig showed me when we sat down at the Panama Hotel in Seattle to plan the book. The Tennessee design team was gracious and helpful in subsequent email conversations as well. Their motto: "As we live, so we work."

McSweeney's. We are equal parts awed and enraged by them. Enraged because if they didn't exist, we would seem so much cooler. But we love them. Really. I mean, McSweeney's 13 is a work of art. It is without question a Literary Object. Which pisses us off to no end, since we coined the phrase. And it also pisses us off when people say we are stalking them by using Oddi in Iceland to print our book. We are not. We love them, and we would never hurt them. Really.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Tom Sawyer's Comrade) 1st edition, third state, in Powell's Rare Book Room, our own personal mecca. Listen to this description of the book: "First edition ... beautifully rebound with gilt stamped brown cloth by Phoehlein, new endpapers, 366pp. Third state frontis portrait, copyright notice dated 1884 ... A tight, sound copy, if a bit thumbed." A bit thumbed. Ohhh, we love book porn (just look at this opening page!)! And it's only $1,000. When we make our first million, it's ours.