Tile, food, travel, DIY craft—all between two covers.

Yes, this world is becoming more digital by the minute, but did you hear the sales of print books are through the roof, too? We’re glad, because no matter how many news sites you can access on your tablet or services you can call to your door with a smartphone, there’s joy and purpose to that simple, millennia old codex you can hold in your hand. No batteries or power cords needed. Nonetheless, if you’re going to expend the time, money, energy, and paper (hopefully recycled) to create such a thing, you better make it memorable and engaging. That’s where we come in. Case in point:

Volume’s longstanding relationship with Heath Ceramics continues with the design for their new book, Tile Makes the Room. This weighty tome highlights creative uses of tile to enliven any kind of space, empowering readers to go beyond the boring monochromatic square tile solution. And continuing the Volume tradition of books as tactile objects, feel that cover…mmmmm, it’s like we tiled every cover individually by hand.

For Thomas Keller’s latest cookbook (his sixth), we were tasked with creating a book that extended and expanded on the Keller brand story. Released 20 years after the first French Laundry cookbook, this new tome is reverent of Keller’s quarter-century history at French Laundry while also evolving the Keller brand to compete in the lively, crowded cookbook space of 2020.

The cover invites the reader to put on a French Laundry or Per Se apron and cook alongside the staff of these sister restaurants. The design frames the many meticulously considered recipes while also giving the reader a sense of the people, processes, and places that informed their creation. The design is rich and refined, with an attention to the fine details. But it’s never excessive, mirroring the experience of eating at these two seminal restaurants.

Rob Forbes’ See For Yourself: A Visual Guide to Everyday Beauty is a handbook, a meditation, and a travelogue all wrapped into one visual package. Our design incorporates all these modes and straddles the line between sophisticated and accessible, visually showcasing Rob’s principles of “seeing for yourself” and how they can enrich our everyday lives.

Written by the co-founders of ReadyMade magazine, ReadyMade: How to Make (Almost) Everything is a book of all original projects and articles that revolves around the re-use of six fundamental building materials—paper, plastic, wood, metal, glass, and fabric. This hybrid of how-to, editorial, and historical content appealing to the young, environmentally-conscious set yielded a design that is simultaneously smart and fun, structured and chaotic, sophisticated and accessible. And we even made shirts, too!

Other Projects

Kalliopeia Foundation

Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

SFMOMA / CCA / Weatherspoon Art Museum