Wim Crouwel Reprint
Out of context: Reply #28
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Its difficult to answer that one really as I didn't set the price structure for the 3 items you use as an example.
These books all belong to the designers who created them and they are their own personal file copies, so to some degree they are the price which the owner is willing to accept to part with it. I personally had nothing to do with the pricing structure of these items so I am not in a position to really comment on why, but not wising to duck your question I will try to give you some relevant information and please bear in mind it takes a lot of time to answer responses of this nature and not wishing to spend my lifetime on blogs or getting embroiled in lengthy dialogues about every single detail in how Blanka operates. Lets just say if you like what we do, then thank you, if you don't like what we do or what we sell, remember that thee is no one forcing you into buying from us and you have the last laugh by not giving us your custom.
Yes admittedly Process of printing was given away to a very select and lucky few people who were valuable clients of Team Impression, I myself was also one of those lucky enough to be given a free copy of it, but this particular book is at least 5 years old now, they were very beautifully designed and printed and obviously cost a considerable amount to manufacture, they were printed to a very short and limited print run and they they were never made commercially available anywhere and hence were very much sought after as an item. Now that they are in limited numbers and are becoming rarer to find there is more of a premium attached to this item and this appears now to be reflected in the price, its unfair to compare pricing to an item which was available several years ago at a much lower figure to the price it is set at today.
I was lucky enough to buy Wim Crouwel Mode en Module, ECM - Sleeves of desire and Karel Martins Printed Matter book at the time they went on sale and the fact that they now sell for over 20 times the original cover price, is just a fact of life really. Would i pay the price that they go for today, in these 3 instances, yes, because they are beautiful items. If you want a copy of something rare and are willing to pay the price then fair enough, if you think is overpriced or you don't love it enough then don't buy it. There are things that I personally would and wouldn't pay a lot of money for. I recently bought a copy of the 3 issues of Der Spiele from the Munich Olympics 1972 Organization report, and I paid quite a considerable amount of money for it, it's probably the most I have ever paid for a book. Some people would look at it and say it was overpriced in comparison to its original price [was it sold or was it given away to the Olympic members, who knows, I digress], but each to their own, i think it was worth every penny I spent on it and it gives me much joy to look at it. The same is true of my copy of Graphis Diagrams I also paid a premium for this and I have enjoyed every second of reading it over the many years i have taken it down from my book shelf.
Blanka has always tried to source and find print which isn't widely available elsewhere. We look to get items which are now out of print or are in short supply, like the Spin annual report which are beautifully designed reference points and make them available to other designers, but unfortunately because of this, there is also a slight premium involved in working this way, after all its not like you can log on to amazon or go into Waterstones to pick up a copy. And finally, with regards to the This Studio posters, like you say it is priced very reasonable and its a very beautiful poster, its nearly a third of the price of the Design Project book, yet the book, which you deem to be overpriced, has sold probably 4 times as many copies as the poster, yeah I know, go figure! So hopefully you can see or understand how hard it can be to second guess what will and wont sell and what value to attach to every item. We always try to make or sell beautiful items [albeit hard to find elsewhere] but we do think long and hard about every item and how we price things accordingly. Each item is different either because of the designers involved, the rarity of the item, the year that the item was originally produced and also the price it costs to manufacture, so each of these variables determines what value is attached to the final thing.
I hope this covers your points, sorry is not a more succinct answer but as you can see there are many factors to consider when pricing an item and I hope that we get it right nearly all of the time, As I said above in my initial post we do get lots of positive emails and we do have a steady amount of sales which tends to suggest we are getting it right in most of the things we do, Thanks for your feedback and hope this answers your questions.
- Very well put dude, not that you should have to justify it on here.Sane_Six