For the Voice

For the Voice, first published in 1923, has long been recognized as one of the finest achievements of Russian avant-garde bookmaking, a tradition in which poets and artists collaborated to create books that attained the status of art objects. By any reckoning, For the Voice is a landmark event in the history of modern graphic design. The book was inspired by the "new optics," where ideas are given form through printed letters, turning them into pictorial signs, and by "words that are seen and not heard," as Lissitzky wrote. This three-volume slipcased set consists of a facsimile volume that is faithful to the original in size, color, weight, and paper quality; a translation by Peter France of the original text; and Voices of Revolution, a collection of critical essays that analyze the character and significance of the original publication and describe the inner workings of the poet's "construction in sound" complemented by the designer's "constructions for the eye."