# Cover commission for Make Ready.

The chosen cover (first edition). This file describes the board as
accepted, exactly, so it can be regenerated or reproofed if the original
file is ever lost. Save the accepted image as `assets/cover.jpg` (JPEG,
quality 88, roughly 2:3 portrait). Proofread every line of lettering at
full size; a misspelled cover is a misprinted board.

## The board

A Victorian cloth book cover, front board only, straight on, no
perspective, no mockup, no drop shadow. Bright orange bookcloth in a
thick, coarse linen weave, the texture clearly visible across the whole
board. A thin ruled double border of stamped metallic leaf follows the
board's edge, with small engraved corner flourishes in the same leaf.
Everything stamped is bright metallic gold leaf catching light against the
orange linen.

Near the top, large, in wide-set engraved serif capitals stamped in leaf:

MAKE READY

(The title's period is deliberately omitted on the board; at stamping
scale it reads as a flyspeck. Every interior page keeps it.)

## The emblem

Below the title, a large circular emblem in a thin leaf ring, rendered as
a dense wood engraving stamped in gold. Inside the roundel: a mechanical
gripper arm, jointed and riveted like Victorian press machinery, descends
from above holding a single metal type sort bearing the letter R, in the
act of lowering it into a partly filled forme of type seen in perspective
below. Filling the background of the roundel, an enormous engraved human
eye with fine hatched shading watches the placement, its gaze fixed on the
sort. The eye is the witness; the arm is the compositor. Dense hatching,
single-color leaf, no gradients in the artwork itself.

## The subtitle and attribution

Beneath the emblem, a small leaf ornament rule, then the subtitle stacked
and centered in engraved upper-and-lowercase letters, reading exactly:

OR, A Printer's Manual for the Age
of Mechanical Compositors; OR,
How One Person and Several Tireless
Machines May Keep a Small Press Honest; OR,
Why Every Page Deserves a Witness
That Could Have Said No

Then a second small ornament rule, and at the foot, wide-set engraved
capitals in the same leaf, reading exactly:

CLINT ECKER

Nothing else on the board. The whole composition solemn, symmetrical, and
sincere, like a serious technical manual from a serious press, which it is.

## Author portrait (optional back-matter plate)

A wood engraving, single ink, dense hatching: a proprietor in shirtsleeves
seen from behind at three-quarter angle, standing at a Victorian composing
frame, holding a proof sheet up to gaslight. His face is not visible. At
his elbow, a small horned demon in a monk's habit holds the ink can,
looking up attentively. If accepted, save as
`assets/woodcuts/the-proprietor.jpg` and place it in the author page.
