We are thrilled to be knee-deep in the production of Sideshow by Rigel Stuhmiller, the newest Small Plates edition from Imprint, the publications arm of SFCB.

Jump on over to Rigel’s blog to a see step-by-step, detailed account of the book making process- from design to test printing to production!

Sideshow is a collaborative bookmaking project of the San Francisco Center for the Book and artist Rigel Stuhmiller. The book follows the rise and fall of a circus. The format of the book, ten double- sided pages, uses two storytelling channels to mimic the duplicity of a performance. Bright circus posters on the front side of the page are the show presented to the audience. The back sides of the pages are the behind-the-scenes: newspaper clippings, notes, and various ephemera that tell the story of the lives of the people who create the performance.

Sideshow is part of the Imprint of SFCB’s Small Plates series in which selected artists and writers create compact letterpress-printed books issued in limited editions. Our most recent artists in this series include Michael Wertz, Emory Douglas, Ward Schumaker, Daniel Gonzalez, John Hersey and Allison Weiner.

All images courtesy of Rigel Stuhmiller