Our family business specializes in producing classically designed scholarly books, museum-quality exhibition catalogues, and art books, as well as various graphic materials (from bookplates to pamphlets and brochures) for libraries, museums, and individuals. For the highest, museum-quality books, we use the services of superlative offset printers, using fine-screen halftones, as well as smyth-sewn binding for soft- or hardcover books. We take the project from initial typescript and images to the finished bound book, performing copy-editorial services (if requested), typesetting, design and layout of text and images, design of binding, jacket, cover, and/or slipcase, as well as handling the production services—this last involves soliciting bids from several printers and overseeing the production process from printer’s proofs through bound books and delivery. In collaboration with the customer, the book’s format (shape and size), typeface, paper, binding style, &c., will be chosen, and samples pages, binding mockup, and stages of proofs will be submitted for approval. For the appropriate project, we also design and oversee the production of books printed by letterpress at the Press of Robert LoMascolo or at the Press & Letterfoundry of Michael and Winifred Bixler.
Self portrait.
Mark Argetsinger, the paterfamilias of the family business, has been a free-lance book designer and copy-editor since 1990. Before his over two-decades-long stint as an independent designer, he worked as an assistant to a letterpress shop in a Cistercian monastery. After undergraduate study in Classics (Greek & Latin) and Ancient Philosophy, he studied calligraphy at a studio in New York City. He worked as a book designer at A. A. Knopf in New York City and at Princeton University Press, the latter from 1984 to 1987, and then, before setting up independently, served as a book designer for Meriden-Stinehour Press, Lunenburg, Vermont, from 1987 to 1990.
Sophie Argetsinger, daughter and partner in the business, attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, receiving a degree in 2007 for her work in Buddhist Studies. She serves as a designer, editor, and indexer, and is also a talented illustrator. You can see examples of her work here on our site, or on her website.
Kathryn Argetsinger, materfamilias, received her Ph.D. in Classics in 1989 from Princeton University. She taught in the Department of Religion & Classics at the University of Rochester, New York, from 1990 to 2009. She serves as a scholarly editor with polyglot expertise in ancient and modern languages.