Talk:Phaidon Press

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Untitled[edit]

Parts of this summary are taken from the various historical documents on the Phaidon Press website (http://www.phaidon.com), others from personal knowledge of the company.

While it is a for-profit company, Phaidon is of such paramount important on the cultural scene I think it warrants an entry (as do several other such publishers). I'm very new to this and don't know how to insert links etc but will return to the article later to try to do so.

There is a lot more that could be said about Phaidon -- about specific books of great importance, about various controversies that have surrounded it (for example, there was some kind of a ugly public spat with a famous art historian some years ago), about the art publishing business in general, about debates over copyright and how those affect art publishers, etc.

I apologize in advance for any standards I haven't followed out of ignorance. As I said, I know that a lot of work has to be done to bring the article up to the proper format and standards. But it's a start ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.119.133.114 (talk • contribs) 14:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Founders[edit]

As far as I found out the name of the first Phaidon founder was Béla Horovitz (and not Bela Horowiz – but then, maybe that’s the way he wrote his name in the british exile...). And: there seemed to have been a third founder named Fritz Ungar, who is also mentioned as founder of the Saturn Verlag in Vienna, but I couldn’t get any more information on that person so far. Greetings from the german Wikipedia. -84.137.125.82 19:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Website redirects[edit]

Note http://www.phaidon.com now redirects you to a Phaidon store, depending on what they believe is your location based on IP address. For instance, many European users are redirected to the French (!?) Phaidon store, making Phaidon's main site unreachable and unverifiable as a source. Superp (talk) 20:23, 31 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Photobook contraction[edit]

A decade or more ago Phaidon was publishing a lot of photobooks. These ranged from the small and cheap "55" paperback series upward, to adventurous titles such as Li Zhensheng, Red-color news soldier (2003); Colin Jones, Grafters (2002); Gueorgui Pinkhassov, Sightwalk (1999). Phaidon's photobook list now is much shorter and more timid. Does anyone have a source for what happened here? -- Hoary (talk) 05:46, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Promotional flatus[edit]

Here's what I read:

Their growing list of high-quality, innovatively designed, and genre-defining cookbooks has positioned Phaidon as one of the most influential players in the cookbook industry. Remaining true to their core values of high-quality content with beautiful design, their books are often seen not as cookbooks, but as lifestyle tomes that look just as good on a coffee table as they do on a kitchen table.

This seems to bundle up the following assertions:

Phaidon books are of high quality. (Stated twice.)
Phaidon books have innovative design.
Phaidon cookbooks define one or more genres.
Phaidon has enormous influence in the cookbook industry.
Phaidon books have beautiful design.
Cookbooks are expected to look good on a kitchen table.
Unidentified people view Phaidon's cookbooks not as cookbooks.

Et cetera. In reaction to which one might request or ask:

Disinterested evidence that these books are of high quality.
Disinterested evidence that these books are designed innovatively and/or well.
Disinterested evidence that these books have high-quality content.
Whether it's the cookbook genre that's meant (or which other genres are meant); how Phaidon cookbooks are redefining this genre (or these genres); and disinterested evidence for this.
The nature of the influence.
Disinterested evidence for this influence.
The meaning of "lifestyle tome".
Whether people really expect cookbooks to look good on a kitchen table.
Who it is that sees Phaidon's cookbooks not as cookbooks.

Et cetera.

Shorter version: This looks to me like mere promotional flatus. Where's the encyclopedic content? -- Hoary (talk) 05:46, 7 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]