• Tristram Shandy all done!

  • Open sesame! Thanks to design studio A Practice for Everyday Life’s choice of stunning fluorescent orange, Tristram Shandy’s playfulness is brought back to life.

  • The black page from Tristram Shandy—ours uses text that has been overprinted from previous chapters.

  • And a shut door is a folded page.

  • Zounds! The visual elements in our edition of Tristram Shandy set out to highlight and exaggerate what Laurence Sterne intended when he first wrote Shandy.

VE1
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

£15 ($25) + P&P

Shandy, playful and brilliant, as Sterne intended.

Introduced by Will Self

“A lot of nonsense is written about Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman – and that’s just as well. It would be depressing in the extreme if this triumphant tangling up of the threads of reason with the strands of linear narrative were to admit of any effective unravelling; which is as much to say, that were you to find yourself picking apart a lucid, non-discursive exposition of the novel – its themes, its techniques, its plot – you would know that you had finally gone mad.”
—Will Self

When talking to people about visual writing, conversations always seem to come back to The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (or, just Shandy, for short).

The book was originally published in the late 18th century in nine volumes and is still, by far, one of the most contemporary books around. When we say contemporary, we mean in terms of how it looks and reads. The sad thing is, though, Shandy has long been relegated to the realm of cheap and nasty classic editions and has lost its magic and lustre along the way.

When we briefed design studio, A Practice for Everyday Life, we asked them to breathe new life into the book’s design, adding new visual elements, while staying faithful to the original spirit. We also asked Will Self to introduce the book, and that he did, with typically irreverent brilliance.

Design by: A Practice for Everyday Life

Published 21 September 2010
ISBN 978-0-9565692-0-2
Paperback, 688 pages

VE1
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Nose Poster: Orange

£5 ($9) + P&P

Orange

...the excellency of the nose is in direct proportion to the excellency of the wearer’s fancy… Chap XXXVIII, Vol III

Here is a poster that takes noses for all their perfections and imperfections, in the spirit of Shandy’s own less than perfect nose.

The posters are designed by A Practice for Everyday Life. They measure in a small, but beautiful 269mm x 430mm and come folded. They are available in orange and white.

VE1
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman

Laurence Sterne

Nose Poster: White

£5 ($9) + P&P

...the excellency of the nose is in direct proportion to the excellency of the wearer’s fancy… Chap XXXVIII, Vol III

Here is a poster that takes noses for all their perfections and imperfections, in the spirit of Shandy’s own less than perfect nose.

The posters are designed by A Practice for Everyday Life. They measure in a small, but beautiful 269mm x 430mm and come folded. They are available in orange and white.