Owls See Clearly at Night | Lii Yiiboo Nayaapiwak lii Swer

This past Saturday Simply Read Books launched Owls See Clearly at Night at Collage Collage. Owls See Clearly is an introduction to Michif, the language of the Métis people. Michif is a combination of Cree and French and used to be a common language in the Prairies, but is now disappearing. This book is a resource to help preserve Michif and it is also beautifully illustrated and carefully conceived by Julie Flett.




If you would like to know more about Michif, here are some resources from the book (click on the image to enlarge), including the online Métis Museum, which contains educational resources, stories and more.


This book was designed by hundreds & thousands, which is my design studio. It is typeset in Electra and Syntax. The book proportion is 1:1.1 and was derived from a 4-column grid in Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typography (incidentally and randomly, the grid is patterned off an ancient Egyptian text—it was an almost perfect fit with the material). The paper is a really beautiful off-white which was recycled. It printed beautifully. It's really great to see how well recycled papers are performing these days. A few years ago there weren't many to choose from.