Paul Sahre regrets…

Picture_17

So here’s something I have *never* seen in someone’s portfolio: A small link to a ‘regrets’ section of a project. Spotted over on Paul Sahre’s site. The regrets paragraph reads:

Please note the ridiculous typo on the front cover, which in effect, re-titles one of the most important books of 20th century. I just noticed this today May 15, 2007, more than 4 years after this redesigned cover first hit the bookshelves. The correct title is “A History of Western Philosophy.” I wonder if Lord Russell would have been ‘philosophical’ about this? “Mr. Russell, the graphic designer thinks the title works better on the cover this way: ‘A’ would hurt the rag, ‘The’ works much better.” I am now sitting in my office, with my chin resting on my fist, thinking about the thousands of philosophy students who have read this book and NOT noticed this.

Oh, and by the way, here’s where you can get yourself a copy of A History of Western Philosophy.

UPDATE: I’ve actually just spent some more time on Paul’s site and discovered and entire REGRETS section. How much do I respect and admire Paul’s honesty?! Wouldn’t we all have tons of material to fill such a section of our site with?

5 Comments leave a comment below

  1. Wow, thank you for sharing this! I feel like doing the same thing, I think it would make me feel better about a lot of the design regrets I have that make me cringe every time I see them in a book store.

  2. Might want to correct the typo on the link to his site, unless of course its an intentional regret… Paul Sahre not Share’s

  3. The Amazon book you link to is just called “History of Western Philosophy” :-/

  4. This is great stuff. Very admirable that he share this as the rest of us try to bury these bits of our history. (We’ve all done it)

    It’s funny to see some of the additional typos throughout the regrets section of the website such as…

    “…will probubaly end up…”

    From the Fur Extra Rounded regret.

    Maybe that’s part of the self-satire? Brilliant.

  5. I’m a philosophy student who spends most of his days studying Russell, and I didn’t notice.

    The massively ironic thing is that Russell, at the turn of the twentieth century, spent a huge amount of effort in giving philosophical and logical analysis of the definite and indefinite articles- he would certainly not have liked the change!