The commission
Pre-press production – editing, typesetting, proofreading, jacket design, provision of print-ready files – and printing
Comment
This book was the first fruit of a collaborative partnership between Bourchier and iB2 Media, the trading name of a new publishing entity founded by Iradj Bagherzadeh, former chairman of the highly regarded publisher on the Middle East, I.B.Tauris. Bourchier functioned as the production arm: working closely with Iradj and Sir Michael, we selected the images, created the book design, arranged typesetting, proofreading and also arranged jacket design and printing. But there was a sad ending. With the book just launched and a cluster of other books in the course of production, Iradj suddenly passed away in early 2023. So this was both a beginning and an ending, testimony to one of Britain’s ‘finest and cleverest publishers’ (to quote Alex Wright, a friend and former senior commissioning editor with I.B.Tauris).
![](https://bourchier.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/iB2-copy.png)
Below: The first proof – opening pages of two chapters. The typeface of these pages was subsequently changed; the final design used a sans serif font for the chapters number and titles.
![](https://bourchier.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/chapter-1.jpg)
![](https://bourchier.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/chapter-3.jpg)