Detta Penna
Penna Design + Production

For 15 years, the Bookbuilders West Distinguished Service Award has been given for outstanding service to Bookbuilders West and to the book publishing industry. At our December Book Show, the 1997 Distinguished Service Award was presented to Detta Penna.

Detta's creative talents and focused energy have enhanced her contributions; her contagious humor and love of the art of building books have brought many people into both our industry and Bookbuilders West. In 1969 Detta arrived in San Francisco and started her publishing career, working at Miller Freeman, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Wadsworth, and M&T Publishing - covering both the trade and educational sides of the industry. In 1985 she started her own design and production firm, Penna Design + Production. She has won design awards from the Chicago Book Clinic, Women in Production, and Bookbuilders West.

Detta's first involvement with Bookbuilders West was with the 1974 Book Show; in the next 23 years she worked on practically every BBW committee. Detta has been chair of the Education Committee and has spoken at numerous seminars. She chaired the Kickoff Event, taking us to new places - such as Candlestick Park to see the Giants and to the Bay Meadows Race Track. She has been on the Board of Directors for two terms, and was president of Bookbuilders in 1996. On the Book Show committee several times, Detta has designed the Call for Entries, designed the Book Show catalog twice, and served as a Book Show judge. In 1991 she and Gary Head chaired the Book Show and revolutionized the award presentation with a multiple-screen slide presentation.

In 1994 Detta chaired the Book Show again, this time with designer Jamie Sue Brooks. Detta and Jamie created a CD-ROM, which was distributed with the catalog. The CD held the catalog along with video clips of the judges discussing the entries, plus the entire 25-year history of Bookbuilders West in text and pictures. Detta and Jamie Sue also created the Founders' Video, bringing together five of the early founding members and videotaping their reminiscences, helping to preserve an important part of BBW history.

In addition, Detta has been the guiding production force on the BBW newsletter for the last ten years, making it a showcase for new technologies - starting with PageMaker production, then Quark XPress, then adding digital photographs, then Docutech printing, then direct-to-plate, and now waterless printing. Of all the national book production organizations, our newsletter is the only one with 4-color issues year round; it is also, to many, the best designed.

In her acceptance speech, Detta reminded us that books do make a difference in the world and that bookmaking is both a job and a labor of love.

Congratulations, Detta!