I'm interested in how books are meant to be functional and legible to the reader, and yet can be flexed in many different ways to express ideas or draw attention to itself. It's a very strict appropriation of style that is happening, much like in architecture. Is this too limiting? Does it have enough substance for proper exploration?
If people know of any dated books that I can access from Dalhousie or NSCAD that express an ideology by content and design, let me know!
EDIT: I'd like to clarify my topic, since it seems there is room for misunderstanding. All three books are expressing manifestos. For example, Jan Tschichold is proposing that the best designs have been done by engineers. He mirrors Le Corbusier in that design must be stripped of ornamentation, that it must be purely functional. Therefore, the design of the book is using a sans serif typeface that has been tracked, with a strict grid in place that contains all content. I want to explore and delve into this duality of content and design.
i think your essay will be succesful if you give enough attention to the designers, and the different trends/styles going on when they did the covers. you can only read into an image so much, but yuo already knew that. it's an interesting topic...
ReplyDeleteKhuyen, I think book design is a fascinating topic to explore. NSCAD has a great selection of Artist Books which are done in limited editions which might be of interest. Also, Joe Landry has an amazing collection of books and is a great fountain of knowledge. He teaches book arts at NSCAD. Also, if you are interested, I can lend you a beautiful children's book about colour. It was designed for the blind and has won several prizes.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff. I think you could find three manifestos republished since 2000 by the same designer that strove to be true to the periods ---as is the translation of Die Neue Typographie (1928). This is unapologetically 'retro' by adapting the title page design of the 1928 edition. The research project could very well explore the tension between such later editions intended for a mass audience (which operate with 20-20 hindsight) and the 'originals.'
ReplyDeleteYou could find 5 different copies of Sigfried Giedion's "Mechanization Takes Command" and research the design history of that single book too.