Breve storia del libro manoscritto
Editorial Design | Art Direction
Editorial Design | Art Direction
A visual book is not just a book.
A simple book is held in the hands, it is weighed, it is scrutinized on the front and back covers, sometimes even on the wings. A simple book, at first glance, is leafed through and only subsequently read with more attention. A simple book is made up of paper and typographical characters.
A simple book is held in the hands, it is weighed, it is scrutinized on the front and back covers, sometimes even on the wings. A simple book, at first glance, is leafed through and only subsequently read with more attention. A simple book is made up of paper and typographical characters.
To concretely illustrate these concepts it is necessary to take as an example a volume that is part of an editorial series: a collection of writings, often of a similar genre, standardized together to create a series. This approach makes the artefacts all perfectly the same, despite each having its own identity. Similarly, a visual book is composed of sheets and typography but cannot be classified as a simple book as it has an essential component: the project
The designer evolves the work as a simple two-dimensional system, giving it a fundamental basis for the conception and creation of elements that aim to enrich it. He creates a path starting from a profound origin of the contents of the book, crossing them and offering the reader an even more penetrating immersion in its meaning. The very structure of the visual project is specifically designed to manifest the essence of a specific book as each element has a specific reason for existence within the work and would be reckless if applied to another work. This three-dimensionality makes the artefact capable of capturing the user more through the addition of a series of sensorial levels to simply browsing the pages. The designer reorganizes the perception of the work, enriching it with specific devices that will allow a three hundred and sixty degree reading experience.
The project, therefore, is based on the in-depth analysis of the original text to capture its foundations and communicative objectives, then moving on to a research phase in order to broaden the horizon of the printed text. The resulting product, therefore, materially and graphically expresses the cultural contents of the text. The aim of the project is precisely to make a simple book a visual book.
In the Final Synthesis Laboratory of the 2020/2021 academic year, the publication titles examined belonged to the theme of Writing. In particular, the book analyzed in the following pages is the essay for educational purposes Breve storia del libro manoscritto, whose author is Professor Marilena Maniaci.
