Text Visuality and Book Experiment of a Novel

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Graphic Design MA Graduation Project at Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, 2013

My graduation project is a typographic experiment, a visualised set of questions. My starting point was the novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by an Italian writer, Italo Calvino. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is a self-analysing piece, a book about book-reading, a story of stories. It is been so evident for long that paper is the bridge between literature and the reader, so I decided on using the tools of printed media to emphasise its role in a digital era. The effects of the printed text on paper are complemented by the tools that paper provides: plying, tearing, rotating or using its transparency.

My diploma project reflects on the theme of reading by different layers of typography. Firstly, as a readable text in the format of a book; then by strengthening the visual elements, it becomes text visualisation and text seen as image. It examines reading habits and text and image relations. Letters become a sort of abstract illustration for the text which creates a personal graphical translation of the original work. My project consists of three parts: the book, a booklet and posters. In the booklet quotes from the book appear, but here the ratio of text and image was changed. The booklet has a different audience – the quotations are understandable without reading the book and can be a platform for new interpretations. The posters are completely separate from the novel, they are to be seen rather then read; they are a dense subtraction of the novel and its concept.

I experimented with a collection of techniques in order to reach a multi-layered typographic interpretation of the text. By stressing points, changing scales, operating and altering the text-textures, switching formats and sizes, I meant to create a graphic design toolset, which transforms text to image back and forth. The end result is a step out from under a book’s cover. With the variations of the text and image relations I asked the question again and again of how we read and why we read.

A mestermunkám Italo Calvino kísérleti regényét, a Ha egy téli éjszakán egy utazó-t dolgozza fel a tipográfia több szintjén – olvasható szövegként könyv formájában, majd a vizuális elemek hatásának növelésével a láthatatlan tipográfiai megjelenésből eljut a képként szemlélhető tipográfiai megoldásokig. A grafika az eredeti szöveg vizuális interpretációja, melyben a tipográfia az észrevehetetlen közvetítő szerepe helyett a szöveg absztrakt illusztrációjaként jelenik meg.

Italo Calvino regénye könyv a könyvről, történet az olvasásról; így ma aktuális kérdéseket vet fel a nyomtatott könyv jelenéről-jövőjéről és az olvasás pszichológiájáról, melyet grafikus szempontból is érdekes lehet körüljárni.

Az eredeti szövegből kiemelésekkel kiadvány készült, mely a regény ismerete nélkül is értelmezhető. A kivonatolt szöveg képként nézett szöveggé, szövegképpé válik.

Témavezető: Balla Dóra
Konzulens: Maczó Péter
Opponens: Somogyi Krisztina

Fotók: Szántói Lilla

The Table of Contents can be folded out and with the chapters' numbering it indicates the atmosphere of each chapter.

Each new chapter of the segmented novels begin with a typographic illustration.

Opening illustration of the first fragmented novel, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler.

The chapters' indication system.

The Booklet

In the booklet quotes from the book appear, but here the ratio of text and image was changed. The booklet has a different audience – the quotations are understandable without reading the book and can be a platform for new interpretations. The posters are completely separate from the novel, they are to be seen rather then read; they are a dense subtraction of the novel and its concept.