The beauty of paper books cannot be replaced

The beauty of paper books cannot be replaced. It is a house, where the soul of books resides.

Book designers are like architects, brick by brick embodying the essence of books, and good design can better participate in the construction of meaning itself. How to appreciate the design of paper books? For example, the collection is divided into three series: history, culture, and thought, with differences in design and connections between the series.

Exterior design

The book cover sets an empty stage, with the protagonist Mr. Qian in the center of the stage. The inspiration comes from a passage by Mr. Qian in "Literary Meaning in Chinese Peking Opera": "The performance of Chinese opera can be said to be performed on an empty stage amidst a clamor

2. The minimalist setting of the stage is related to the content, such as the use of water ripples in traditional Chinese patterns, which are often used on the cuffs and hem of dragon robes and official uniforms, and are related to political power. The discontinuity of the book cover's ripples represents the theme repeatedly emphasized in the book: the rise and fall of traditional Chinese politics, as well as its disappearance.

Internal sealing design

The cover of traditional Chinese books with a porcelain blue inner seal is usually tied with a plain cloth surface. Local publications have been using porcelain blue cloth surface since the Song Dynasty and it was still mainstream until the Qing Dynasty. All three series are related to traditional Chinese culture, so they also use this traditional color scheme, only adding and subtracting saturation.

2. Mr. Qian Mu's personal seal, which appears on the inner seal in a concave manner, has three series and three different seals. Spine design

1. The cycle of cool and warm colors is composed of three series of colors: historical, cultural, and ideological. Cool and warm colors cycle back and forth, and the change in color temperature represents the cycle of human history from fanaticism to rationality. Readers can start from any book and construct a spine gradient order in the order of publication. The design inspiration comes from Bach's music - cyclical, with different voices forming palindromes.

2. The punching history series is single hole, the cultural series is double hole, and the ideological series is three hole, which also facilitates readers to classify books based on the number of holes.

Latest Collected Works: In his later years, Qian Mu recounted his life, the ups and downs of a generation of literati in turbulent times, and a record of the events of the 20th century in China.

©   This article is excerpted from designer Ai Teng

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