Exercise 1.2:​ The Future of the Book

Brief

“Whenever I hear the word ‘reader’, I reach for my mobile device. Today’s ‘reader’ is as likely to be a digital apparatus or software interface as a living person leafing through the pages of a book. Countless hardware and software products are designed to display, filter, push, and aggregate published matter. Screen readers turn text into speech, creating accessible material for sight-impaired users. News readers digest blogs and news posts, feeding them back to users in quick-view formats stripped of context, while digital readers serve up books and magazines for instant consumption.”

Ellen Lupton, G​raphic Design: Now in production,​ 2014. Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

Given the current development of the book from printed to digital technologies, what do you see as the future of the book, for readers, and book designers?

Where do you see the book heading?

Show and tell. Try and summarise your thinking into a series of short statements, quotations, images (collage) or ideas.

Be creative in how you approach this. Use your learning log to reflect on the essay and your own thoughts and visual ideas about the future of book design. This research will feed into part of your first assignment.

Analysing the Brief

It is really interesting how the concept of ‘the book’ has and continues to evolve and change. Our ancestors started by inscribing important information onto rock and papyrus, the printing press was invented in the 19th Century democratising reading and bringing the printed word to the masses. Today we read information from screens rather than paper, although the purpose of the words remains the same.

I have decided to approach this project as a photomontage/mind-mapping exercise where I can just throw ideas at a canvas and create a collection of text and images.

Photomontage: The Future of Books

Images: Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Kindle image by free stocks.org on Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/kindle-technology-amazon-tablet-12627/ Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Mobile phone image by Tyler Lastovich on Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-iphone-7-on-brown-table-699122/ Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Gramophone image by Skitterphoto on Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-and-black-gramophone-594388/ Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Pile of books image by Anthony on Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/book-stack-books-classic-knowledge-158834/. Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Closed sign image by Chris Panas on Pexels. Available at: https://www.pexels.com/photo/close-up-photo-of-sorry-we-re-closed-sign-on-glass-window-2467649/ Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Sad emoji image by Donna Senza Fiato on Pixabay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/photos/emoticon-emotion-smilies-faces-3437387/ Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Douglas Adams quote. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/print-books Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Steffenee Miller quote. Available at: https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/design-and-creativity-quotes/Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Audiobook quote by Paul Acampora. Available at: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/audiobooks Accessed on: 31st August 2019

Reflection

I have really enjoyed this exercise as it allowed me to be creative while I explored the concepts of books and reading. Books are a huge part of human history and it can be viewed as a bad thing that the physical books seem to be under threat from new technologies and changing lifestyles.

In many ways the digitalisation of reading is a concern for book cover designers as we are losing the concept of the artwork being a part of a solid, tactile object. You can’t run your fingers over pixels! On the other hand though it can be seen as an exciting challenge, full of new potential and ways of working. Ebooks, often being free and just a click away may go some way to make up for the loss of our public libraries; reading shouldn’t only be for the rich.

It all depends on your perspective and I am looking forward to exploring this further in Assignment 1.