ANA ASCH


Creative Director // Branding // Brand Identity
Book-object with french fold binding inspired by John Tranter's short story The Lost things in the Garden of Typetaking the reader on a journey through the world of typography. 


The author tells the story of his visit to the city of Bembo, in the Isle of Sans Serif, to see his aunt's Garden of Type, in a text full of puns, curiosities, and history.

Whenever an interesting or unusual fact is mentioned, the typesetting amplifies it: when they talk about bustrophedon, the lines on the following page are flipped to follow the back and forth of the ancient text style. Words float or drip from a line when the aunt talks about writing with ink at the space station. Flowers, embroideries, and symbols are built from the typefaces mentioned in the story.


But the reader might not know what is behind those playful arrangements and that’s when the french fold binding comes in. Hidden in the book's inner pages, like a physical hyperlink, lies a more thorough  explanation about each concept.

And in order to access it, the reader will have to rip the pages open.

There’s no dotted line, the cut will not be perfect or even, but unique, done with the help of the bookmarker hanging from the book spine. Your gardening tool.

It's not necessary to open them at all, since the story runs unaffected on the 'outside' of the pages. The choice should reflect the reader's willingness to know more, revealing new layers of information through each reading.

Marked irreversibly on the book, digging for more knowledge, with time these physical changes will reflect the change in the way the reader understands the text.
_

Diplom Graduation Project at ESDI (Superior School of Industrial Design) - 2008