Artist Books

We got the chance to go and look at the artist book collection at Vernon Street on Friday. They are really interestingly bound and put together reflecting the content of the book. There was one that Chris showed us by an ex Visual Communications student who is originally from China, she had using the inside part of her suitcase to make the cover and used the label holder as the title for the book. The content of the book was all about her journey from China to England and her experiences and things she had collected in England, in the centre there was an image of her suitcase and from there the book became all about what she would be taking back to China with her. Unfortunately I did not get a photo of the book! He showed us all differently bound books using different weights of paper and fastenings. One book had a feather on the front cover and a ribbon intricately wrapped around it to keep it together. One idea I really liked that he showed us was 9 different little books placed in a box with 9 boxes within it for each one to sit in. All of the books are artworks in themselves as well as in the content, they are carefully designed and thought through. We then got the chance to look through some of the boxes ourselves.

Scrapbook style.

Inside the book; cut and paste look.

I really like the idea of creating a box for the book to be placed in and protected. It adds another element to the reading experience. In this case, this book was on many separate pieces of paper so the box is a way to bind and keep them all together. The images on the paper were simple and clean.

I just really like the cover for this book. The illustration accompanied by simple arrows and lines draws enticed me to pick it up, it is well lay out for this purpose.

I really enjoyed looking at the artist books. It gave me a lot of inspiration about ways to make binding and the books more unusual and raise the viewing experience. The book doesn't have to be bound in a conventional way, the more unconventional ones are the most interesting to unravel. We had a bookbinding workshop on Monday which was really fun, getting stuck into bookbinding again! The tutorial tomorrow with Matt will help me become more sure of my ideas for the Visual Language so I can start to develop content and direction.