Altered Book
Hipster novelist Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated, Eating Animals, etc.) has the design world abuzz with his latest project, a commercially printed altered book. What does this mean? He had the idea to take his favorite book, Bruno Schulz's Polish classic The Street of Crocodiles, slice it into pieces, and reconstruct something new; a story within a story. But he didn't do it with just one copy, as most book artists do. He decided to find a publisher who would print the final product, titled Tree of Codes.
A paper engineering challenge, several printers turned down the job. In the end, the publisher, Visual Editions, found Belgian designer Sara de Bondt and a team from Die Keure, who figured that it could work if the binding was paperback.
Foer told Vanity Fair, "I just love the physicality of books. I love breaking the spine, smelling the pages, taking it into the bath. . ." In Fast Company, John Pavlus wrote of the book, it "will fly in the face of anyone who says that physical books are passé. Tree of Codes is tactile, interactive, immersive--and it won't ever run out of batteries."
Pretty cool stuff. Read more about it at Good magazine and the Telegraph.
A paper engineering challenge, several printers turned down the job. In the end, the publisher, Visual Editions, found Belgian designer Sara de Bondt and a team from Die Keure, who figured that it could work if the binding was paperback.
Foer told Vanity Fair, "I just love the physicality of books. I love breaking the spine, smelling the pages, taking it into the bath. . ." In Fast Company, John Pavlus wrote of the book, it "will fly in the face of anyone who says that physical books are passé. Tree of Codes is tactile, interactive, immersive--and it won't ever run out of batteries."
Pretty cool stuff. Read more about it at Good magazine and the Telegraph.
