"JeJe's grandfather was a librarian at an old library in the middle of the forest" is how Tae-Eun Yoo's stunning debut begins. From here Yoo takes us on a magnificent illustrated journey with JeJe as he explores the library with his little red fish at his side. Soon JeJe falls asleep and when he wakes he finds that his comrade has disappeared into the biblio-ether of the library. To find his fish JeJe must dive head first into a book, entering a magical new world in pursuit of his little friend.The soft elegance of the sepia-toned illustrations carry us along,...
Words Divide, Images Unite: A Visual Language Celebration
We are a couple of weeks away from Utrecht Manifest's 2nd Biennale for Social Design and one of the main events is an exhibit titled Lovely Language: Words Divide, Images Unite honoring two of the titans of visual language, Otto Neurath and Gerd Arntz. These two pre-Tuftian kings of envisioning information created their own language of textless pictograms as a way of conveying quantitative information with social consequences. They called them Isotypes. "It was an organized attempt to use graphical design for the purpose of achieving changes in society, primarily through visual education of the masses, and especially by presenting...
Beauty and the Bookmark
book·mark - a ribbon or other marker placed between the pages of a book to mark a place.The Centre for Fine Press Research in the UK at University of the West of England is doing some great Book Art related stuff.One of their projects, which began in 2004, is Bookmarks: Infiltrating the Library System, an annual celebration of the bookmark which has featured the work of almost 200 book artists since its beginnings with each producing an edition of 100 bookmarks for free distribution. Their goal is to encourage people to "appreciate artwork in the format of 'bookmarks' and to...
A Grand Exhibition of the Book Art of Edward Gorey
at the The Book Club of California in San Francisco. The exhibit features items from the collection of Malcolm and Karen Whyte. Malcolm Whyte was the proprietor of the Troubador Press and published a number of Gorey related titles including Gorey Games and Gorey Cats.The exhibition opens Monday October 29th and runs through the end of January.Whyte will be giving a presentation on the exhibit Monday at 5.Image above from "The Unstrung Harp" © Gorey Charitable Trust
Herbal Remedy For Your Sick Books
Tran Van Luu's entire library was damaged by a typhoon last year. All his "books were flooded in mud and seawater and some of them [were] damaged by moths."Luu, a farmer in Vietnam, concocted a potion of native medicinal herbs to help restore the damaged books.The process:Boil the herbs then use that water to wash the books.After washing. Embalm the books with medicinal herbs and let dry in sunlight.The result:Pages are cleaned and do not stick together.Books are "sweet-smelling" and mold-free.The potion Luu developed is also non-toxic and environmentally friendly."Luu’s method to preserve ancient book by medicinal herb won the...