Looking through the aisle of books in the library and trying to find that one book out of hundreds that I could be interested in was a difficult task. So instead of picking out every book and inspecting it in detail, I chose to find a book that I found interesting purely from the spine. This meant I was looking for a unique bind, or a unique choice of material. Both these criteria are too often ignored in my opinion, for example if your book is in amongst thousands of books in a library, with only the spine visible, I think it is essential to give your publication that little bit extra to set it above the rest.
So I came across a small book crammed in at the end of an aisle called ‘Mechanisme’ and it stood out for three reasons. A) It was bound with a traditional Japanese binding. B) It was so much smaller than all the other books around it. C) It was made from a very textural recycled card. It’s no bigger than a CD case, yet it has more character than the majority of the books in the design section. There is something personal about it, as it is almost definitely handmade, so it has a delicate quality to it. So delicate in fact that it is falling apart slightly. To be honest I was slightly disappointed when I decided to check out the contents of the book, although it was made using very nice materials it’s design was far too bland and the actual purpose of the book wasn’t clear, as far as I could tell it was a book explaining the contents of different materials. The cover and general outer appearance gets 10/10, the content however 5/10. But at least it was interesting enough to stand out from the rest.
Rietveld Library cat.nr: