Orange to catch the eye and then black and white.
Creating pleasure, stimulating sight.
Images contrasting, dark and light.
Clashing shadows tend to fight.
Hundreds of books, a sea of bindings.
Holding stories, facts and findings.
A linen cover caught my attention.
A decision made with no suspension.
The book AR-artistic research was conceived through a one-year collaboration between Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)and the German company Siemens-Stiftung. Multiple artists contributed essays to the book about their work and how they combine art and technology. The book is designed by Novamondo (Berlin) and no individual names of designers are given which may mean that a number of people were involved in the design of the book.
AR-artistic research has 131 pages bound in a hard cover. The image on the cover, designed by Jae Rhim Lee, has an interesting circle structure in fluorescent orange. Later in the book you come across the same image and realize the circles are mushrooms. The fluorescent colour really caught my eye. The orange/red colour fills almost the whole front of the cover. The image is screen-printed onto cream coloured, linen-like material that is very pleasant to hold. The hardback cover has the quality of a painter’s canvas.
Looking through the book I immediately realized this fluorescent orange plays an important role in the design of the book. The colour returns on almost every page, usually emphasizing significant images or important parts of the text. The rest of the book is printed in black and white. The futuristic fluorescent orange in combination with traditional black and white create a fascinating relationship with many surprises.
AR-artistic research has four chapters that have no images. These chapters, which are full of text, were surprisingly one of the first things to catch my eye when I first looked through the book. In these chapters the designers play with the three colours (orange, black and white). I think limiting yourself to these three colours is an interesting decision. To experience this limitation myself I decided to experiment with the colours.
I combined black with the fluorescent orange and afterwards I did the same thing using white. Throughout my experiment I used the same orange tone, yet the colour seemed to change. This effect is called the contrast effect. It is an effect that you see everywhere though I had never properly taken it in. Using the contrast effect within design, you can create a structure of importance in size, shape and colour. The designers of AR-artistic research make great use of this effect. The fluorescent, eye-catching orange is a good contrast to the more inconspicuous black and white. The designers also create a lot of contrast in image and font size. This gives the reader the impression some images or sentences are more important than others. It also creates interesting layouts and some very fine prints.
There are five images in the book that cover two complete pages. The images are mainly photos and in every image the light and dark juxtapose each other. My favourite image is of white mushroom roots on a black background (see GIF below). The simplicity of the image and the differences in light and dark are very impressive. I think it was a good decision of the designers to dedicate two pages for this image. If the image was smaller the reader might not give it as much attention because of its simplicity.
This is the first time I have focused on the design of a book instead of content, which was an interesting experience. Not only have I learned a lot about the book’s design but I have also learned a new way of looking. I hope now not just to read the content of a book but also to read the design. I have also fallen in love with this particular colour of orange.
AR–Artistic Research, designer: unknown, Rietveld Library Cat. no: 700.8 met 1
