Courses
VART3216 Cover to Cover (3 units)
- Prerequisite:
- VART2215 Typography or VART2217 Illustration or (VART2495 Digital Tools: Graphics Software and VART2496 Digital Tools: Desktop Publishing) or (VART2497 Basic Illustration and VART2505 Experimental Illustration) or (VART2506 Typography and VART2507 Type Design) or (VART2515 Graphic Design and VART2516 Editorial Design)
- Medium of Instruction:
- English
For centuries, reading a book was the only one way of savetravelling to faraway places, unknown cultures and bold adventures. Even time travel and the transforming to another identity were possible while lounging in an armchair at home and reading a book. Today we have more opportunities to get into a story by listening to an audio book, watching movie or playing computer games. But even the medium book is changing its nature from analogue to digital (Kindle and iPad, only to name the famous one).
Despite all these innovations, the traditional printed book is still the most common and most successful distribution format for text- and image-based content. Still the number of printed publication is rising every year. Book design is still the ultimate achievement for any 2D-designer. The innumerable contents of books cannot be covered by one standard design of an anonymous iBook. Not just the physical design of the "anatomy" of a book—spine, cover, binding, front, body, and back—but also the canons of proportion, grids, formats, openings and page design in combination create the essential experience of a good read. And these are only the basics. In addition a digital book cannot replace the sensory experience of touching, smelling and hearing the pages of an analog book.
This course critically evaluates contemporary book design by exploring the changing formats of the book in history, and in the context of the visual arts: as craft, as product, as art and as medium. It introduces the business of publishing, and its terminology, as well as essential knowledge of printing technologies. Most of all however, the course aims at providing the tools, skills and creative approaches to design and produce a book with self given content and constraints.
After all, it is the purpose of the course to create a book that does not depend on conventional templates but develops from an understanding of competing conventions. The course builds confidence in creative organization and management of content for a wide range of publication practice in contemporary visual arts. It is the point of culmination within the course sequence of the Graphic art-cluster that intends to bring together all previously acquired skills in one project.