Paperback series — Book Design



An elevation of the paperback book

These books are a representation of the importance of readership and its repercussions in society. As a designer, I am a mediator between content and the physical object and can give further context to the reader.  I hand-bound each book and silkscreened all imagery.  

Method: indesign, photoshop, silkscreen (thermal ink), paper | 30% cotton

To Kill a Mockingbird

This book speaks to human rights and school books.  How relevant  are the books we read in school? I integrated excerpts of contemporary authors who depict stories of their experience living in american society today.  

The Satanic Verses

This book speaks to censorship. A book that as been banned and burned the book represents that books hold power. To show the reader context of the books history outside of the story, I screen blocked with thermal ink the sections of the book that were deemed offence to certain communites which can only be reveled by warming the ink to show the words. The edge of each chapter is burnt, for each chapter the burning rises alluding to the public burning of the book. 

Those Barren Leaves

This book is a play on type. The story’s characters believe themselves to be better than most because of their knoweldge of classical theory. This cultural satire shows them for what they truly are—small and insignificant. The more you read, the larger the margins become to reveal the insignificance of the characters. When the characters quote classicism the text is typset in blackletter. 

La Casa de los Espiritus

This book is a representation of personal choice. We read culturally, as a Latina, I have access to Hispanic books and choose to read stories that have a deeper cultural connection to me. La Casa de los Epiritus is a generational story about a Latin American family. I attached my own background by screenprinting pictures of my mother and grandparents in colour changing thermal ink and turning them into my personal generational ghosts making them a device of magical realism—ghosts that can be seen.

Screenprinted images in thermal ink, changes colour while warm. 

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius

This book is my personal experience as a reader.  I integrated my research and the languages I speak. The white pages are the original language (spanish), the grey is english and off white is french. Within the pages are small replicas of the Encyclopedia Britannica often mentioned in the story and a reference I used to understand the topics or names Borges mentioned in the plot.