shell (2019)
book, bookbinding, earth, graphic design, layout design
A hand-bound coptic stitch book. shell explores the climate crisis and the modern, humanized era of the Anthropocene. each story and its accompanying images are protected by an inner booklet, but as the reader moves towards the back of the book, the text spills closer to the edge. the cover is risograph printed.
Starting with a single object, shell was designed around the subject of protection, or the lack thereof. I designed this book to try and protect the content as much as possible. The body copy is all placed within decently sized margins so when the reader is holding the book, their fingers do not cover or touch the words. The content contains five different stories of environmental protection and the realities of the climate crisis. Each spread also contains an inner booklet that fully covers the words. For any essay that contains images, they are all contained in these inner booklets as well. I designed the book to slowly go from highly protected to less and less. As the reader moves along within the book, the words, sentences, and ultimately paragraph spill out into the white space that was initially there to protect, the booklets also no longer fully cover these words. This also translates onto the cover. I chose an image specifically that has this transformation within the image itself. The cover of the book is full of trees and on the back, the reader can see the destruction of this forest.
I printed this book on recycled paper and hand-bound each signature with thread. The cover is risograph printed and I sewed this on to attach to the body while hiding the thread within the spine of the book.
