Where is the most beautiful book in the world?

"Roaming: Architectural Experience and Literary Imagination" cover

A book related to Shenzhen, Roaming: Architectural Experience and Literary Imagination, was awarded the title of "World's Most Beautiful Book" in 2011. It is a message from the just-concluded activity of Leipzig's "World's Most Beautiful Book" in Germany. This bilingual publication published in the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Design for the Biennale Project a year ago stood out in nearly 600 participating books.

It is reported that since 2004, China has selected "The Most Beautiful Book in China" as the "Best Book in the World" and has won prizes for works from year to year, from "Mei Lanfang (Tibetan) Drama historical materials collection" and "Zhu Yeqing's miscellaneous series". “Cao Xueqin Kite Art” has been designed in recent years by Zhu Yingzhuo’s “Not Enacted” and “The Ants” and by the “Chinese Memories” designed by Lu Jingren, and then took a look at the “Wandering” designed by Ma Yinggeo and Orange this year. These “the most beautiful in the world” What are the common characteristics of the book? What kind of book is "the most beautiful"? What's the point of appreciating the "most beautiful book"? Shenzhen Business Daily reporter interviewed and approached the winners and industry designers to hear their comments.

Beyond the flat concept

Ou Ning is the chief curator of the Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism 2009. He selected nine of the most representative designs from the buildings built in Chinese cities in the past ten years as the exhibition buildings for the exhibition. At the same time, he invited nine famous writers to write nine novels based on the experience and imagination of the scene. The story of fictional people and architecture. This practice project that combines literature and architecture constitutes the content of Roaming: Architectural Experience and Literary Imagination.

As the chief editor of the book “Wandering,” Ou Ning said, “I have virtualized this book into a guide book and used it to structure the content of the book.” This book, designed by Beijing designer Xiao Ma Ge and Orange, has a total of about 400 pages. It uses more than eight different kinds of paper materials and many innovative techniques. It has been very detailed in layout layout, reading rhythm, and visual details. Kung Fu; the cover uses handwriting and stickers to express the title of the book; after opening the front page, a variety of papers of different textures and sizes appear together; the article is interspersed with hand-drawn sketches of architectural project designers.

When the book was awarded the title of "China's Most Beautiful Book" in 2010, the judges commented on it as follows: The cover design adopts the Chinese ancient thread style, which is simple and neat, and at the same time full of fashion sense; the soft paper, natural colors and rich layers; The layout is novel, and the architectural photos and sketches add to each other's images, creativity and creativity.

When the low-key and cautious designer Xiaoma Ge interviewed the Shenzhen Business Daily yesterday, he did not comment on his work. He only expressed that China had won the honor of “The Most Beautiful Book in the World” in the past years. “All of these are carefully designed.” .

Professor Lu Jingren of the book design community told Shenzhen Daily News that “Wandering” is a book with a very sense of design. First, the designer injects the design language based on a full understanding of the text and expands the context; secondly, the editor. The design uses text, images, colors, space and other visual elements to effectively convey text information. Third, it introduces the architectural concept in paper reading. It overlaps the plane concept with paper overlap, and brings the reader with a completely different sense of pleasure from the electronic carrier.

Designers are like directors

Lu Jingren was the designer of "The World's Most Beautiful Book" and "China's Memory of 5,000 Years' Civilized Treasure" in 2009. As one of the major representatives and promoters of Chinese book design, he divides the book design into three levels: binding, layout, and editing. The so-called edit design is the concept of the overall design, refers to the visual shaping of the entire text delivery system. Lu Jingren said that designers are like directors, screenwriters or actors who control the transmission of texts. Texts, images, colors, space and other visual elements in books are a role in the stage of books, with their point, line, and surface. Interesting beating changes, giving the visual elements a harmonious order, making the cover, spine, back cover, heaven, earth, and incision perform their respective functions.

Speaking of “Chinese Memory”, Lu Jingren introduced that his design idea is to visualize the sky, earth, water, fire, thunder, mountain, wind, and zebra represented by China’s most typical cultural spirit in order to build a millennium view of China. The Expo Gallery of Cultural Impressions is designed as a design concept. The content of the book is embodied throughout the book design process. The core position of design is to embody the aesthetic value of oriental culture, and it attempts to infiltrate the entire book's information transmission structure and reading context. The title of the book is selected from the "Zhu Xi List book" written in the "Zhu Xi Bang List of 1000 Characters" and the words "Chinese Memory" are selected for reconstruction.

Zhu Yingji’s “No Tribute” and “Antase” were successively rated as “the most beautiful books in the world” in 2007 and 2008. Zhu Yingzhuo said, “I admire the simplicity and affinity of the design. The books are read by the people, not the jewels used for collection, or the machines without emotions, so the design of the books must be in accordance with the nature of the people and be close to people. Inside."

As an old friend, Shenzhen Zhan Hanning's most remark when he introduced Zhu Yingyun was: “Why his book design can impress people because he incorporates sincere emotion into his designs.” In the design of Zhu Yingji, you can't see what is "Zhu Winsheng" or "Zhu Winsheng Style" and you can see the true thoughts and beauty of the books themselves. He hides his design quietly, restoring to the greatest extent the books and the author's presentation.

Diverse value orientation

Is there a common feature in China’s book entitled “The Most Beautiful Book in the World”? Lu Jing denied that because the judges are not all the same each year, there is no single standard of fun. These books have some traditions, some are avant-garde, and others are a combination of the two, such as the “Book of Songs” won this year and “This year’s Roaming is not a style at all. The former has very Chinese characteristics. Although the cover is simple, it is very unique in folding, text layout and form. This reflects a diversified value orientation.

As for the criteria for judging a “best book”, Lu Jing people believe that the conditions for judging proposed by Leipzig are worth learning from. The first is the perfect combination of design and text content; the second is creative, unexpected, and never allow “cottage” Third, it is for people to read and enjoy, it must have its most exquisite and unique place in the printing production; Fourth, each country has its own local culture, hoping that the work can reflect the cultural value of their own nationalities. The aesthetic value can be recognized and loved by a wide audience.

Xiao Ma Ge said, "The beautifully arranged book is beautiful." She said with deep feelings: “Many Chinese book designers are very hard, especially designers who serve the customers in the system. Now many publishers haven’t even had the right to choose materials and binding methods, so I’ll evaluate regular publications. In general, it is not very demanding materials and printing, and it only cares about its typesetting. The overall design of a book: book forms, materials, layouts are all very important, but only a small part of designers can truly control this in China."

Respond to digital challenges

What kind of book is "the most beautiful"?

The "World's Most Beautiful Book" selection represents the highest honor in the book design world of today's world. Since 2004, the selection of “The Most Beautiful Book in China” has been an important part of the selection of the “Best Book in the World”. “The most beautiful book in China” jury secretary Zhu Junbo said that “the most beautiful book in the world” emphasizes the overall, comprehensive and avant-garde nature of the United States. For example, its cover, inside pages and illustrations are beautiful and harmonious, and cannot be divided into three. Awards to comment. For example, materials, printing, and design are unified. For another example, the United States is a visual and tactile sense. The most beautiful books are good-looking, but they also let the reader feel comfortable in their hands. The most beautiful books are practical but they advocate innovation and avant-garde. The combination of the two can become the most beautiful book.

Uta Schneider is the ** of the German Book Art Association, the organizer of "The World's Most Beautiful Book." When talking about the "benchmark" of the selection, he said: "Content and form are inseparable. Different types of books, styles are also very different. Whether it is pure text books or picture books, book designers must pass their own The understanding of the content, the layout designer's task is: combing the content of the article and the structure of various levels, using a variety of design methods to display the text in front of the reader to make the article easier to understand."

The award-winning work proved to people that what the traditional book media can achieve. In fact, Uta pays special attention to how book design can cope with challenges under the current wave of digital reading and highlight the advantages of traditional paper books: physical and realistic. He believes that excellent editorial design is an important feature of a paper book, so that readers will not be as boring as they are when reading digital texts.