This week, Reader Library, a publication that has become the memory of a generation for 14 years, sent a letter of help to readers on the screen. Zhang Lixian, the founder and chief editor of Reader Library, said in the letter: "In troubled times, Reader Library needs your help. Due to force majeure... this is our sixth change of address...". It used to be an ordinary thing to discount the activities, but the appearance of this letter of help has aroused the feelings of countless people. The first is that the readers remember the little things that have accompanied them for 14 years and cheer them on; Second, the downturn in the book sales market in recent years has also made people think that the future of paper books is really in jeopardy? In fact, this topic is more worthy of discussion for our students studying abroad in book design. Book design, as an important part of the graphic design field, is not only a professional subject in many colleges and universities, but also a project form that students of different majors often choose. Faced with the impact of e-books, physical books, in order to gain a place in the future commercial market, are bound to break the single external form and increase more artistic value in addition to "knowledge". To help you grasp the future direction of book development, today we will talk about how to create more attractive book designs based on specific cases?

　　 1. Break through the routine and try various media

As for the future of book design, the designer Yuan Yanzai said: "Electronic media is just a tool for information dissemination, while books are sculptures of information, and paper is not the only medium. What we need to do is to liberate them from their actual tasks and return to the essence of conveying feelings."

As Yuan Yanzai said, the essence of any form of book is the transmission of information. For the design works of overseas books that are put into the works collection, our focus is not "actual task" - to present the content of the article in a straightforward manner, but to think about the form of information presentation as far as possible, and try more abundant and diverse media.

Like any form of art, art schools are always in the forefront of the times, and take it as their responsibility to cultivate designers who are suitable for future development. Camberwell College of Arts Camberwell had a major before - MA Visual Arts: Book Arts/Book Art. He attributed book art to the category of visual art to explore different forms of expression.

This two-year master's program will stop enrollment this year, but London University of the Arts UAL also said that book art would be integrated into other Fine Art/pure art majors as an academic sector, and emphasized that the development of book design should attach importance to the combination of culture, creativity and functionality.

This also gives us inspiration in creation. Most students will think that the design of books for studying abroad is just a "exclusive" project topic for graphic design majors, but in fact, we should regard books as an independent art form. As long as it is consistent with the project theme, it can be a medium for us to express our creativity.

Wu, a student majoring in pure arts, showed such a special experience in the form of "book installation" in her work collection. She targeted people with deep-sea phobia. Through research, she found that most patients would be afraid of sharp things, such as nails, scissors, etc; And objects that are repeated or recycled;

In order to express these abstract emotions, Wu made them concrete, using spikes, eyeball simulation, grid division and expandable page design respectively. The whole set of "books" has only three pages. Instead of words, they use different device forms and materials to express emotions and emotions at different levels.

　　 2. Using Multiple Senses to Remodel Book Experience

Compared with traditional e-books, the biggest advantage of e-books is that they carry more emotional factors. We will not only interact through reading and "content". As a material carrier, every detail of the font, layout, smell and paper in the book will create a more authentic atmosphere with the plot, but also be preserved together with a period of memory.

The development of the times has provided us with more materials and processes, and what the future book design needs to do is to amplify the original advantages, explore more diversified interactive forms to create the experience of books, and become the carrier of "feeling".

Irma Boom, a Dutch artist, designed a book Chanel Livre D'artistes for Chanel N ° 5 perfume. She replaced ink printing with grain embossing, engraved some elements and classic stories about Chanel on white paper, and infiltrated the classic fragrance Chanel N ° 5 in the grain.

Let readers experience the cultural connotation that Chanel brand wants to convey to us through the triple senses of touch, smell and vision. This book design combined with new technology also breaks the traditional concept that words are the only way to convey information, and better realizes the harmony between content and form.

Yiran, a student of Natural Light, also has a set of books in her overseas book design collection, but she "returns to nature" using the most original production method. From typesetting, typeface to creation process, she has completely retained the traces of handwork, which is very representative of personal style while having sensory impact.

The theme of this group of works is about "human nature". Yiran drew 18 illustrations about human primitive desires with colored pencils, and used rice paper, cotton, linen and other natural materials to convey the most simple and unadorned spiritual connotation.

　　 3. Participate in the complete production chain of book design

Whether bamboo slips, paper or electronic products, the development process of books is to find the most convenient way of knowledge transmission. In addition to making changes in the external form, books in the future also need to go back to the source and adapt to the development of the times by understanding the entire production process.

In order to train innovators for the future book industry, art colleges are also committed to developing and researching new talent training methods. There is a postgraduate major MA Publishing/Publishing in LCC of Communication College London, which aims to train students to master the creative ability and professional tools needed in the design field of publishing industry in the information age.

The whole course lasts for 15 months. LCC provides a unique creative environment, which requires students not only to be creative contributors of book design, but also to participate in the whole production chain of dissemination and publishing, and to truly promote the development direction of future books through their understanding of the whole industry.

Students can cooperate with other professional creators (such as literary writers, interaction designers, and illustrators), and master how to debug, design, produce, market, and deliver content in various media (including books, magazines, tablets, e-readers, and social media environments).

The course integrates the dual concepts of creativity and enterprise. While students have a comprehensive understanding of the book industry, they focus on developing creative publishing projects for "future audiences", and understand their commercial applications.

The whole curriculum is closely centered on knowledge dissemination and experimental spirit to jointly promote students to bring new ideas into the future book industry. Taking the second grade course as an example, students need to first complete the creative planning part, that is, the content of publications, through exploration and experiments to find ways to implement concepts into real products, and finally through professional practice and real cooperation with enterprises to verify our experimental scheme.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that LCC has also carried out in-depth cooperation with Penguin Langdon, a famous publishing company, and MA Visual Communication/Visual Communication major of the Royal Academy of Arts.

This discipline of Huangyi has also divided into three specific directions, and what is most consistent with LCC's talent training mode in the future book publishing field is one of the three specific directions of this major - experimental communication.

Huang Yi believes that in the past, we can see the psychological impact of many visual designers using different creative works. As the carrier of various art forms, books should also develop in the direction of sound, digital programming, performance, installation and other more diversified interactive forms. "Experimental" should be given new value in the future.

For the design of overseas books, the future of traditional books is not really in jeopardy, but it is urgent for us, as a new generation of designers, to combine the achievements of the times to make corresponding changes. In addition to the traditional value as an effective carrier of words, books, as works of art, still have rich forms to be explored! Just like a while ago, Natural Light and Penguin Langdon, the pioneer of modern book industry, brought students a deep creative experience of book design. Natural Light has been committed to introducing more advanced art resources and opportunities for everyone, with the purpose of bringing more opportunities and platforms for students and young artistic creatives to make artistic voices, Cultivate forward-looking creative thinking to face a broader world in the future!

This article belongs to the original article of Natural Light International Art Education Team. Without permission, it cannot be reproduced commercially in any form. If it is found, it must be investigated for legal responsibility.