"I study your binding and hold you in my hand to smell", about the blank space design in 10 books

Author: He Manxuan Reposted from: Design IN

01 White is not just white

Why do you look around in the bookstore and the white area on the book packaging accounts for the largest proportion? It must be because white is so versatile. The clerk recommends that everyone should bring a set.

In this world where information transmission is the primary task of printed matter, when you see a large area of ​​white, your eyes will unconsciously search for the "non-white" position. "Leaving white space" is usually to highlight the non-white area , the blank spaces of different configurations are placed on the book cover, holding up various stories quietly and securely.

Afternoon Ward Lesson" by Cai Wenqian/Designed by Cai Jiahao

""Afternoon Ward Lesson" is a collection of essays by a physician writer. It is inspired by an article describing the experience during the internship. The white color is in line with the association of the author's identity, and the subtle albuginea is more ingenious."

There are also some book covers that are particularly white and eye-catching. You may see a complete white square bouncing into your eyes from a distance, but when you pick it up, you will find another kind of white in the white, or The interlaced touch of simulated fibers is woven into a whole piece of embossed texture, or a piece of light from the glass window in the story is scalded into a piece of pearl foil film, or the cutting line faintly exposed at the corner seems to open a blank space in front of your eyes. Design draft window.

"Design by wangzhihong.com: A Selection of Book Designs, 2001-2016" by Wang Zhihong/Designed by Wang Zhihong

"Design by wangzhihong.com: A Selection of Book Designs, 2001-2016" How should designers present their 15-year works? A blank screen is all The beginning of the design is also an invitation for readers to explore the page, and it is also a background frame that can store all the works of the designer.”

"Sheila Hicks Weaving As Metaphor" by Sheila Hicks / Designed by Irma Boom

“Sheila Hicks Weaving As Metaphor” is the collection of the same name by the textile designer. According to the book binding designer, she refused to put Sheila Hicks’ colorful works on the cover in order to avoid limiting the imagination of the work, even I forgot to put the title in the end, but that makes the book all the more haunting because of its pure touch."

／02 Blank is not necessarily white

People who are not familiar with typesetting software may not have thought that the default background color in the design manuscript is not white, but the "color of paper". ".

If we try to extract all visible light, we will find that black can produce all kinds of black. The black lines on the hot stamping of the black card extend all the way to the inner page, leading you into the world of socialist Cuba, day after day. The life of the book, or the faintly revealing round of bright moon and its shiny black reflection on the black square-like book, is the moon landing plan that the author always keeps in mind...

"Pink Noise" by Xia Yu/Designed by Xia Yu Hou Junwei

"Pink Noise"The binding design of "Pink Noise" has always been designed by the poet Xia Yu, who printed the whole book in two colors on transparent celluloid, breaking the established impression that the pages of the poetry collection are quiet and clean, with a lot of blank space. The overlap becomes interfering noise like book titles."

"Thirty-Three Revolutions" written by Che Guevara's grandson, Canek Sanchez Guevara / designed by He Jiaxing and Zhang Puhui

"Thirty-Three Revolutions" is a collection of posthumous short stories by Che Guevara's grandson. The absurdity and conflicts of the Cuban government have become a needle-jumping record under his pen. The design continues this image, From the book cover to the inner pages, there are jumping stitches and lines, and through blank (or black) pages, even if they are not clearly visible, they still exist.”

When the unprinted area is not any color but transparent, and the information on each page overlaps, just like the hacker's code rain in the movie, can this picture still be called "remaining"? white"?

／03 Why is this page blank?

When I was working in a publishing house, I received several inquiries from readers, whether a certain page of a certain book was originally blank. I always simply answer: "Yes." Then leave a long blank second, hoping that he can double experience this vacuum arrangement.

Blank pages in a book are a luxury, but a necessary respite for the reader who often plunges into a story.

"Song of the Stray Dogs" by Gabriella Vincent

"Song of the Stray Dog" Gabriel Vincent’s non-dialogue charcoal drawing book describes the journey of an abandoned dog straying. The large area of ​​blank screen allows readers to fully focus on the dog’s expression and body feel."

We have never known each other" by Lin Youjia · Wan Jinyou / Design by Nie Yongzhen

"We Never Know" is based on 12 songs by singer Lin Youjia, and invites novelist Pan Jinyou to create short stories. space."

For example, between tragicomedy-like short stories, you will be given a blank page to rest like a blank second when the record changes tracks; Readers are enough to complete the reading with their brains; and the recoil is stronger than a full page of text, and an extra double-page blank is left at the end to make people have room to shed tears in their eyes.

This need to breathe can only be deeply felt when you read the book with all your heart and breath.

04 Not white space

But my personal favorite is the blank space that is not "white" at all. In many plot comics and graphic novels, when the invisible time is concretely presented, even if the color lines in the picture without gaps are full, and the emotional overload seems to rush out of the page, it makes people feel like a vacuum is drawn around them.

"Ping Pong" by Taiyo Matsumoto

"The final chapter of "Ping Pong" comic "Ping Pong", the decisive battle opened in a vacuum without dialogue or even adverbial words, pulled the tension of the picture to the apex, and then the continuous eruption of complex storyboards seemed to attract people When I went to the competition site, I instantly traveled through time and space to see the appearance of the contestants when they were children."

"Jimmy . Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth Chris. by Weir

""Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth" has a neat and symmetrical frame, spanning fifty years in one spread, and the picture is saturated but extremely quiet."

In these stories, after the picture is received, the lens is zoomed in and out by various interpretations in the mind, the jump speed changes instantly, and the time for the eyes to wander between frames can be infinitely extended, and then A page-turning is the outcome of life and death, the circulation of four seasons, or time travel.

If you can be led by the plot into this blank area that isolates everything, it is like walking into the universe created by the author at the far end. I think the most profound reading enjoyment is this.