Josef Koudelka Gypsies Book Design

Josef Koudelka’s exhibition will be travelling to South Korea for the first time. In preparation for the exhibition, Koudelka travelled to Korea and conducted in-depth interviews with Korean designers to select the designers for the exhibition book. I also met with Koudelka for an in-depth interview. As this is the first time the exhibition will be held in Korea, Koudelka wanted the book design to be the most representative of the country’s character. Koudelka said that the drum design for the Gypsies exhibition has been designed to represent the characteristics of the country where the exhibition is being held. After the in-depth interview, I thought a lot about how I could realise a book design that best represented Korean characteristics. My answer was to incorporate elements of Korean culture, such as architecture and characters, into the book design. I presented my design plan and was ultimately selected by Koudelka. A country’s character is most clearly expressed through its cultural elements, which are the ones that best represent it and make it the most distinctive. Many countries have their own unique cultures, and people around the world are bound to be interested in them. I thought that Korean culture would be the same, and that incorporating Korean cultural elements into the book design would create a book design by a western photographer with Korean culture, creating a good combination of East and West. I think this proposal was in line with the direction of the book design that the artist wanted to create.

We first thought about what elements of Korean culture would set it apart. When we travel, the first thing we notice when we arrive is the architecture. There is a huge difference in architecture between the East and the West. These differences make you feel different and fall in love with the place. We thought that a Gypsies book design with elements of Korean architecture would make for a unique book design. Just as a house is built with pillars on the floor and a roof over it, a book is built by stacking pages one by one. The Gypsies book design was also designed as a piece of architecture with Korean elements. If I Koudelka’s photographic content is the interior element, the elements of Korean architecture are the exterior. The concept was to combine the look of Korean architecture with the content of Western authors. The most distinctive feature of Korean architecture is the hanok, or traditional Korean house. A hanok is characterised by its structure, which is made up of wooden beams fitted together horizontally and vertically like blocks on top of a foundation stone. The key is that they are fitted together like blocks, rather than nailed or glued together. Also, hanoks do not have glass windows like Western buildings. They do have doors and windows, but the doors and windows are covered with a traditional Korean paper called ‘changhoji’. As a result, you can’t see into a hanok from the outside, or out from the inside. This feature is especially noticeable at night. When you switch on a light inside a room, you can only see the faint silhouette of the inside from the outside, which is very attractive. It is characterised by an indirect, rather than direct, transmission of light, which gives it an ethereal charm. If these elements of traditional Korean architecture were applied to a book design by a Western artist, we expected that the result would be a book design with Korean characteristics. This resulted in a book design with strong regional characteristics that Koudelka requested, and a design that is different from Koudelka’s other “Gypsies” book designs.

A traditional Korean house, a hanok, is not as large as a typical Western structure. The size of the book design is also partly inspired by the architecture. The hanok’s characteristic modesty and modesty became a reference point for the size of the book design. Also, photo exhibition books are usually large in size, but I wanted it to be small enough to be held in one hand and viewed comfortably. I wanted it to be a book that can be carried around and easily viewed anywhere, not a book that has to be placed on a desk because of its large size, and Koudelka agreed and strongly wanted it. The grate of a hanok is made by fitting wood in a lattice pattern. I was looking for a material to represent the lattice pattern of the hanok grate. I decided that gauze would be the most suitable material for the binding, as it would allow me to realise the idea of expressing the lattice pattern of the hanok grate and the idea of applying the material of hanbok, traditional Korean clothing, to the book design.