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The Birth of a Book Buku by Urszula Giren

The Birth of a Book Buku by Urszula Giren is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award Emas in Desain Media Cetak lan Terbitan Competition Category.


EmasCetak· 2020

The Birth of a Book Buku

by Urszula Giren

Client: Urszula Gireń

A' Design Award Emas Winner in Cetak Category

Colors

The Design

About The Birth of a Book Buku

Lairé Sawijining Buku (The Birth of a Book) iku terbitan cithak babagan desain buku ing Polandia abad kaping-16. Buku iki nampilake cithakan-cithakan kuna kanthi ukuran asline, saengga para maca bisa ndeleng format asline. Sampul jaket buku nuduhake metode imposisi sing digunakake kanggo format oktavo kuna. Pita panandha buku nandhani dhuwure buku format folio, kuarto, lan oktavo. Ukiran kayu (woodcut) ing kaca judhul dicithak kanthi warna kuwalik, ngelingake marang matriks sing katutup mangsi ireng. Formaté 256 kaping 320 milimeter, kanthi 560 kaca lan udakara 1200 ilustrasi. Tujuwané yaiku njlentrehake metode cithak jaman Renaisans marang para maca sing luwih akeh.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award Emas

The Birth of a Book Buku menang A' Design Award Emas, pangenalan sing prestisius banget sing diparingake marang desain kelas siji, nggumunake lan unggul. Pemenang Emas iku ciptaan sing inovatif banget, visioner lan sumunar nggumunake sing nggambarake kejeniusan, kawicaksanan lan kaprigelan para desainer. The Birth of a Book Buku dikarepake dadi panemuan sing dipuji banget, pelopor tren lan monumental sing nyedhiyakake nilai sing durung tau ana. Desain sing menang A' Design Award Emas iki iku proyek sing nggumunake lan dihormati sing paring manfaat gedhe lan nyurung maju wates seni, sains, desain lan teknologi. The Birth of a Book Buku nuwuhake perasaan kekarepan sing kuwat, nggugah semangat, nyengkuyung kreativitas lan narik kawigaten kita.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties
The designed structure of publications presents the old prints in real size and the method of their production in additional elements like a dust jacket which show printing sheet, typographic composition at 1:1 scale. The woodcuts in color inversion on the title pages refer to matrices covered with black ink. The compositions of this pages were plotted on a scheme invented by Villard de Honnecourt, 13th century artist, and refer to the proportions of columns, margins used in the 16th century.
Dimensions & Packaging
Format:
256 x 320 mm in a 1.25 ratio, 560 pages, the page format allowed the calculation of a multi-level grid for the composition of individual elements, including 1200 illustrations.
Tags
renaissance book, first roman typefaces, old prints, typography
Production Technology
The work was digitally printed and a hardback, paper binding, thermo-gluing was used. The covering is made of black beater-dyed paper. There are also a dust jacket reflecting an imposition method for the old octavo book format, as well as a ribbon - bookmark, depicting the folio, quarto and octavo heights. Covering: Geltex Negro Antracita 191 Embossing LS 115 g (beater-dyed paper), silver color - screen printing, binder's board: spine board 2 mm, base case 3 mm, Dust Jacket: Color Style Black Smooth 120 g (beater-dyed paper) silver color - screen printing, Endpaper: Geltex Negro Antracita 191 Embossing LS 130 g (beater-dyed paper), Book-block: Pergraphica Natural Smooth 120 g, CMYK - digital printing, HP Indigo, printing according to fiber direction, PUR glue, Headband: Black, Ribbon bookmark: Black, silver color
Design Challenge
The biggest challenge was complicated structure of the text - a lot of auxiliary and descriptive texts, an unusually large number of various illustrations - 1274. Organizing the appropriate grid required several verifications. I based the project largely on mathematical calculations related to the content of the publication. The divisions and colors used resulted entirely from the content and the assumption of the best possible exposure of illustrations and text. By learning the methodology of 16th-century typographers, you can see frequent references to numbers that have always been present in nature. The search for systematization the surrounding world by the renaissance artists was huge inspiration. Each element in the world has its place and meaning, nothing is accidental, everything is connected with each other and interacts with each other. I also wanted to build a relationship system in the design of my publication, where the smallest part would result from the structure of the whole.
Research
The first part of book contains basic information about printing, introduces the reader to the general principles of Renaissance design. In the second part of the publication, printing in Poland was discussed in more detail. This part was divided into 5 chapters, four of which have been assigned specific cities. The choice of places was justified by the pioneering activity of the printing houses, which opened there, their size, as well as the quality of the publications they produced.
Inspiration
The main inspirations were the general principles of Renaissance design. The first stage of the project included gathering graphic material necessary to conduct research on the old European, Polish books. The study covered individual elements, starting from the materials from which books were created: papers, binding materials, typefaces, ornaments, graphics. Information was also collected on the most well-known Polish and European publishers, typographers and punchcutters.
Project Duration
The project started in May 2017 in Bialystok and finished in February 2019 in Katowice, Poland
Operation Flow
All the elements in the book have been designed to familiarize the reader with the methodology of creating books in the 16th century. Starting from the format of the book showing real formats of old prints, to the dust jacket presenting the printing imposition, or the ribbon indicating the height of old books - folio, quarto, otavo.
Image Credits
Urszula Gireń / 2019

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