Surrounded on All Sides
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Surrounded on All Sides is a famous Lute music, depicting a tragic war between Liú Bāng and Xiàng Yǔ, two heroes at the end of Qín Dynasty in China. This picture book, published by China Children's Press & Publication Group, narrates the same story from the perspective of Xiàng Yǔ whose integrity has been being told for generations. I designed the book's layout and the guide book.
There seems to be less work for graphic designers carrying out a picture book's layout. However, in fact, pictures invariably do not have a perfect match with other elements within the book's universe. That is what needs designers to sort out. In this case, I processed every single illustration so that they could go along with words in each page, resulting in a fluent reading experience. Although these pictures were created with a rough layout idea by the illustrator, they were not that qualified when they were applied to the process of book design. Basically, layout design, especially picture book layout, can be seen as a 'shadow helper' with a very low key personality. In addition, a guide book has been an indispensable component of a picture book nowadays. Thus, how to develop an outstanding guide book was a key part in this project. I applied a method called 'accordion binding', a type of traditional binding means in ancient China, to this case. Making a long city wall throughout the two sided page, I creatively laid out a variety of visual elements and texts in order to present a long scroll with an informative and a compelling experience. Overall, the design for this book can be considered as an attempt to show a new face of Chinese traditional culture treasure. |
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