Painting with Words

Book written and designed as the main final project for my graphic arts degree course, May 2008. A celebration of letters, words and language, it explores the visual form of the word, its relationship with the semantic content and ultimately, its power to strengthen communication. The book draws examples from a range of disciplines including art history, literature, poetry, linguistics, philosophy, fine art, photography, performance art, advertising graphic and typeface design. There is a strong balance between the content and the visuals, with the layout of each page aiming to reflect its literary content in innovative ways.

The following images show a sample of the pages featuring works and subjets that include: the second de Stijl manifesto of 1920, Watching Words Move by Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar, the works of experimental poet Dom Sylvester Houédard, the Brazilian concrete poetry movement in the late 1950s, sound & phonetic poetry and an excerpt from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four exploring how the importance of words and their visual form reaches well beyond the realms of communication alone.

I took care of the printing, registration and setting up of signatures before passing on the binding to Spink and Thackray Bookbinders in Leeds, UK. I blind embossed the title using metal type set in Univers and hand illustrated an outer dust jacket.

Hardback, 160 pages, 160 x 215 mm. Text in English & French.