Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Verbal + Visual

“The Electronic Information Age Book” written and designed by Jeffrey Schnapp and Adam Michaels, declares itself an “experimental paperback.” The authors seek to break the boundary between form and content through unconventional modes of representing narratives.


Steven Heller recounts in the introduction that in the past books of this nature have not been so welcome in the world of literature. A critic of the New York Times once named Marshall McLuhan’s (a man of tremendous inspiration to the authors of the book) work as “frenzied” and “busy.” In 1967, when the book was published, this may have been exactly right; society didn’t run the way it does today. In the 21st Century, however, people are buzzing with information, and are declaring they do not have time to read anymore [from a 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts, readership among adults fell to 57%, and this was before the E-book boom!] So, for the text to match the action of its readers could be the answer to the dwindling pastime.


As one who is constantly falling prey to the surrounding world of technology and information, Adam Michael’s design studio, Project Projects, seems completely appropriate for this century. His interfaces combine the activity of not only reading, but also viewing images, art and text in a more graphic layout. The method also allows for complex ideas to be more heartily described and transcribed through images, and diagrams. Its like combining YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, and a book into one. Well, they have my attention, for now at least.


-Amelia Stein

No comments:

Post a Comment