Ali Richards

A series of six typological studies that depict the anatomy of a collection of 54 book spines. The 54 books are from my own book shelf. In another project I studied the anatomy of a single book cover of a best-selling novel. In this self-initiated project I wanted to take an alternative and more personal route and study the anatomy of my own collection of books. This project was inspired by my interest in typological design. Particularly the typological design of Joost Grootens, in his book, 'I Swear I Use No Art at All: 10 Years, 100 Books, 18,788 Pages of Book Design.'

Due to the circumstances of Covid-19 I was unable to professionally print a physical series or document of the typologies. As a makeshift alternative, I printed some draft mock-ups from an inkjet printer.

This project explores the physicality and components that make up a book cover, also through a typological study. The study is physicalised through a series of eight letterpress-printed book covers. As a collection, seven covers contribute an anatomical component to the first of the eight covers, which is a full complete cover. The book cover explored is my own interpretation of the best-selling novel, The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood. The eight book covers are printed onto different paper stocks to emphasise their individual importance. They are presented together as a collection in a card slipcase.

This project intends to bring attention to the details and physicality of such an everyday and timeless object that is a book cover.

A triptych (three-part) moving image that visually enhances the meaning of a piece of text, based on a typography project titled Material Type. The piece of text I chose to analyse in this project is a quote from a satirical novel, written by Chuck Palahnuik – "There are only Patterns, patterns on top of patterns, patterns that affect other patterns. Patterns hidden by patterns. Patterns within patterns." I chose this piece of text to analyse due to its interesting repetition, rhythm and suggested complexity.

The narrative of the moving image illustrates a journey of magnitudes of patterned surfaces. This is explored through the triptych nature of the moving image, which consists of a digital moving image (part one) and projections of the digital moving image onto different surfaces (parts two and three). In using and creating repetitive appearing imagery and zoom techniques the moving image is rhythmic, repetitive and hypnotic.