There are different ways to shape images and texts into objects that we call books. There is a spectrum of design possibilities: functional, formal design, often with distance and an emphasis on objective information provision, or design as an aesthetic presentation tray, design that entangles or guides the reader, and there are many more examples.
But there is also a way of designing in which it is very clear the designer did an intervention, in which this disruption – the deviation from the conventions – activates you as a reader. The design of those books is inextricably linked with the texts and the images (like an alloy, an amalgam). These three (design, texts and images) are only interesting when together, in that cross-linked situation. Take one away and something is missing in the story, it doesn’t work anymore, it falls apart.
This approach is different from the functional or aesthetic way for example: imagine books printed on another paper, change in size or set in a different typeface, most of them do not change substantially. Of course the editorial work the designer often does plays a big role, he or she makes a book interesting by the choice of images and texts, but it is the design that weaves it together into an inextricable book.
’The Library of Inextricable Books’ is a growing collection of examples of these books. The collection will be examined: by disentangling the 3 elements and uncover the fabric of their relations the audience can follow the poetics of the constructions.
