I would like to ask you a question at the beginning, how long has it been since you last read a paper book?
In 2010, Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, predicted that paper books would die out within five years; a year after the prediction, Amazon announced that it sold more e-books on its website than paper books.
The data shows that for every 100 paper books sold, 105 e-books can be sold
The digital age has weakened the need for entities. In today's digitalization of information, most people are familiar with reading electronic devices. Easy to carry and resourceful – a mobile phone/ipad/kindle ≈ an electronic library.
So in an age where almost everything can be read electronically, why did you decide to buy a physical book?
Today's majestic brings a solution to the problem - look at the value of the face.
Leipzig, in eastern Germany, is a low-key but "talented" city. In 1481, the first movable type typesetting book was published here, and for more than 500 years it was the center of the German printing and publishing industry.
Statue of Goethe in Leipzig, where Goethe referred to the city as "Little Paris"
The Leipzig Book Fair is also well-known in the publishing world, and the "Most Beautiful Book in the World" award here represents the highest honor in the world of book binding design in the world today.
Awards: 1 "Golden Character Award", 1 "Gold Award", 2 "Silver Awards", 5 "Bronze Awards" and 5 "Honorable Mentions"
Every year, hundreds of books from dozens of countries and regions gather here, and only more than a dozen can stand out.
The jury is usually made up of judges from five different countries, and the selection process is very rigorous, taking three days in succession. Judges' information and judging records are made public on official social media.
This year's "World's Most Beautiful Book" selection site
The selected winning works will be exhibited around the world over the next year. Although the book fair has been forced to cancel for three consecutive years because of the epidemic, the selection of "the world's most beautiful book" has not been broken.
Leipzig Book Fair
How to choose the "world's most beautiful book"?
The award-winning teacher Lu Jingren introduced his book design concept in this way——
"The book is not a surface, after eating the text thoroughly, it is combined with visual language and re-infused with a concept of reading design."
This sentence also applies to the core of the selection of "the most beautiful book in the world".
First of all, although it is a design award, it will still examine the content, and the content is also a key to the height of the award.
A considerable proportion of award-winning books tell "small stories" and do "small" to "big". "On the Necessity of Gardening", which recently won the "2022 World's Most Beautiful Book" Golden Character Award, is a metaphor for the corresponding social and cultural form through the image of the garden - the tilt and transformation of the image represent the turbulence and change of the times.
"The Most Beautiful Book" appreciates such a large perspective rooted in small life, and the next time you visit the park, you can have new discoveries.
It is mentioned in medieval art that the garden reflects a place like heaven, harmonious and rich, far from the world. In the 18th century, the garden became a symbol of world power and politics
Secondly, the design must be based on the content of the text, and cannot be "beautiful" for the sake of "beauty". The appearance is simple or even "gray and dirty", because good craftsmanship and creativity are the "aesthetic" pass code!
The gold medal work "Met Stoelen" tells the "life of the chair" in three chapters: design sketches, physical images, and photos, and the cover is unremarkable.
But in the main text, the way the designers created for the "chairs" - the image of the cross-page layout chair, so that the backrest and seat are just distributed on two pages. This form of presentation is more consistent with the appearance of the real chair.
The problem of two-page binding "devouring" information has become an inspiration for awakening a new way of reading, which can be described as a "win-win".
(It's worth mentioning that this is a student's work!) ）
The overall selection conditions were mentioned earlier, and the "World's Most Beautiful Book" also put special emphasis on details.
Take the selection of paper as an example, the color, thickness, softness and hardness of the paper are all within the scope of examination, not only to ensure the comfort of reading, but also to meet the temperament of the book.
Yu Jeong Eom, a Korean artist who also won the Golden Character Award, made Feuilles particularly clever in choosing paper. When turning a page, the thickness of the paper increases as the hand-drawn lines on the screen are thickened. With minimal changes, the two-way resonance of sight and touch has been promoted.
All in all, the evaluation scope of the "most beautiful book" involves content, design, creativity, craftsmanship and other aspects, focusing on both the whole and the details. If you want to win the title of "most beautiful", it is not enough to be "beautiful"!
China's "World's Most Beautiful Book" competition began in 2004. In 2003, the "Most Beautiful Book in China" was held for the first time in Shanghai, and more than a dozen works that stood out were selected to participate in the "World's Most Beautiful Book" competition at the Leipzig Book Fair the following year.
Later, this way of "first PK in the country, and then sent to the international" method also continued.
"China's Most Beautiful Book" official website page
In the past 19 years, more than 400 books from China have been sent to Leipzig, Germany, to participate in the "World's Most Beautiful Books" selection, and 17 award-winning works have been awarded, two of which have won gold awards. Next, I will introduce a few Chinese "beauties" who have won the "world's most beautiful".
Mei Lanfang (Tibetan) Opera Historical Materials and Pictures Collection:
Precious collections from a generation of masters
2004 "World's Most Beautiful Book" Gold Award
Representing China for the first time and winning the gold medal, the "Mei Lanfang (Tibetan) Opera Historical Materials and Picture Collection" has an absolute milestone effect.
The protagonist of this book is not Mei Lanfang, but Mei Lanfang's collection. As a generation of Peking Opera masters, Mei Lanfang also has a hidden identity as a collector of Chinese opera historical materials. At that time, he and Mr. Yu Shuyan and others jointly established the "National Opera Society" in Beiping, and set up an exhibition hall to store his collections.
Some members of the Chinese Opera Society took a group photo, and the fourth and seventh from the left were Mei Lanfang and Yu Shuyan
"Mei Lanfang (Tibetan) Opera Historical Materials and Pictures Collection" is edited by Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall, which includes opera character paintings and opera clear angle faces, which is part of the exhibits of the "Chinese Opera Society" exhibition hall that is now treasured in the Mei Lanfang Memorial Hall.
For opera practitioners and enthusiasts, this is a classic book with great collection and research value; and for Xiaobai who has not been exposed to related fields, he can also understand the elegance and heritage of opera art after reading it.
The book contains plays
The book contains Facebook
The arrangement of the books is as simple and clear as possible, and the collection is wonderful enough that there is no need to use more design to dominate.
More emphasis is placed on the charm of Chinese classics - the letter box has a Zhuyin square seal as an embellishment, the outer winding frame of the picture and text, and the paper is moist, outlining the elegant and generous "Chinese image".
"No Cut": A physical book that can be "interactive"
Bronze Award for "The World's Most Beautiful Book" in 2007
"No Cut" is a personal life essay, the content is light, and it is a book suitable for casual reading. The harmonic pronunciation of "no cut" and "no talent" is the author's humble words, and it also names the design clues of the book.
The book adopts the texture and background color of old sheepskin, two thin red lines pass through the book, through the cover and back cover, the book itself is not cut, designed as a rare "raw book". Readers need to participate in the cutting of the book when reading, and each page can be cut to read the mood of an author.
The book-cutting process also helps the whole book to take shape, and the traces of the paper knife will not be exactly the same, so the final presentation of each book is unique.
The front ring lining of the book is designed with a bookmark, which is torn open to become a "paper knife"
Compared with the "Mei Lanfang (Tibetan) Opera Historical Materials Picture Collection", "No Tailor" has made a more distinctive treatment in the design and arrangement, injecting highlights into such a wide range of genres as "essays". Although it is about the author's personal mood, through this special "interaction" method, the distance with the reader is narrowed.
"Chinese Memory - Treasures of 5,000 Years of Civilization":
A "national gift" originating from the Olympic Games
2009 "The World's Most Beautiful Book" Honorary Award
"Chinese Memory - Treasures of Five Thousand Years of Civilization" is written by the Capital Museum, and you can see by looking at the name, which is a book with a "grand" proposition. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the book was presented as a national gift to heads of state, which is of great significance.
The book is a collection of national treasures from all over China, each of which is a testimony to a period of history. Combing through the 5,000-year-old historical context of Chinese civilization through national treasures, it can be regarded as a "Chinese memory" related to Chinese civilization.
In terms of binding design, it is also based on "Chinese style" as the core - the Chinese Fangsheng figure representing the auspicious meaning is located at the upper end of the outer seal; the paper selected on the inner page pays attention to "softness", which contains a gentle and flowing oriental temperament. From the outside in, heavy form and heavy meaning.
Designer Lu Jingren
"Order - Fangyuan Story":
See the industry change with the self-portrait of the bookstore owner
2016 "The World's Most Beautiful Book" Gold Award
"Orders - Fangyuan Stories" is the second book to win the gold medal on behalf of China after mei lanfang (Tibetan) opera historical materials and pictures.
Unlike the former's grand perspective on theatrical art, "Orders - Fangyuan Story" tells the development story of a self-employed art bookstore in Xi'an, the Fangyuan Arts and Crafts Society. The author of the book is also Lu Chonghua, the owner of the Fangyuan Art Society.
The inspiration for the book, and the biggest highlight, is Lü Chonghua's hand-painted self-portrait - when there was no "electronic order" in the early days, he would draw such a self-portrait at the end of the handwritten official documents faxed to the publishing house to replace the usual seal.
If faxed to the publishing house with timely delivery, Lu Chonghua would draw a smiling face with the sun overhead; and for the publishing house that was in arrears, he waved his pen and imaged "himself" full of sorrow... For decades, Lü Chonghua left behind more than 10,000 orders and official documents, which also became a "small interest" that belonged to the past era.
Lu Chonghua uses self-portraits with different looks to convey his feelings
These self-portraits, as "plays", are designed as 4 "comic books" that can be divided into separate chapters, placed on the left side of the book, and connected to look like a cartoon.
At the same time, it echoes the cover of the woven bag material and the yellowed "sketch paper" selection paper, "traditional" and "fun" play a charm when flipping through at the same time.
The design style with a strong sense of hand and private sense also reveals the strong humanistic feelings of "Order: Fangyuan Story". The book chronicles the author's youth and family changes, reflecting the decline of the traditional publishing industry under the torrent of the times.
As mentioned at the beginning, the change in people's reading habits has greatly impacted the sales of physical books, and Lu Chonghua has encountered the dilemma of the entire physical publishing industry.
Such as the selection of "the world's most beautiful book" is winning attention for physical books, and it is also helping the survival of physical bookstores and physical publishing industry.
In the book "The Future Development Path of Traditional Media in the Pan-Media Era", a point of view is mentioned: "In today's epidemic of online media, books should survive more with their own media form value." ”
The irreplaceable point of paper books is that it is a comprehensive carrier that considers multiple senses such as sight, touch, hearing, and smell, and it is a powerful example that a book with excellent binding design can bring a better and more complete reading experience.
"Do we still need paper books?"
After reading these "most beautiful books in the world", do you have a new answer?
The pictures in this article are from the Internet, the copyright belongs to the owner, and the text is original to the blogger.
Text Assistant for this issue: Lily
The author is a contracted author of NetEase News and NetEase "Each Has An Attitude"
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