Handmade Books Are to Get through the “Close Siege” of Digital Reading
| Now, with the traditional mode of reading affected by the “digital” trend of reading, handmade books are keeping making innovations in structure, material, and mode of reading. Recently, Blue Orchids, a “tearable” handmade book designed and published by Reader Publication Group Gansu Education Press and telling the love ballads in the north of Shanxi Province, China, won, with its unique designs, the Highest Honor in the 67th Annual Premier Print Awards Competition in 2016. The award is equivalent to the “Oscar” Award in the film industry. The book is bound by traditional Chinese threads. Before reading, the reader should untwist a thin red line, and then, read the book by tearing page by page along the dotted line in the middle of the book, and finally, the original book will be divided into two. During that process, the reader will come across, from time to time, pleasant surprises such as exlibris, paper-cut bookmarks and DIY paper-cuts, thus having an “interactive” reading experience. On the cover of the handmade book The Stories of Dunhuang to be published, the creative design in the shape of an hourglass helps connect Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang and Crescent Spring with a handful of flowing sand, and the reader can sense the charm of Dunhuang in the rustle of paper. In an age of fragmented reading, people can get a lot of information, but have lost the chance to study and think about traditional culture and skills. Therefore, new modes of integrating traditional culture, manual skills and new media should be explored continuously. The reader will gain from paper media a unique experience that new media cannot replace in the sense of vision, touch, smell, hearing and taste. As a new direction for paper books to develop, handmade books have an incomparability and art collection values, and can help paper books get through the “close siege” of digital reading to a large degree, and attract quite a few fans as well. |