Experimental research on the five senses in Book Design
Project: Personal Degree Project
Department: Visual Communication Design
School: Hangzhou Normal University
Brief
Zero Sense is an experimental book design that was made for my undergraduate degree project. The complete project consists of 3 parts, naming Experimental book design, Design report and Exhibition design. This project focuses on researching the five senses of book design that readers will encounter during their reading time.
A sense of seeing the book
A sense of holding the book
The weight of the book
The tactile of the book
A sense of writing on the book
The reason to research these five aspects of book design is that my biggest interest is the human aspects of design. Hence, these five senses are derived from the interaction between the reader and the book.
Challenge
The biggest challenge is to design an interactive experience through books for the viewers, so that they could understand my research points during the exhibition.
Design Philosophy
Lao Tzu, the greatest Taoist Master.
The philosophical thinking behind Zero Sense Design is inspired by Lao Tzu, an ancient Chinese philosopher. From his perspective, a good man-made product should in a sense seem so inevitable and so natural, which is what he called “大巧若拙”. This idiom means good products should in a way that you don’t almost think of them as being designed.
Experimental Book Design
What Zero Sense wanted to achieve is to improve the 5 senses in the reading experience so that the reader can fully focus on reading the text itself. I use those experimental books to provide a natural reading experience that the reader won't be distracted by the 5 senses.
It’s like the designer solves a problem, but in solving that problem, I don’t remind the reader about the complexity of this problem. And I think this philosophical thinking leads to an experimental design project like Zero Sense.
Design Report for thesis defense
This design report was created for my thesis defense in order to present the key points of my research in a better way. In this report, I explained in detail on how my research on book design can improve the overall reading experience for readers.
Graduation Exhibition
Minimalist display design.
I also did the exhibition design for my own project. By using this simple and yet effective way to display my project, it gives viewers an inviting reading experience. This way of displaying the degree project was quite unique at that time in our department and it received a lot of good feedback from my professors.
Photographer: Chenglan JIN | Image credits go to Chenglan JIN
“JIN, the design department decided to keep your work in our department’s Book Design Studio since your degree project is really good!”
— Jun ZHU
Head of Design Department