Tales to Change the World

ISTD 2012Tales to Change the World

“Deeper meaning lies in the fairy tales of my childhood than in the truth that life teaches.” – Friedrich von Schiller

ISTD 2012Tales to Change the World

The Brief: We want you to use the text of The Waitress, a tale by Jack Zipes, to invest the book with the invention and experimentation of the magazine.

Consider the current format, nature and pacing of a book. How might this change and develop into something new?

In 1923, El Lissitzky told us that ‘the new book demands the new writer’, and with the advent of digital print technologies, the iPhone, the iPad and the Kindle, the new book is undeniably here. The ‘design of the book-space, set according to the constraints of printing mechanics’ no longer matters to us. This new page is an undiscovered landscape of opportunity and possibility. The surface can now truly transcend space and time – the ‘printed’ surface must be re-invented and the infinity of books embraced. The rules no longer apply. Everything about the page is new again. Everything we ‘know’ about the conventions of book design and typography demands to be re-invented for the new kind of writer, reader and designer.

Remember that words and language are our collateral and that your submission should be essentially typographic.

Target Audience: The new reader

ISTD 2012Tales to Change the World

My solution to the brief is based on the idea that, yes the book does need to be reinvented for this new electronic era, but there should be no definitive format, or set of features that should be implemented across all digital book design. Each should be seen as requiring a distinctively individual creative approach, which should complement the book’s themes and atmosphere.

The Waitress is a fairy tale, but like many fairy tales has a deeper meaning than may at first be apparent. Many of the characters have disabilities which effect their quality of life, and it is up to the lead character Marie to help them realise that it is there own negative self-image that is making them feel trapped, not their disability. The story is therefore about breaking negative self-image, accepting your misfortunes, and on moving on from them.

The emotional effect the reader will experience when reading should be one of feeling trapped, and of being confined to a very narrow point of view, thus communicating the emotions being experienced by the characters in the story. The design of the book centres around a spotlight, which the reader moves around with their finger in order to highlight areas of text. This spotlight represents many of the character’s narrow, and negative perceptions of themselves.

Above: The cover of the book

ISTD 2012Tales to Change the World

Below: Navigating the contents page.Below: Moving the spotlight around the cover.

ISTD 2012Tales to Change the World

Dialogue throughout the story is designed to be visually distinct from the main descriptive text. Each character has been assigned a specific colour, and this aids the reader’s recognition of which character is speaking. All dialogue is also differentiated through an increase in point size, almost like pool quotes in a magazine.

Left to right: Examples of the different colours used across the story to distinguish individual characters. The examples also show the widening of the spotlight as the reader progresses through the story from beginning to end.

ISTD 2012Tales to Change the World

Marie is given five pieces of particularly resonate advice during the story. These pieces of advice stand apart from the main text, so as to allow the reader to fully consider their meaning. They also form the separate sections or ‘chapters’ of the story. Each time Maire is given one of these pieces of advice her perspective on her own disability, and those of others widens, as does the spotlight, thus providing the reader with the same feeling of increased freedom being experienced by the character. This continues until the end paragraph of the story, at which point the spotlight disappears completely, and the dark background lightens, marking the point where Marie and the other characters stop seeing their disabilities as a hindrance, and are able to move on from them.

ISTD 2012Tales to Change the World

Throughout the story it is possible for the reader to tap any piece of dialogue to bring up more infromation about that character. This type of content is not actually included in the text of the waitress and so I have mainly used placeholder text to denote where this information would be, and how it would look stylistically. I think incorporating interactive elements in this way provides an opportunity for the reader to discover more about each character should they choose to do so, without interfering with the narrative flow of the main text should they choose against it.

Below: As well as being able to tap any piece of dialogue to bring up extra character information it is also possible for the reader to access all character information from the main menu.