Oh for a bookcase full of books designed by Wang Zhi Hong. No matter if you couldn’t read Mandarin, as many of the books would be written in, what a work of art and cool perfection that bookcase would be.
The Taiwanese graphic designer doesn’t just design books but he has designed a lot of them, and beautifully. As well as winning numerous international design and typography awards he’s been a six-time winner of Taiwan’s Golden Butterfly Awards, which recognises excellence in book design.
Black, grey, white, splashes of red is the predominant colour palette used, although there are many which ignore this entirely; using comic strip prints, pinks, oranges, bright bursting colours. Wang Zhi is a master at the use of white space, there is perfection in his attention to detail and a joy in the extras. For example 2011 Bronze Golden Butterfly Award winner Until the End of the Road, a book about an epic bike journey, looks like an actual travel journal full of souvenirs from the trip. Postcards and ticket stubs were washed post printing to give them a genuine used look and feel. Pages look like they’re falling out. So successfully used looking was it that some people thought their copies were damaged and demanded a refund.
In a world which is increasingly mass produced and homogenous & Of Other Things has a bookcase yearning to be filled with such things.
Words by Rose Arnold
