HIGH-END AND ELECTRONIC EDITIONS

CONCEPTS
HIGH-END AND ELECTRONIC EDITIONS

CONCEPTS
Project:
Book design for 'River of Shadows' by Rebecca Solnit. High-end print edition and electronic edition.

Description:
The course will focus on research, strategies and processes for the concept and design of Rebecca Solnit's
recent book River of Shadows. The book is a cultural history of technological change in the second half of
the nineteenth century as told through the life of Eadweard Muybridge. The electronic edition should
expand on the original text in three ways:

Extensive linking from the text out onto the broader net,
Access to motion imagery where appropriate, and
A powerful social component enabling readers to communicate with each other in the margins.
 RESEARCH
HIGH-END AND ELECTRONIC EDITIONS
 RESEARCH
HIGH-END AND ELECTRONIC EDITIONS

Overarching Theme of Book: Change, Time, Progress

Evidence:
Integration of trains as transportation
Standardizing time as the world became smaller
Linking photography and trains is time, represented by the sun.
HIGH-END AND ELECTRONIC EDITIONS

Concept for Electronic Book

Using SunPaper Prints for chapter dividers, to represent the passing of time
Cover would be a black piece of acrylic plastic, with the the title carved into
the front, therefore exposing the first sheet.
Book wrapped in a black bag as to not expose the paper until the reader
views it for the first time.
The other papers would be simple prints, printed with a letterpress, as to add
(as well as not distract) from the text or the images.
Images would be first printed in silver on translucent paper, then a high qual-
ity print. Paper serves to protect the print as well as an homage to the silver
prints of the era.
The binding would be exposed stitching to reflect the expose of the prints, as
well as the simplicity of the idea of time.
Eadweard J. Muybridge, Yosemite Creek: Summit of Falls at Low Water, 1872, mammoth-plate albumen print. Courtesy California State Library, Sacramento
HIGH-END AND ELECTRONIC EDITIONS

Concept for Electronic Book

Creating a default template of the electronic version of the book in Sophie.
Include links to versions of the book, including PDF, HTML and Sophie.
Allow readers to download these files, and to create their own version of the
book.
Include resources such as images, motion, links.
Readers can submit their versions online, expressing visually their thoughts
about the book.
Online version will change daily (or some interval), a rotation of different
user’s designs and inputs.
 Concept for Electronic Book
HIGH-END AND ELECTRONIC EDITIONS