EMP - Books with Holes

I have been researching books that have the feature of a hole in the middle. I am a huge fan of this technique and always find these books more interesting. A hole in a book gives the book and extra dimension, something unexpected. I really like the thought of being revealed something on one page to then get a glance of what on the next. I also love the way you can see the paper in the book over lap, it has a hand crafted feel that I find more magical than an ordinary book. 

 

I have always had it in my head, if you making a book, why not make a hole in it? I always visualise books with holes in. I want to involve holes in my design; I think it will especially attract a younger audience.

The image above you can see a beautiful book with a hole in the middle. It is telling a narrative of Alice in Wonderland, the hole has cleverly integrated the feeling of falling down a hole. This way of telling a narrative by making the book layered and have the change to reveal what coming next, gives the reader the chance to experience all the illustrations together.

Here is another book showing a great example of the use of a hole! This book is called 'The book with a Hole'.

What I love so much about this book is the simplistic of the idea and how it attracts a younger audience. This large book has a large hole in the middle; as you can see in the image below, bit enough for a young child to poke his head through. This is a fun element to the book, giving the child not just a story but also the change to be involved.

The hole is surrounded by different illustrations that you can get your head involved in. brilliant!

Below is another example of a book with a hole in the middle, this time again showing a layering affect. By cutting a larger hole at the front and then slowly introducing smaller pages as the book reads on. Gives you a sneak preview of all the pages, and you will see the back page of the book first, which is a very different method from a normal book were the last page is a surprise.

Here is one of my all time favourite childhood books 'The Hungry Caterpillar'. This could be the reason for my love of holes in books. This book is so clever in the way it tells its story of a small caterpillar and how it eats its way through loads of fruit. The book shows a piece of fruit on every page with a hole in, representing the caterpillar eating his way through the book. This hole creates a sense of curiosity and a slight feeling that the caterpillar is real because he bit thought the page. Well, that’s what I used to believe when I was younger. 

A beautifully illustrated book that has influenced my work and how I producing books.

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 Above is an example of a book I made about my work. I wanted to show this again because it shows how I have involved a hole in my design. I wanted to make a metaphor for my process to getting to my final resolved illustration for a book cover. This illustration you could see on the last page, I liked the way that all the way through the book you could see my research and process and at all times my end result was in the middle. I had thought the hole was very appropriate as my illustration was a rabbit down a hole, I felt like it gave my illustration depth and texture.