Design of a Visual Book: Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas, by Arno Schmidt
Politecnico of Milan
Design della Comunicazione
a.a. 2014-2015
Prof. Mario Piazza
In this page are shown my bachelor thesis and its project about the design of a visual book, starting from the text of Arno Schmidt “Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas”.
The two books have a similar visual identity: the degree composition shares the color palette, a similar layout and mood with the “Pocahontas” book.
“Seelandschaft mit Pocahontas” is a love story set after the II World War, near the Oldenburg lakes. But differently from expectations, this is a rough, disenchanted love, described through actions. As in the story, my project tries to reflect Schmidt’s evocative and physical language, also thanks to the unusual use of the punctuation.
The Visual Book
The book looks apparently quite traditional: bound thanks to the use of an elastic band, the reader can leaf through its chapters, after removing the paper cover.
But it can be experienced also in an unusual way: thanks to paper vents between each chapter, they can be shifted creating a circle. This structure is inspired by the concept of hypocycloid, introduced by the author: each character lives his story moving inside a circle, creating his own path, that will intersect with the other characters.
On the front of the circle all the pink paper vents are visible, while on the reverse photographs for each chapter arouse ambiguous feelings.
The Thesis: Design of a Visual Book
The thesis is divided into three chapters: Analysis, Idea genesis and Evolution and development of the idea.
The first part analyses the author’s biography and thought, the novel and the previous editions.
The second one describes the mathematical and interpreted concept of hypocycloid as well as the two levels of the project: the text and the image (including the theme of the photographs).
The third part explains the more practical aspects of the realizations: from the rotation mechanism, to the shooting, from the layout, to the choice of the paper and finally the assembly.
Read the complete thesis
Progettazione di un libro visivo: Paesaggio lacustre con Pocahontas, di Arno Schmidt