Publishing Forms
Background
With the development of the modern communication field, the traditional way of disseminating information has changed. Today the act of “making [information] public” is not a fixed activity but something that can be hybrid and connected, offline and online. We share content through interactive channels that can communicate beyond the page.
This project actively encourages alternative ways of approaching the booking form with the aim of exploring experimental ways of designing and bringing your original static content to life.
Context
In this project, I started to think about how to break away from traditional thinking about publishing to think about how books can interact with people through various tools. I designed the visual interaction around the song Tom’s Diner, and I experimented with various ways of interacting with it, such as designing the book itself and allowing people to explore it as they read.
Research
After that, I conducted a comprehensive analysis and research on the song, including the author’s experience, creative process, source of inspiration, background story, etc., and also analyzed the artistic conception of the lyrics.
In the first part, I analyzed the creative process and source of inspiration of the song, which provided a good idea for my later presentation of ideas, and I could also better understand the author’s ideas when creating.
In the second part, I researched the author’s experience and released music, and learned the story behind Tom’s diner, and why the creator is called the mother of MP3.
In the last part, I got my inspiration from a sentence-by-sentence analysis of the lyrics and started further research and sketching.
Through thorough research I have gained some insight into the author and the song itself. I was intrigued by the author’s sources of inspiration and backstory, and these sources and information have supported me in getting some ideas, which I will elaborate on in more detail in my next step.
Ideas
After a lot of research, I brainstormed with the resources available to me, which led to the evolution of two specific ideas.
Idea-1
For the first idea I intend to create a story box, which is inspired by the difference in observation perspective. The creator observes the story from a third perspective of what happens in a cafe on a rainy morning. It was recorded and finally made into a song. But the creator doesn’t just observe, she also participates, reacting to the different actions of the characters in the song.
Like an immersive theatrical performance, it is possible for the author to observe and respond to anything on this morning. But the listener only gets the message that the author has written in the song. The listener, as a fourth point of view, has limited access to information, just as we have a box in front of us that we need to open to find out what is inside, but the capacity of that box is always limited.
Idea-2
The second idea was inspired by a podcast that focused on the development of compression algorithms for MP3s, with a section explaining why Suzanne Vega is called the mother of MP3s and why the song Tom’s diner is seen as a measure of the success of compression algorithms.
As an example, one can understand the compression algorithm in this way. For example, a heavy book, to store it, he may need to take up a lot of space, but the compression algorithm can extract the punctuation marks, the Spanish alphabet, the Chinese alphabet from it separately, and each text may also be arranged in order, so that the volume needed to be stored is greatly reduced in a sorted way.
While the storage and distribution of songs has become easier with the advent of technology, the question of how to store better quality sound sources has also become an issue to be considered.
After all, a song is more than just a piece of sound; a great song can resonate with people and give them a feeling or story of their own, thus making an unforgettable memory.
This is the future possibility of compression algorithms, where human memories are not just stored in the brain, but are uploaded and saved through compression algorithms. But algorithms can only store information and compress it, but they cannot determine whether this information is important or not.
It’s as if people are judging the success of a compression algorithm based on whether or not they think the compressed song still sounds good, which, in the end, still relies on subjective judgement. Even with the rapid development of technology in the future, people’s subjective thinking will still be the criterion for determining the direction of things, which can be seen as a loophole in the Cyber world.
Amplify
In this section, I sketched and made electronic versions based on my ideas and printed out samples for testing.
Sketch
Here are some sketches from the creative process.
Sample
This is an electronic file that I have drawn up after summarising from the sketches, and I have printed and bound it for testing.
In the process of making it I found some problems and made changes.
Final work
The project was great in helping me understand and work through the whole publishing process, firstly I needed to interpret and think about the content of the text, this step was important for my post presentation, and it set the tone for the whole book. Then I needed to try to break the stereotypes of publishing, to imagine and experiment with the possibilities of how the book could interact with people, and finally to decide on its publishing format. In the process, I not only created a paper book, but also learned and used stop-motion animation to present it, and finally tried to use Adobe XD to prototype it so that people could enjoy reading it without a paper book.
Physical book
The idea was inspired by a podcast that focused on the development of compression algorithms for MP3s, with a section explaining why Suzanne Vega is called the mother of MP3s and why the song Tom’s diner is seen as a measure of the success of compression algorithms.
For the first part, I divided the song into five parts, and after a lot of sketching, I turned it into this abstract illustration.
On the back is a text poster I designed, and the colors chosen are based on the changes in the scene.
With the advancement of technology, it has become easier to store and distribute songs, and it is not impossible to even upload memories, the main point I want to make in this section is the endless possibilities technology has opened up for people.
In this final section, I reflect on this standard of judgement, where people judge the success of a compression algorithm based on whether they think the compressed song still sounds good, which ultimately still relies on subjective judgement. Even with the rapid development of technology in the future, people’s subjective thinking will still be the norm in determining the direction of things, which could be seen as a loophole in the Cyber world.
This is the second part of the presentation. By cutting the page into three parts, people can combine and read the images and text as they wish, in order to convey a sense of the infinite possibilities of the future.
XD virtual book
I tried to use Adobe XD to prototype it so that people could enjoy reading it without a paper book.At present, it is just a simple click to jump to the page, and I am trying to simulate the effect of turning pages in a book.
Stop-motion animation
Part of the inspiration for stop-motion animation came from Van Gogh’s Starry Night. After finishing the production of electronic simulation books, I tried to draw some stop-motion animations to express my feelings and interpretations of songs. This is the first time I made stop-motion animations. A lot of places are not perfect, will try higher quality production in the future.
Book preview
This section is a video presentation about books.
QR code
By scanning the following three QR codes, you can jump to animation, video and XD simulation books respectively.
Summarize
The project was great in helping me understand and work through the whole publishing process, firstly I needed to interpret and think about the content of the text, this step was important for my post presentation, and it set the tone for the whole book. Then I needed to try to break the stereotypes of publishing, to imagine and experiment with the possibilities of how the book could interact with people, and finally to decide on its publishing format. In the process, I not only created a paper book, but also learned and used stop-motion animation to present it, and finally tried to use Adobe XD to prototype it so that people could enjoy reading it without a paper book.
Design thinking combined with future technology will lead us further, and I went through the process of this experimental publication to consider how to integrate people with other things such as communication, environment, behavior and materials, with a human-centered philosophy throughout.