Symphysis
Kinnari Thakker's Personal BlogArchive for Print Work
The Word Project
So many words which were commonly used in our daily lives have been succeeded by their synonyms/replacements in English. Words which were in Gujarati or Hindi that were commonly used intertwined within the English language even, it became very hard to replace them. But over time, and travel to places dominated by other languages, they slowly slipped out of use. How many times has this thought crossed our mind? We keep reaching for a word in our mental dictionaries, only to realize that the people in your surroundings will not relate with it, so you reach out and grab the word with the nearest meaning in English.
Anyway, so while browsing The Daily Heller this morning, I found an interesting person with an interesting idea called The Word Project. A print work, a book, of a collection of local words, that are illustrated in a whimsical way and are being used by people to supplement the English language with layers of expression. Its a neat idea, and worth a quick browse!
All images courtesy: http://buttonwoodart.com/WP/WPA.html, Polly M. Law.
The Next Chapter
A book can be many things: an object, a source of knowledge, a cultural artifact or an idea. From each volume, layers of meaning and subtext can be mined, not only from the words and images inside, but from the subtle design elements, the materiality of its pages and spine, and its symbolic value as a recorder of human evolution. For 550 years, the printed page has been our primary means of communication, though it is steadily being overtaken in the digital age.
Will books survive the digital age? What will they need to become to survive it? Not surprisingly, the ideas which are expressed in this article, as possible solutions for the future of the book, portray the book as it should have been in the first place.
“The book has to be more and more of an object, more tactile and more of a connection between publisher, author and reader. It is like the pleasure we get from buying a locally grown tomato directly from the farmer”
Matvei Yankelevich, co-founder of Brooklyn-based Ugly Duckling Presse.
The Next Chapter (print magazine)
We have the Kindle, the iphone and of course, the web. But is the new technology really changing the way we read?
