• Home >
• Innovation >
• Changing Forms

• 
  Bird
• 
  Etisoppo
• 
  Order of Things
• 
  Medallion
• 
  Zines

Changing Forms

The introduction of the printing press enabled multiple copies of identical books to be produced for the first time and brought with it a whole new range of possibilities of font style and size.

The Industrial Revolution and the development of mass printing also greatly expanded the role of graphic design as books were increasingly produced for larger and more competitive markets.

Computers and photocopiers, as well as pens and pencils, have seen the mass proliferation of the ‘zine’, or do-it-yourself magazine as an alternative to the values and aesthetics of commercial publishing. Other experiments abound. Compilations like Etisoppo present the book as a loose-leaf ‘super-mini-card-style-artbook’; The Order of Things is a 'book' in the form of a circle or a concertina, and Medallion offers the book as a multi-layered sculpture.

Conversely, publishers have also increasingly issued books to be desired as physical objects as well as to be read. Book designers continue to develop new lavish forms of book construction and packaging, like the award-winning Bird.

Despite the emergence of new electronic media and forms like the ‘e-book’, the printed book lives on.