Being mean to books in order to find out the meaning of books : a designerly exploration of the human-book relationship : a thesis submitted in particle fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Design, Massey University, New Zealand

Abstract

Being mean to books in order to find out the meaning of books explores my own relationship with books, and their position within my practice as an emerging book designer. What began as an exploration of the future of the book turned into an attempt to understand them in their present state. In order to come to understand their physicality, the impacts of the embodied reader, and the idea and ideal that books represent socially. This research was conducted through an auto-ethnographic design lens, putting my own relationship, tensions and preferences with books at the heart of the work. Through a series of practice led making — or unmaking — I engaged with books, breaking the unspoken rules of interacting with them and testing the limits of my own habits. I began with arguably the meanest act (Burning a book), I was reluctant, hesitant — and simply didn’t want to be mean to books. Through repeated exposure of intervening in an increasingly mean way, my relationship with books as a reader, designer and bibliophile developed to appreciate the marks a book gains from an embodied readers interaction. Books quickly revealed themselves as active participants in the interventions, shaping and directing not only individual encounters but conducting the full idea and scope of the work. By engaging with books in this extreme manner, I’ve come to understand what they mean to me and others, socially and culturally, beyond just the physical object. This research created space for me to truly get to know books and although I cannot simply sum up what books mean, I can say what they mean to me; which is everything. They are no longer simply something that I just enjoy reading, designing and being surrounded by but they are a framework through which I think and communicate myself. As an emerging book designer, it was vital for me to understand books in this way.