How Spectacular!
How Spectactular! explores the milestones within the invention and evolution of eyeglasses. It was designed for the Milestones brief for the International Society of Typographic Designers Student Assesment scheme. Where it was awarded a Merit.
The main concepts explored in the book are vision, blur and focus. The artefact consists of two Coptic bound small books, joined together with a ribbon. The coptic binding references the hinges of glasses. The books are small and feel delicate, reflecting the small size of glasses and their transportable yet fragile nature. The ribbon that connects the book references the use of ribbon to affix glasses to one’s head before the invention of temple arms. When the artefact is open, it subtly references a pair of glasses, the two books represent the lenses with the ribbon acting as side arms and a nose bridge. On the cover, using a combination of embossing and printing, the word ‘spectacular’ is split to play with the idea of focus and vision.
Book One explores the invention of eyeglasses from 1100 to 1700, while Book Two focuses on eyeglasses from 1800 to the present day. This period followed the Industrial Revolution, which marked a significant turning point in eyeglass development. The two display typefaces used reference the eras covered within the two books.
The sections in the books are split into decades; the display typefaces reflect the decades, and the decade numbers also begin blurred, getting clearer over time, reflecting the developments in eyeglasses. The 0’s in the decades are also connected by a ‘nose bridge’ custom ligature, turning them into glasses.
The book is printed on 80gsm Zeta Paper to incorporate qualities of ‘show through’, playing with the idea of vision. In Book One, on pages 11 and 25, I utilise the transparency of the paper to further explore the idea of bringing things into focus. The top pages only highlight the letters that spell out the type of glasses, while the text underneath provides a few sentences about the invention of the glasses.