DER FEINE UNTERSCHIED

challenge

The book tells about living in Switzerland and informs non-Swiss people about the tiny but relevant differences about daily life in the country. Yet showing the fine details about the content the book itself is missing. So we went over it with a re-design starting from the scratch in photographing all facing pages with a book-scanner. Afterwards capturing the text by an OCR software for optical character recognition.

WE'VE MADE

initial layout
book binding
design elements

Ein Handbuch für Deutsche in der Schweiz – nicht nur für Deutsche.

initial layout

To convert the original black and white paperback into an worthwile manual kind of book, it had to become more solid and straightforward. We decided to give it a much more robust cover and a clear coloring in red and white to represent the swiss flag and a gray tone for the daily routine and city instead of a cheap paperback pinstripe suit.

The books dimensions are corresponding to the swiss flag which proportions are equivalent to a square when opened. For the paper itself we used a Munken Print White 15 with 90 gsm to fit on a medium weight 287 pages in total.

And as usual, the devil is in the details. Not yet it in the content alone but in the cover itself.

bookbinding

The decision was set with the traditional values already represented by the topic itself that we have to make use of a thread stitching. Assembling this with a red headband, ribbon and a tab index cut out by hand with a cutting knife to shape an elegant book that gets covered in silky-shiny fabric, tinted red through digital textile printing. A truly valuable edition.

design elements

We're helping the reader with a bookmark in the same appearnace as the cover fabric itself. Also adding a tab index to simplify one readers search found its way in. Each chapter beginning now has a huge, white chapter number and is largely colored with red.

For a general and overall better reading we introduced a geometric grotesque typography with Brandon & Calluna representing a good serif partner for the text itself. The only map in the original book was enhanced in detail and further maps were added for a much more clear orientation.