Genius Loci: Situated Books

Description

While graphic design is a field of visual creation particularly attentive to context, editorial graphic design might at first seem free from the geographic anchoring that characterizes posters or signage. Indeed, the book is a traveling medium: printed in hundreds of copies, then circulated through networks of distributors, sellers, and bookstores. Yet many books are written on, for, or from a territory that is their subject, recipient, or origin. Publishers, authors, graphic designers, etc., live in and traverse places they put into books to inhabit, document, and mobilize them. This course will explore the relationships between book and territory through organizing a study day (programming, organization, communication) and creating a collective edition intended to travel with us to the Exemplaires biennial in Metz.