The Machine Stops
Book Design, Print Design, Typography
The Machine Stops is a novella written in the 1909 by E. M. Forster, about a dystopian world that derived from the insurgent of technology and it's downfall, predicting today's new technologies such as instant messaging and the internet. This science fiction short story of 12,300 words, was set
in a post-apocalyptic world where life solely exist underground, with the heavily reliance on a giant machine to facilitate our human needs.
The aim was to redesign this short story, into a new book giving it a new life, with typographic experiments enhances an exciting and fun reading experience, that reflects the context of the story. And better still amplify the core concept of the story through it's visual and physical format.
Overall creative direction for the book is a post-modernist stylistic look, in appropriate to the story, written in the 1909s and yet still very relevant
to today's society. A modern book with characteristics of history through it's typographic experiments.
Chapters —
1. The Air-Ship (Green)
2. The Mending Apparatus (Blue)
3. The Homeless (Red)
1. The Air-Ship (Green)
2. The Mending Apparatus (Blue)
3. The Homeless (Red)
Using RGB colors was naturally a solution to color coding the chapters, a notion that conveys the spirit of the machine and at the same time distinctively separating the chapters. The colors were arranged in an order that depicts the disintegration of that world – Green=Calmness , Blue=Change, Red=Catastrophe.
Typography is intrinsically a visual language that reflects the richness of the way we speak. In terms of the use of typefaces in this book, there were two main typefaces which were Baskerville and OCR-A, representing the narrator's and character's voice respectively. One being contemporary traditional and the other contemporary modern.
Typographic Experiments & Treatments —
- Structural System: Body text areas moves from close to the spine, to then further away from it.
(Convey slow disintegration of the society in the story)
- Chapter 1: Projected Type: Type as an image (Talking through a Screen Notion)
- Chapter 3: Randomised & Disarray Type (Book Within Book Notion)
Besides the original chapters and their individual treatments, I decided to create some fictional chapters that reflects the "Book of Machine", in context to the story, people there were carrying around this 'book' that contains all information, like a guide to life in that world. An act of reimagingin the people in their world and also bringing the readers closer to the fictional world. As for production wised I decided to do coptic binding, featuring an exposed spine, to which manifest the rawness of the story and it's imperfections.
