Hand-made Creative Adaptation of The Alchemist

The Alchemist is a simple story. But simplicity has its complexities. Beneath its modest language and poetic tale of magic and adventure is a message about destiny, faith, and the Soul of the World. Though these are all unique and separate things, they are intimately intertwined with and connected to each other, and to all other things. Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is about the connection of all things and the philosophy that “all things are the manifestation of one thing only” (Coelho 80).

This special edition of The Alchemist has been designed to dovetail a profound, spiritual message within the commonplace facets of a book. Every part of this book, from its pages to its headbands, was created to emphasize elements of Coelho’s famous story and enhance the reader’s experience of Santiago’s journey.

----Target Audience----
The design of this special edition of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist is intended for college level students in their late teens to mid-twenties. The reason I focused on young college students is because they are at a time and place in their lives where they are taught to study literature and think critically about the ideas presented within it. The Alchemist is filled with interesting philosophies and historical references�"perfect for the curious, young mind to dive into and analyze.

----Cover----
The Master Work of an alchemist is the discovery of how to transform other materials into gold. The reason gold is the desired outcome of an alchemist’s work is because “everything in the universe evolved, and, for wise men, gold is the metal that evolved the furthest” (Coelho 137). Alchemist wish to understand gold to improve their understanding of the world and “evolve as gold had,” because they know that “when something evolves, everything around that thing evolves as well” (80).

I began my project with this philosophy. I started the design of my special edition book with the alchemist’s Master Work, gold, and allowed the rest of the design to evolve from it.

The first part of the book that I planned out, the crinkled, gold cover, is also the first part of the book that is encountered by the reader. It sets the stage for the story of The Alchemist. The ability to transform things into gold only comes to those who understand the connection of all things, which is the main message of Coelho’s book. Embedded within the face of the gold cover are two stones. These two stones are Urim and Thummim. Within The Alchemist, the protagonist, Santiago, was given Urim and Thummim by the king of Salem, who, before handing them over to Santiago, had them embedded in the center of his golden breastplate (Coelho 30). Urim and Thummim are the “only form of divination permitted by God”(69). In The Alchemist the black stone means ‘yes’ and the white stone means ‘no’, although, according to biblical scholars, the actual nature of Urim and Thummim is unknown. Santiago placed the two stones in a small pouch and carried them with him throughout his journey. The placement of Urim and Thummim on the cover not only illustrate the breastplate of the king of Salem, they also initiate one of the themes used throughout the interior of the book.

----Interior----
::Endpapers::
The endpapers were designed to help the reader visualize the breadth of Santiago’s journey. Santiago traveled over 2,300 miles by foot, boat, and camel in search of his treasure; a journey that lasted over a year. The front endpaper is an old-style map of Spain, where Santiago’s adventure began, and the back endpaper is a map of the same style, but of Egypt, where Santiago’s dreams led him. Both maps include every location visited by Santiago or mentioned by important characters in The Alchemist. The locations on the maps are referred to by the same names used for them in the English translation of The Alchemist.

::Pages::
The Alchemist’s philosophy of evolution from gold was carried through to the page size and layout. The yellow tone of the Wausau, ivory paper used for the book’s pages, gave the book an antique look and went well with the gold cover. To add to the antique style of the book, each page was torn by hand on its outermost edge. The reason for the aged look of the pages is to remind the reader of the time period in which The Alchemist takes place. Although the book does not give a concrete era for the story, it must have taken place at a time when Egyptian alchemy was considered a science, which was thousands of years ago.

Using the golden section, I settled on a page size of 4.7” by 7.605”. It is big enough to be easily handled and read, but small enough to draw the reader in and enhance the intimacy of the text. The small page size also makes the book portable enough to be comfortably carried along with the reader while traveling.

Urim and Thummim appear on the pages within the book, following the theme started on the cover. The white stone is found on the opening page for part one and is used as the scene change icon for that section because it means ‘no.’ This is the part of the book in which Santiago ignores the calling of his Personal Legend. The part of the story in which he begins to follow the omens leading to his treasure, part two, is marked by the black stone, which means ‘yes.’

::Type::
The entire book was set using the Adobe Jenson Pro font family. Adobe Jenson Pro is a beautiful face that has a little more character than many of the other roman fonts suited for long texts. It’s diagonal strokes and variations in width allude to script-like writing styles, such as Arabic. This look was desired because Santiago becomes immersed in Arabic culture after crossing the Straight of Gibraltar and being stranded in Tangier for nearly a year.

The intended audience of this book is college students, who are generally young and have good eyesight, so it was possible to set the typeface in a small size without compromising readability. The small size was used to fit the number of characters required to complete a thought on one line using Coelho’s short, simple sentences.

The placement of the text began with the golden proportions of book design and was then adjusted slightly to account for the perfect binding of the book. The golden proportions led to generous outside and bottom margins, which are perfect for taking notes and leaving thoughts and comments on any page. As a story overflowing with wisdom, The Alchemist will give its reader many opportunities to put these margins to good use.