I was inspired by the shocking statistics on literacy around the world. Today, 50% of adults in the US can't read above the 8th grade level and Unicef has stated that at the rate society is going "a billion people will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names." All my research led me to realize that between 4th grade and 8th grade, the number of kids that read recreationally drops from 53% to 20%, and continues to drop exponentially after that.
I looked beyond that and realized that books assigned in school are dense, not only in subject but in design as well. Readers are forced to move from books with wide margins and large text to often photocopied manuscripts of classic literature. In that sense I wanted to design a book house that catered to making books easier to read. I wanted to make the experience as friendly and as inspiring as possible.
This is a growing collection of books inspired by tales of adventures in classic literature. I chose The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, The Divine Comedy: Inferno by Dante Alighieri, and The Aeneid by Virgil. These are all books found commonly in 8th grade reading lists and are often skimmed over because of the difficulty of the text.
The covers were designed with the woodcuts of Gustave Doré and hand drawn calligraphy. This is to give the old stories a more modern feel as well as to give a glimpse of the symbolism and imagery inside. Each book is designed with wide margins (so students can take notes) and large folios (so students can easily flip to pages when the teacher says to). The back of the books contain verses or quotes from the books that best summarize the story.
Book One:
The Divine Comedy: Inferno by Dante Alighieri
This book follows the same margin guidelines as the entire series. I chose to use yellow to separate it from other book covers for Inferno that tend to use typical demonic colors. The inside of the book has an infographic that tells the reader which level of hell they are in.
Book Two:
The Aeneid by Virgil
The Aeneid by Virgil
The challenge of this book was that it was an incredibly long piece of poetry. In order to make it easier to understand I broke up the different "books" (or chapters) and made sure that there was wide leading and slightly above average tracking. The goal was to give it as much breathing room as possible.
Book Three:
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales is a story of Chaucer telling a story of people telling stories of other characters. Yes, that's the most confusing part about it. In order to make it easier for 12-14 year olds (and for that matter, any reader) to better read Chaucer I chose to use different type sizes to differentiate characters. Characters in the stories of say, the Knight, have dialogue set in large type while every time Chaucer makes an aside, the text turns to bold and italic.
