< Berries > This an un-flattened picturebook I have undertaken for my PhD.
The book invites the reader to be the protagonist and explore the story through the physical space in the book. Each turn of the page reveals a new scene. The shapes used on each page interact with those on the next to create new shapes which change as the layers are moved.
The book is made of 10 pieces of coloured paper bound together with a single piece of string in the middle, so that the order of the 10 colours will be repeated in reverse in the latter half of the book. As the story is a journey, the repeated but inverted colour order represents the reader leaving and then returning from their journey.
I used a creative constraint while designing this book; I planned to only use die cuts to present a whole journey in book form. During the design process of this book, I went back and forth between the forms, colours, materials and pacing. It was a long journey to finally reach this version.
Katsumi Komagata declares:
Turning the page makes it possible to construct things, to trigger surprises moving to the next page, stimulating the reader’s interest.
