Author & Designer╱曦成製本 Hei Shing Book Design
Size╱105mm x 148mm
Cover Paper╱Shinny Black Paper & Translucent Paper
Year╱2016
School╱Jingren’s Paperlogue, Beijing​​​​​​​

I created this experimental book in the course of my participation in a workshop taught by Sofue Shin, the renowned Japanese book designer. The workshop’s title was ‘the joy of flying high – on reinterpreting ugly things in positive and joyous light’.

In order to make a book about ‘houseflies’, I took the time to learn about the characteristics of flies carefully, such as their morphology, life cycles, habits, colours, texture, size, and what makes them so revulsive. After learning about everything I needed to know about them, I began the design process for this book.

The form of the book is made to resemble the body of a housefly. On the book cover, I used a cutter to cut out the hair. Beneath the hair, I lined the cover with silverish black paper to evoke disgust and nausea. For the inside pages of the book, I chose paper made of different shades of black to represent the subtle variations in colour on a fly. The format of the book is A6, which is small, like the housefly itself. The further back a reader flips through the book, folded legs can be unfolded and extended out of the edge of the book. It is practically a housefly in the form of a book.