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'I Wonder' is a gilt-edged new tome from Marian Bantjes, combining graphic art with her lesser-known skills as a writer. On its elaborately ornamented pages, the Wallpaper* contributor (and designer of a Laser sailboat for Wallpaper* Handmade, W*137) looks at the role of wonder in design and imagery, through an eccentric mix of musings, personal anecdotes and what she, herself, calls 'harebrained ideas'.
A chapter exploring how we honour things that resonate with us, illustrated by ornamental pasta, is swiftly followed by a look at the experience of the 'really ugly' signage in her home town of Saskatoon, Canada. These rich, playful and often funny pages are wrapped in an aptly indulgent, gold and silver foil cover.
Images from the 'Cemeteries' chapter, which serves as a pictorial interlude, wherein a view of cemetery portraits speak to the book's recurring themes of wonder, honour and memory, p.098 & 099
The 'Secrets' chapter pushes the limits of legibility and ultimately breaks those limits when it prints actual secrets in encoded text, p.112 & 113
The '1 Sign 4 All' chapter addresses the ugly signage on display in the author's home town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, p.100 & 101
Pages from the 'Secrets' chapter use gold encoded text, p.116 & 117
In the 'Alphabet' chapter, Bantjes amusingly and profanely critiques the 'design' of the alphabet, commenting on the efforts and motives of a team of imaginary designers, p.122 &123
Graphics from the 'Alphabet' chapter, p.128 & 129
The 6-page chapter 'Assembling Two IKEA Bookshelves' shows the progress, frustrations, distractions and asides involved in spending an afternoon assembling two Ikea bookshelves, p.142 & 143
The chapter 'Memory 2: Notes on a Life' is based on the author's eulogy for her mother, as it examines a life as represented by the handwritten remains of hundreds of 'To Do' lists, p.174 & 175