'With most experiences in life now, we expect more and more,' says Britt Iversen, co-founder of new London-based publishing house Visual Editions. 'So why not with books?' As she proves with the company's first tome - a new edition of Laurence Sterne's 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman' - the traditional reading medium has not lost its capacity to surprise.
At the axis of Visual Editions is a belief in 'visual writing'. It is via this approach - which the company takes to both fiction and non-fiction - that Sterne's 18th-century novel shakes off its Dover Classics image and emerges refreshed for a 21st-century readership.
Visual Editions approached A Practice For Everyday Life, a London-based graphic design studio that has taken commissions from the likes of FAT architects and the Tate, with one clear instruction: to stay faithful to Sterne's playful spirit. That aside, the designers were given free reign to create a book that remains elegant and visually beautiful amidst the pervading liveliness - which is backed up by a suitably irreverent forward from Will Self.
That Iversen and Visual Editions co-founder Anna Gerber bonded six years ago over a shared love of colour is self-evident; the book is shot through with an arresting shade of orange. 'Anna has been teaching design for ten years, currently at the London College of Communication,' Iversen explains. 'When we met, we quickly discovered our devotion to colour.' Meanwhile, Iversen herself works at advertising agency, Mother, now in her ninth year, and so brings a 'broader, more poppy' experience to the table.
The central tenet of Visual Editions is that aesthetic additions should never be extraneous or gimmicky; rather they should reinforce and help deliver a narrative. Visual devices range from using photography, die-cuts and even blank pages. In the new edition of Tristram Shandy, a shut door is represented by a folded down page, and perspiration is depicted using a marbled black-and-white photograph in a feat of ocular onomatopoeia.
A folded-down page represents a shut door in the narrative
Anna Gerber and Britt Iversen bonded over their shared love of colour, as evidenced by the fluorescent orange inside cover
The black page from ’Tristram Shandy’ features overprinted text from previous chapters
The book is shot through with this arresting shade of orange
Visual Editions’ debut book demonstrates the ’visual writing’ principle on which the company is founded
Repetitive sounds in the narrative take on a visual shape, reinforcing their impact
-
A Japanese maple adds quaint charm to a crisp, white house in SydneyBellevue Hill, a white house by Mathieson Architects, is a calm retreat layered with minimalism and sophistication
-
Be transported to an illegal Acid House rave by the Barbican's new immersive experienceVirtual reality, DJ sets, record label takeovers – it's all at the Barbican through to August. Craig McLean gets out his glowsticks
-
Wallpaper* checks in at Experimental Marais: a lush homecoming for the hospitality forceExperimental Group returns to its Parisian roots, where it opened its founding bar, to launch its first-ever flagship hotel, designed by Tristan Auer
-
The glory years of the Cannes Film Festival are captured in a new photo book‘Cannes’ by Derek Ridgers looks back on the photographer's time at the Cannes Film Festival between 1984 and 1996
-
Taschen’s sexy record covers are hitting all the right notesTaschen has been through 50 years of album art for its latest tome, ‘Sexy Record Covers’
-
‘Dressed to Impress’ captures the vivid world of everyday fashion in the 1950s and 1960sA new photography book from The Anonymous Project showcases its subjects when they’re dressed for best, posing for events and celebrations unknown
-
Daniel Arsham’s new monograph collates the works of the auto-obsessed American artist‘Arsham Motorsport’ is two volumes of inspiration, process and work, charting artist Daniel Arsham’s oeuvre inspired by the icons and forms of the automotive industry
-
Era-defining photographer David Bailey guides us through the 1980s in a new tome not short of shoulder pads and lycraFrom Yves Saint Laurent to Princess Diana, London photographer David Bailey dives into his 1980s archive in a new book by Taschen
-
Inside Joan Didion’s unseen diary of personal relationships and post-therapy notesA newly discovered diary by Joan Didion is soon to be published. Titled 'Notes to John', the journal documents her relationship with her daughter, husband, alcoholism, and depression
-
Carsten Höller’s new Book of Games: 336 playful pastimes for the bold and the boredArtist Carsten Höller invites readers to step out of their comfort zone with a series of subversive games
-
Distracting decadence: how Silvio Berlusconi’s legacy shaped Italian TVStefano De Luigi's monograph Televisiva examines how Berlusconi’s empire reshaped Italian TV, and subsequently infiltrated the premiership
