DREAM OF THE RED MANSION (红楼梦)
An artist book that contains illustrations and typography
2020 Print & Handmade
This is a project that I utilized metaphor as my design strategy. I was inspired by a story about a virtual empire that had its own glory but was turned into a barbaric land due to the short-sighted following generation. This story reminded me of arguably the most famous traditional Chinese novel called Dream of the Red Mansion (红楼梦). It was about a wealthy family during the Qing dynasty which also has its ups and downs. I used the story of Dream of the Red Chamber as an analogy for the virtual empire that I mentioned previously and the source to develop the imagery for this project.
This is a wooden box titled by the novel in Chinese.
The box contains five scrolls and four accordion books.
There are five scrolls I made to show the ups and downs of the family and at the same time retell the original story of the empire. I also designed four little accordion books in both Chinese and English to introduce the background of Dream of the Red Chamber and the characters involved in the five scrolls.
Since the scrolls were made in a traditional way, all the texts and images are designed to be read from right to left. The Chinese text was taken out of the novel, and the English text was the original empire story.
BTW, I made all the illustrations.
zoom-in details (scroll 3)
zoom-in details (scroll handle)
zoom-in details (scroll 1)
zoom-in details (scroll 1)
zoom-in details (scroll 3)
zoom-in details (scroll 2)
zoom-in details (scroll 4)
zoom-in details (scroll 1)
zoom-in details (scroll 2)
Cover of the accordion books (English&Chinese)
Introduction of main characters (English&Chinese)
Introduction of story (English&Chinese)