RefractionEdinburgh College of Art

Brief –
Design a book from any material that couldn’t/wouldn’t/shouldn’t be used to make a book.
Idea –
Investigating the states of matter, I decided to encase liquid in hand-ironed plastic to produce
functional pages. Throughout the process, I observed the interaction between the chosen
materials and environment, noticing a warping effect when looking through each page. Through
research, I identified this phenomenon as refraction, which became the focal point of the project.
Outcome –
Refraction is an alternative book designed as a tool for manually distorting type. The pages are
made up of encased liquid, each of varying viscosity to allow for different levels of light
manipulation and texture. The design of the packaging allows the user to remove the pages with
ease. By using these pages as a physical overlay, the interaction between the liquid and light
causes a warping effect which can be experimented with and photographed.