The idea of this final proposal was based on the book of Georges Perec “An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris”. A lot of inspiration was gained from this book, as it was the main source of influence. Georges Perec spends three days observing people, cars, pigeons etc. from the same location in Paris; “La place Saint Sulpice”. He sometimes sits in a tobacco shop, a café or in a bench and takes notes. Inspired from Georges Perec and his book a voyage to Paris was planned to retrace what he did. As a result this gave me a lot of material to work with and reproduce something new coming from the same location and past. Some things were still the same as described in the book and so they were repeated. Space was explored even though it has already been explored thoroughly by Perec. Each reader of the book might understand the description of the space in a different way due to the fact that everyone has a broad imagination. Each person interprets the story and fills in the missing gap differently and this is based upon their individual character and knowledge.
The project was based on a selected area in Paris that was viewed from different angles. A combination of both image making and typography was used to create artwork; a more typographical outcome.
The aim was to produce 40 pieces of the final piece to celebrate the 40 years from the publication of the book. Twelve copies were produced for submission and exhibition and in this way the concept was finalised and ready to be produced. One of the principal aims upon completion of the project was to send copies of the books to the Association of Georges and exhibit or sell various galleries such as MIMA and the Baltic. The outcome was the recreation of limited editions of the book with a combination of my own notes and Perec’s.
The initial aim was to include an international dialect; English, French and Greek but this seemed to be a bit confusing in the end. For that reason, the book was designed in a way that only English and French were used. Although English is used as the primary language, French language is used to indicate common events that occurred both in 1974 and 2014. More over the visual communication combines French folding with the inside folds printed in photographic imagery. Pictures are printed on the folded edges, taking the reader to the next spread (fig.2). The book is Japanese hand-stitched by a cream thread. The title of the book “Retracing Georges Perec” was embossed at the front and back cover.
The production of the book consisted of different methods and processes throughout the module. The combination of both photography and various software programs within the Adobe Creative Suite were used for its production. Using InDesign, the production of the Retracing book was developed at various stages. InDesign helped me manage the text in an appropriate way so that it would communicate visually. A lot of experimentation was conducted regarding the typography in order to get it right. It was decided to use mostly text and have the images visible from the inside of the book. . Most of the photographs used in the book are in Gray scale apart from some that have colour.
Various people were involved in the checking and proofing stages; a PhD student in English and a fellow Graphic Designer. The artwork was printed and used as a mock up several times in order to adjust any amendments and see how it looks on different kind of paper. Each book includes a CD with short movies about the “Retracing” project and also folded images to form a small concertina book. The movies created for the book show not only the three days spent in the café observing people and the surroundings but also the routes taken to go to Perec’s houses. The program used to create and edit those movies was iMovie. Text was added at the beginning of the movie and some in between and a small fade from each scene to the next. Music could have been added for the movie but it was decided to leave the actual sounds when recorded with the videos.
