Le 3D book experiment.

Challenge: To make a book that isn't a book but is still a book


Where to start with this one? Here we had the chance to experiment with any kind of material or concept we liked to make a sort of sculptural book. It could be legible but didn't necessarily have to be. It could look like a book but couldn't be a plain front and back covered pages in the middle kind of a book. One major rule was that it couldn't look tacky and had to be finished to a high standard, no easy feat in a short amount of time. Again it was the soma pills that jumped out at me for inspiration but again it's not always the first obvious idea that is the one that works. All week I've gone from one idea to another not really nailing anything. First it was rolling up the chapters of the book onto really small prints and putting them in capsules and then into a medicine bottle with the book cover as the label. Scrap that. Next I started to sew a strange foetal type of doll out of t-shirts and lining from a freshly autopsied teddy bear and I was happy enough with the progress until I was getting to the head and I was told that I was probably wasting my time on an idea that wouldn't work. Me being stubborn with an idea and not wanting to stop before it was fully realised, carried on with it until I was told a third time and I thought it a bit rude to ignore such sound advice, so I left that on the shelf until later. Sewing together the uniforms proved a fruitless pursuit which I gave up on straight away after the first one was done, that was never going to end up anything other than tacky. Back to the drawing board, literally. A quick sketchy outline of a wooden pill idea was drawn up and I got down to making it first with my beloved cardboard and then with wood, card and acetate. Not a million miles away from the dreaded tacky area either, I'll agree. This was proving to be a little frustrating trying to force an idea. Project wooden pill was binned and toy packaging became my next area of interest. It's been a pretty hectic few days but worth it I think in the end. It's lucky I gave up sleep for lent.

Needs a hinge I think to make it open nicely.

I was using card and acetate to make the uniforms, still not a clean enough finish to them though.

Added to this was going to be some of the soma pill casings with the chapters rolled up inside, spilling out of the box.

"Bin it."  

And for a final attempt of getting away from making tack...

I'm aiming to have these printed out onto some thick, possibly laminated card 

and make them into actual toy packaging units. 

I'm hoping to add in the different uniforms and maybe a crest of the caste along with some soma pills, naturally.