The design of this excerpt from JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit explores traditional sustained reading formats. Tolkien is known for his fantasy works. Inspired by the ethereal feeling that Tolkien’s fantasy books evoke, I chose a type that would reflect that through the shapes the letterforms create as well as the negative space that is created between each word. The type is traditionally justified, causing slight discourse with the ethereal feeling the book is to give the reader, but the extra space given at the bottom of each page creates an even more open feeling that reestablishes that feeling with each page. The use of glyphs throughout reference the handwritten tale by Bilbo Baggins.
This modern book, a juxtaposition of excerpts from The Hobbit and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows challenges the conventional role reading. Each excerpt draws parallels with the building climax for the main character that comes to a quick halt at the end. As the two narratives transform, the pages become animated through typographic placement, cropping, colors, and baseline shapes. To illustrate the building of the climax as well as the character chaos, the type treatment gets increasingly chaotic.
Jamie Curtis Design 