The Questionnaire is a basis of 10 questions about the subject of book design, which are specifics for the profiles involved in the making of a book (designer, visual artist, developer) and is a reference in which to pick up the questions for each interview. The raising of other possible questions is an ongoing process.
Go back to Research Framework
0. Introduction: Can you introduce yourself and your work? When did you first develop an interest in book design?
1. What is the main difference between a book and an e-book? What about other digital editorial products (iPad applications, digital magazines, devices for reading in the web etc.)? What about calling them all “reading experiences”?
2. What do you think are the new parameters, limits and rules in the design process for the digital book? How do they differ from the design of a paper book?
3. In which elements of the project do you think your identity as a designer reside? How would you manage to keep it – or even change it – in the making of digital book projects? Do you think you will make digital books in the future?
4. The relationship between text and image has always been one of the core matters in visual communication. How has it changed in the digital environment? Do you think this relationship could become something different in digital publishing, and how?
5. What about the relationship between content and structure in the laying out of a book (indexes, hyperlinks, different ways of visualization etc.)? How does it change with the digital? What about it in digital publishing?
6. Do you think interactivity and media convergence can affect the design of a book? What about the proliferation of different formats (ePub, PDF, iPad etc.)? What about collaborative practices? How does it change with the digital? What about it in digital publishing?
7. How to combine all these aspects within the tactility of the digital book?
8. Do you think we are risking an overload of information in publishing, especially in online and digital publishing?
9. Do you see typography for digital books as an interesting field to investigate?
10. Has the traditional book changed? Can we talk about a sort of “paper reaction” to the digital shift in publishing? What do you think about the increase of self-publishing, both on paper and digitally?
11. What do you think about open source culture? What economic models do we have now in publishing and which do you think will take over in the future?
12. What do you think about the obsolescence of the digital? Is putting the content back onto paper the only choice that we have to overtake this obsolescence? Do you think we could find other solutions?
13. We are living in the era of the dissemination of information. Do you think we are lacking of concentration?
Do you think that dissemination and concentration can coexist or do we have to choose between one of them?
14. Can art and design practices give a contribution, with a different point of view form Corporates’one, to the development of proper structures, models and devices for digital publishing, and how? In which direction would you like the research on digital book to be developed? As a designer, what do you think is really necessary to explore?
15. Do you know of or use any dedicated software to design a digital book? Which tools are you missing and what do you think is still needed for digital publishing? What do you think about open source software?
00. Demonstration: Can you show me some of your projects?