China's book binding has a corresponding relationship with other literary traditions, which belongs to the elegant, luxurious and connotative style of the East. Book binding is by no means a deceptive trick. Book binding needs not only beautiful form, but also the ability to compare and express the ideological content of works. It installed a "megaphone" on a work, revealed the essence of the content of the work to readers by means of images, colors and other modeling methods, and expanded the social effect. Excellent book binding can improve readers' interest in reading.
When I design book binding, I always consider color from harmony and simplicity, or adopt modern and strong contrast in the opposite direction, pay attention to national characteristics, but do not advocate retro; Emphasize the flavor of the times to reflect the unique local flavor of China today, and describe what you want to describe in a simple and lively style.
Binding is the coat of the book, and the text is the dress of the book, striving for simplicity, simplicity and art. A book is placed in a thousand books, and the binding of this book can only be successful if it can first attract readers' attention, make them reluctant to leave and involuntarily want to open it for a look. Of course, this must not rely on grandstanding. Some books are not in the picture. The content is not painting, but the general idea can be handled beautifully with pure patterns. Book binding should have a solid foundation of natural painting and its own unique image. With the foundation, the image is not good, and you still can't do a good book binding, let alone reflect the inner spirit of the book, but also through material selection, plate making, printing, and sometimes other designs involving the whole book. Book binding must not be a simple simulation or illustration title, but an independent art. Whether a book is bound well directly affects the reader's reading mood. A successful written painting should not only get to the bottom of the central content of the book, but also put an end to shallowness, dew, sweetness, flattery, sharpness and crispness, and jump over these iron thresholds to achieve a rich, subtle and unexpected taste with endless implications. You can also use symbolic metaphors to reflect the artistic conception of the book from the side. Tao is related but not related, which plucks the strings of readers' imagination and makes them linger. What's more, it doesn't involve the content of the book, but just a kind of binding beauty, which arouses people's desire to know the theme and performance characteristics of the book. No matter how to explore the connotation of the book from the front and side, or rely on the means of binding, we must put an end to the statement. Only the content and form of novels can conquer readers.
The overture of an opera can generally show the outline of the whole drama, which is concentrated and sublimated, attractive but not prosperous; In the past, when Caotai opera was sung in the countryside, the noise made the fans' feet itch, so they had to run to the stage to see what had happened. Cover should play the role of overture and platform opening. Just like some overtures can be played alone, the cover should be enjoyed by people without books and given them beautiful enjoyment. And the "language" used for binding must be the language of painting. Our cover design can't come straight to the point, it's not implicit at all. Try to combine the melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre and binding of music. Of course, music languages are neither painting languages nor binding languages, but they have a * * * nature, which can influence and use each other. The effect of sound is equal to that of color. If the technique of music creation is used in binding, the effect will be extraordinary.
Learning calligraphy is more directly related to book binding: calligraphy is composed of lines. If you learn well, your lines will be very powerful. Sometimes, it is more convenient to write a book name without using pattern characters.
Book binding, as its name implies, always has a strong bookish spirit and contains an inner feeling. There must be twists and turns, obscure, and not as realistic as ordinary paintings.
Book binding is most afraid of low-level illustrations of books. If we treat this way, we will lose the artistic significance and value of book binding and should try our best to avoid it. Good design is fascinating and hard to put down. Book binding or simply become a beautiful book binding, or highly summarize the contents of the book and become an image. The aesthetic feeling of books in words also helps sales. As far as I know, some books even sell well because of their beautiful writing. The written binding is so beautiful that even when the reader's desk is displayed, he will feel a fresh interest.
As a beautiful book binding, it has nothing to do with the book content, and it is a design method. Some designs should reflect the content. For example, I designed for Ba Jin's "Rebirth", that is, the grass forcibly shoots branches and leaves from the cracks in the stone steps, which means rebirth. Another example is Shen Yanbing's Snowman, which takes the word "snow" as the center and uses snowflakes to change, which not only expresses the content of the book, but also makes a beautiful binding.
Cover design is not equal to any natural painting, and no painter can casually put a painting on paper. If a binding design, like a general commodity, only focuses on explaining the commodity itself and showing off people's eyes and ears with the commodity, it is too superficial. Book binding is more complicated, unlike natural painting such as oil painting and watercolor painting, as long as it describes nature, it will be successful. Writing is the appearance of a book, not the binding of the whole book. When drawing words and illustrations, we should consider the conditions of preservation and printing, and fully understand the production process of books. When we say book binding, we only mean writing. Text design is the appearance of the book, not the binding of the whole book. ..... but to advocate comprehensive book binding, of course, we must pick out the book style, but we must pay equal attention to layout, catalogue, front cover and back cover. When designing, we should give full consideration to it, and we can't be satisfied with doing a good job in text design. Text design can only be used as a beautiful binding of books, or it can be a highly summarized image of the contents of books, or both.
I think the book binding should have the style of the East and China, and it is promising to embody the saying "Make the past serve the present" and adopt the patterns of ancient bronze stone carvings in China. What's more, all the excellent paintings, calligraphy, handicrafts, costumes and other things left by China in ancient times, no matter their shapes, structures, colors, lines and so on. , can be combined into the creation according to the actual needs when designing characters, and become a modern binding work with national characteristics. Some people ask whether book binding should be nationalized and modernized. I mean, I mean nationalization and modernization. I think nationalization and modernization can be combined. There is no nationalization, only modernization, and it is impossible to tell which country the design comes from; It is also useless to simply nationalize and always flip over the unchangeable past. Nationalization can't stop at simulation and adaptation, and modernization should also be different from general commodity design. I think there should always be a distance between the two.
I exchanged views with Lu Xun and Tao on whether the book binding should be national or not, and everyone agreed that it should be national.
Wrote Lu Yin Xun Chronicle.
When it comes to book binding, we have to start with ancient books. In ancient China, woodcut and thread binding were the most common forms. In this form of book, the cover is made of dark paper or fabric, and the title of the book is usually made into a label, which is attached to the left side of the book, clearly defined by silk thread and wrapped in silk. When you open it, the first thing you see is a folded cover page. Open the lining page, there is a title page printed with the title of the book. On the back of it, there is an engraving and printing host with a record of one year. Then the preface and so on, and then the text. Go to the end, or end with lining. The material of the back cover is the same as that of the seal. Although China's ancient books didn't put forward the name of binding design, there is no doubt that each one is painstakingly managed and is the concrete expression of binding design.
Some popular novels in the late Qing Dynasty have taken the form of movable type typesetting and paperback, and most of them have printed colorful pictures on their covers. Before this, painting has never been printed in text form, so it is necessary to regard it as the bud of text painting in book binding.
Book binding in the 1930s generally refers to words, not anything else. At that time, the novels translated by Lin published by the Commercial Press were all written with foreign lace patterns and had a unique style. Almost at the same time of writing popular novels in the late Qing Dynasty, a healthy book was designed. This kind of writing design has a great influence on the future career here. ..... This kind of writing design first appeared in books printed by Lu Xun. Mr. Lu Xun spared no effort to advocate book binding design. He is personally committed to this work. Because of his erudition and profound study of China's traditional book binding, the books he designed are very beautiful and novel in style.
Lu Xun's vigorous advocacy in this respect has attracted the attention of the whole literary and art circles and publishing circles. With his training and support, the most famous designer is Tao, who designed excellent written works for most of Lu Xun's works.
Tao does not rely on isolated painting techniques, but is good at seeking book binding outside of book binding to achieve this unique style. Tao has certain attainments in poetry, traditional Chinese painting and western painting. At that time, besides me and Tao, there were some people engaged in book binding. For example, Si Tuleideng Joe's works are made by pen drawing, which is more realistic and has no pattern meaning, and is completely different from other people's works; Different from the styles of Tao and others, Chen Zhifo's works are mainly ancient and simple. The works of Zhang Guangyu and Zhang Zhengzi distort the images of people and things in the form of traditional woodcuts in China, which is very intriguing and a style; Later, there was Zheng Chuangu, whose works were bold and refined, and the pattern composition was very strong; Shen's works are fresh and energetic, which can attract readers. Mo Zhiheng's works are simple and heavy. Cai Zhenhua, whose works are thoughtful and meticulous, has a unique interest in painting and patterns. Feng Zikai's cover design, combined with his cartoons, is full of poetry and sense of humor, and has taken a unique road, which is also a very prominent one. Cao Xinzhi's works are full of beauty, poetry, dreams and excellent national style. At the same time, he is a Taoist priest, with high attainments in seal cutting and bamboo carving, and is good at mounting calligraphy and painting. Follow one's inclinations, completely foreign style, unique ideas and bold colors. Zhang Cizhong's works are very refined, with extremely elegant ideas, often unexpected ideas, and extremely accurate use of colors and pens.