To start with I read a synopsis and the first and last chapters of the book, as well as the 4 featured letters, and came up with my own understanding and synopsis for the book. The book starts with 4 letters from Robert Walton to his sister Margaret Saville that he wrote during his expedition.
Letter 1 - The first letter includes the preparations Robert Walton is doing before setting off and his burning desire to accomplish something of 'great purpose'. (The tone is optimistic as he talks about revealing a Northern passage to the pacific or revealing undiscovered territory)
Letter 2 - In the second letter Walton thinks about his lack of friends as he starts to feel lonely and isolated, and his 'love for the marvellous' is the only thing pushing him through.
Letter 3 - The third letter is a lot shorter and its very brief as he informs his sister that his ship has set sail and that he has full confidence that he will achieve his aim.
Letter 4 - In the fourth letter, the longest, the ship stalls between huge sheets of ice, and Walton and his men spot a sledge guided by a gigantic creature about half a mile away. The next morning, they encounter another sledge stranded on an ice floe. All but one of the dogs drawing the sledge is dead, and the man on the sledge, not the man seen the night before, is weak and starving. Despite his condition, the man refuses to board the ship until Walton tells him that it is heading north. The stranger spends two days recovering, nursed by the crew, before he can speak. The crew is burning with curiosity, but Walton, aware of the man’s still-fragile state, prevents his men from burdening the stranger with questions. As time passes, Walton and the stranger become friends, and the stranger eventually consents to tell Walton his story. At the end of the fourth letter, Walton states that the visitor will commence his narrative the next day; Walton’s framing narrative ends and the stranger’s begins.
Following this I had printed out the first and last chapter and worked my way through it underlining and highlighting any important plot points or key events which I knew I could focus a design or spread on.
Letter 1 - The first letter includes the preparations Robert Walton is doing before setting off and his burning desire to accomplish something of 'great purpose'. (The tone is optimistic as he talks about revealing a Northern passage to the pacific or revealing undiscovered territory)
Letter 2 - In the second letter Walton thinks about his lack of friends as he starts to feel lonely and isolated, and his 'love for the marvellous' is the only thing pushing him through.
Letter 3 - The third letter is a lot shorter and its very brief as he informs his sister that his ship has set sail and that he has full confidence that he will achieve his aim.
Letter 4 - In the fourth letter, the longest, the ship stalls between huge sheets of ice, and Walton and his men spot a sledge guided by a gigantic creature about half a mile away. The next morning, they encounter another sledge stranded on an ice floe. All but one of the dogs drawing the sledge is dead, and the man on the sledge, not the man seen the night before, is weak and starving. Despite his condition, the man refuses to board the ship until Walton tells him that it is heading north. The stranger spends two days recovering, nursed by the crew, before he can speak. The crew is burning with curiosity, but Walton, aware of the man’s still-fragile state, prevents his men from burdening the stranger with questions. As time passes, Walton and the stranger become friends, and the stranger eventually consents to tell Walton his story. At the end of the fourth letter, Walton states that the visitor will commence his narrative the next day; Walton’s framing narrative ends and the stranger’s begins.
Following this I had printed out the first and last chapter and worked my way through it underlining and highlighting any important plot points or key events which I knew I could focus a design or spread on.
Frankenstein was published in 1818, so to start my research i looked at typefaces and type from that time period.
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Following this I had looked at the physical media of the time to see what kind of media was around in the 1800s at the publishing of Frankenstein. I also looked at what materials where easily available in that time as well as how books where made and produced.
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Following on from this I had looked at the artist Vaughan Oliver as its the same kind of vibe that I was hoping to capture in my own work.
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I had then started looking in some books to get some more visual influence.
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Following on from this research I started doing some experimenting with how I could produce my work, I liked the idea of having the letters as individual pieces of work which the reader can pick up and interact with to offer up a more unique and hands on experience so I has started tea staining some paper and card of different weight, some paper with printed text on it as well as some fabric texture and string which I could implement into my work, this has been done as when looking at letters of the same time period as the book they all have that weathered look too them.
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I had then spent some time looking online to get some more inspiration for what I was wanting to do with my project
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Some of the key themes / techniques I was looking at include worn / stained paper, Ink pen and quill, different textures and stained paper, fabric, letters and stampings, stitching and thread, stitched binding and mismatched and combined mediums and textures. All of these relate to either the time period in which Frankenstein was wrote or relate to the vibe and feeling that the novel gives off.
During my research I had found the artist Kyra Clegg who had taken a copy of William Cobbert's A French Grammar that was published in 1829 and had turned it into a very tactile piece of work, featuring a range of textures and unique oddities.
During my research I had found the artist Kyra Clegg who had taken a copy of William Cobbert's A French Grammar that was published in 1829 and had turned it into a very tactile piece of work, featuring a range of textures and unique oddities.
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Since Frankenstein starts with 4 letters from Robert Walton to his sister I wanted to use those letters as part of my design. The idea was to have a box, inside the box are the 4 letters on top, which are in addressed envelopes that have previously been ripped open for the users to open them up and read the letters in actual letter form, then under the 4 letters will be the bound version of the Frankenstein book.
The purpose of this is to give the audience more of an experience while still allowing the medium to pass as a book due to how the data is absorbed. Below is a diagram as to how it would work.
The purpose of this is to give the audience more of an experience while still allowing the medium to pass as a book due to how the data is absorbed. Below is a diagram as to how it would work.
Since the letters are a big part of the book I did some research into how letters looked in the 1800s when the novel was wrote to allow me to get it as accurate of possible but still allowing the letters to have a form of design too them, this will be done by having the first letter in which Robert Walton is optimistic about his trip in a neat and more put together form of handwriting, to the final letter where he is no longer confident about the trip due to various circumstances to have a more rushed and careless written style.
All the letters featured below range from 1809 - 1855, the type itself is illegible to use today, so if I choose to do this I will have to experiment with getting the look right so it fits in with the letters below but it must be readable for todays audience.
All the letters featured below range from 1809 - 1855, the type itself is illegible to use today, so if I choose to do this I will have to experiment with getting the look right so it fits in with the letters below but it must be readable for todays audience.
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I had then looked at envelopes from the time too to see how they where addressed and any stamps or iconography that was heavily featured.
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One element I wanted to experiment with was stitching, since it resembles frankensteins monster being stitched together, so in my book I want to work with stitching different paper together and different textures, possibly even the binding. So below I had experimented with different ways of stitching paper, different thickness of thread, and some more unusual ways such as safety pins.
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Following on from this I had experimented with making a prototype letter for this project, I made up both the letter and the envelope in the style I was going for.
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I had gotten hold of some older books aged more towards the time period of my work, and started creating my binding for the cover by stitching multiple books together to give it the 'Frankenstein Effect'
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I then started focusing on the content of the book, I wanted to keep the same vibe as the cover but just on the interior of the book. During feedback it was suggested that I tried to weave the content of the story into the design. The first chapter features the family travelling from one part of Switzerland to another, then down to Italy, so I started coming up with ideas of how I could show that.
In the last chapter there is a chase between victor Frankenstein and his monster, during the end of the chase they are running over ice flats and eventually one breaks off and they are on little icebergs floating in the sea, so I tried capturing that in some functional design below, allowing the user to move the 'ice' in the middle, as if its floating about freely.
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Below I had experimented with other stitching possibilities in the 'frankenstein style'
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Following on from this I had started putting the pages together and creating my piece. Below is my final project.
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