Glass Bead Game
Central Saint Martins short course assignment
Central Saint Martins short course assignment
In the beginning of 2012 I enrolled in a graphic design short course at Central Saint Martins. One of the briefs we received there asked us to design a jacket for a book of our choice using only type. My choice was The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse as it had a great influence on me.Castalia, the fictional province where the story of the novel takes place shares many similarities with Switzerland during World War II (the novel was also first published in 1943) so I approached the assignment with a research on Swiss typographers of the time. During this research I came upon the typographer Jan Tschichold whose life seemed to resemble the life of Joseph Knecht, the central character of the novel: Tschichold’s disillusionment with the movement Die Neu Typographie mirrored Knecht’s rejection of the Castalian order. The realization of this similarity led me to come up with a solution based on the classic typographic principles Tschichold reembraced after abandoning his former beliefs; I used the typeface Sabon designed by Tschichold and utilized symmetry in the creation of the design.
Another solution was developed based on the principles of the glass bead game itself. This game is an abstract synthesis of all sciences, its purpose is to create a densely woven fabric of all human knowledge through steps of association, often connecting seemingly unrelated areas of human learning.
Based on my understanding of the glass bead game, I decided to create a similar game of my own using type. I arranged the letters in the author’s name and the title in a way to make them seem to be unrelated. The design challenges the reader to uncover the logic of the arrangement; the text becomes legible through the reader’s involvement in a game of finding the connection between symbols, similarly to the way the players of the glass bead game find meaning through drawing connections between distant areas of human understand
Based on my understanding of the glass bead game, I decided to create a similar game of my own using type. I arranged the letters in the author’s name and the title in a way to make them seem to be unrelated. The design challenges the reader to uncover the logic of the arrangement; the text becomes legible through the reader’s involvement in a game of finding the connection between symbols, similarly to the way the players of the glass bead game find meaning through drawing connections between distant areas of human understand
