Redesign for the book A Barbarian in China by Adriaan Van Dis. The book is a travel report about the writer's journey along the silk route. Along this route, obviously, Van Dis runs into al lot of Chinese people. There is much miscommunication and confusion because of the enormous difference in culture, and you can feel his frustration through the pages.
11265:
The total amount of kilometres the Silk Route covers and the new title of (my version) of the book.
MAIN Concept:
Miscommunication, the thread enhances the miscommunication throughout the book.
Page numbers:
To enhance the miscommunication, I only made use of the numbers 11265. For example, page 7 is numbered as 61 (6+1), but page 61 is also numbered as 61. Page 109 is numbered as 121161622655551225555655522161111
sIDE NOTES:
Because it is such a personal narrative and a travel book as well, I decided to use 'side notes' where Van Dis made more personal comments about his encounters, these comments are set in a different font and direction, a wink to Asian type

The book was featured in a book exposition in Museum Meermanno, The Hague, Aug/Oct 2011.

Below: The introduction.
Here, the whole route the writer travels is visualised in red thread.
The thread enhances the miscommunication throughout the book
I designed parts of the text to look like side notes from the writer, because it was such a personal story, the tread enhances these notes and pulls them from the text.
Below: The start of a new chapter.
The two cities he travels from and to, and that part of the route made visible in the thread.

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