Electronic Books vs. Traditional Books

With the presence of Kindle, iPad and other electronic book readers, it seems like the traditional books are losing to their electronic versions. Geoffrey Flowler and Jeffrey Trachtenberg from the Wall Street Journal think that traditional books may not be able to survive the digital age. Just like in the music industry, people have turned away from physical records and CDs, and embraced the new format of MP3s. David Kusek writes in his book “The Future of Music,” that music is becoming more of a service than a product. It is about “accessing” it, not owning it. Maybe it will be the same for the press industry. For books, it will not be about owning the physical books anymore, but simply about accessing the content. 

However, when Apple first introduced iPad in Hong Kong in July in a book expo, the above theory was not proven. During the expo, it was reported that traditional books appeared more popular than any forms of electronic books. People were more excited about traditional books than the iPad. In the traditional books section, people were lining up to purchase latest traditional books, in contrast to the desolate electronic readers section. 

I was once a “bookworm.”  I am obsessed with the world in these books and well as the physical books themselves. I like touching these books, smelling the scent of the ink, and feeling their weight. I like the cover, the spine, and even the little page numbers in them because they indicate a “process” – from discovering to experiencing, then to loving. For me, reading is not just an emotional experience; it is also a tactile experience. Literature is art, and I like owning the greatest artworks. I like seeing them lining up on my bookshelves, whether or not I have read them all.

And I know I’m not the only one. I asked several of my friends, and most of them told me that they actually prefer traditional books. “Reading on the screen hurts my eye,” they told me, “I just like books. They are so beautiful.”

I also heard from one of my designer friends that today’s book design is all about the tactile experience. It is not about the content anymore. The book design needs to create a tactile experience that readers don’t get from a flat screen. In order to compete with the freely accessible electronic versions online, designers pay much attention to the materials of the book cover, the paper, and the typography. Book design needs to give the book an “edge”, a personality – not just black Times New Roman on a white backlit computer screen. 

Therefore I believe, traditional books are not dead, and will not be. Yes, electronic books will become more popular and more prominent because they are cheap, accessible and easy to store. But some people – people like me, people who see a book as an art – will never give up the touch of the paper, the smell of the ink, and the satisfaction when you turn to the last page.

Documentary: The September Issue

This documentary follows the work process of the Editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, Anna Wintour, in creating the 2007 September issue.

The documentary focuses on how powerful Anna is in terms of influencing fashion designers and other who work with her such as the creative director of Vogue – Grace Coddington. In this documentary, you can have an idea of how an issue of a fashion magazine is created from initial ideas to the final product. We also see that the designers really respect the editor’s opinions and they would bring in different sketches for Anna to approve on before they actually go on and start working on the collection. So we often see this conflict between the designer and the editor when they do not agree with each other. This demonstrates that the designer’s freedom is limited. A designer cannot just do what he wants to do but he has to listen to different opinions and try to satisfy the needs of the clients and those who will publish your work.

This film also focuses on the relationship between the editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and the creative director Grace Coddington. Both of them have worked for Vogue for a long time and they seem to be in conflict with each other a lot of the times. Sometimes the creative director will have an idea or a photo shoot that she is very excited about but gets “killed” but Anna. In this film, the creative director is portrayed as more of an artist who is really passionate about the work she is doing. There is one line that I remember most clearly. Grace talked about when she started her career, a photographer she worked with taught her to “always keep your eyes open.” She said that no matter where she goes, she never sleeps in the car and just keeps watching everything she sees out of the window and they are all great inspiration. This is the same with design. We just need to pay attention to everything we see around us and they can all become great inspirations.

Vogue is the first magazine that started to put celebrities on the cover and became really successful because of it. It also influenced other publications that followed the trend. There is a conversation that the creative director is talking about how she hates to put celebrities on the cover but she knows that Anna is doing the right thing with the celebrity culture because the magazines will sell because of it. So we can see this clash between art and commerce, and most of the times art will have to sacrifice for commercial purposes because without the money, art could not survive.

In this documentary, we also see that the editor-in-chief is very meticulous about every detail in the magazine. The designers will bring copies of different versions of the cover for her to comment on and approve on. And she often will make very detailed suggestions such as the retouching of the photographs, type treatment and use of color. We can also see the process of the editors get together and determine the order of the pages for the issue. For example, they will put pages that have bright colors and dramatic photographs at the beginning of the magazine because they catch reader’s attention and are good to “open” the magazine.