About the book:
The author and designer of this book is the artist Deb Rindl who creates three-dimensional artist’s books, often featuring sculptural qualities and intricate details like cut-outs and screws. A graduate of Camberwell College of Arts, her work is held in major collections, including the V&A and Tate, and is noted for its architectural and tactile nature.
This book is a miniature with the colours of the rainbow painted on different concertina folds. Each colour represents a quote from a Shakespeare play as follows:
Red for Macbeth: “…for spilt blood…”
Orange for King Lear: “…for the wheel of fire…”
Yellow for Much Ado about Nothing: “…for Italian sunshine…”
Green for Othello: “…for jealously…”
Blue for Henry V: “…for royal veins…”
Indigo for The Tempest: “…for darkening skies…”
Violet for Romeo and Juliet: “…for young love…”
About the binding:
- A full leather case binding bound in black leather with sheet brass inside the boards.
- The spine has a false-round with the title of the book embroidered onto it, made from a half-round wooden dowel.
- The pages are tipped into the case on the back board.
- The front and back covers have embroidered detail, sewn over coloured leather onlays.
- The book is housed is an open-ended slipcase, covered in paper and edges with black leather.
Design Description:
The content of the artist’s book combines simple rainbow colours, painted in squares using watercolour ink onto watercolour paper, with quotes taken from Shakespeare plays. The client requested the front cover design to be an embroidered version of a flower photograph he took: a striking orange dahlia with flecks of red colour on the petals.
When researching previous publications of Shakespeare, I came across the work of John Austen, who was a British artist and prolific book illustrator, prominent in the early to mid 20th century. He is recognised for his evolving style, which began with a strong influence from the Art Nouveau and Aubrey Beardsley aesthetic and later shifted to an Art Deco manner.
He created notable set of Art Nouveau black and white illustrations for a 1922 edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, published by Selwyn & Blount. His work is known for its heavy iconography, fine lines, and distinctive aesthetics, featuring dramatic elements like skulls, masks, and swords. The title text on the cover, and the shapes on the back of the book were inspired by this Art Nouveau look, with the back cover design chosen to appear like stylised quote marks to tie in with the quotes within the book.
