Wot is a book?


Wan Kai Liu, Shop now!, 2018
Book, Perfect-bound soft-cover

The idea of my post-digital book was inspired by my online shopping experience in which I am always unaware of my purchasing behaviour of similar items. For example, buying similar lip stick colours in different brands or tons of masking tapes in the same illustration style. However, not all purchases are valued by us. Some online purchases are still in-use while some ended up as rubbish. This reason lies back to the convenience of the internet which encourages us to purchase without deep consideration. The purpose of my book is to capture our behaviour of online shopping. The ideas and concepts are visually represented by photography. The idea of a parcel is used to package the book as it can create the experience of online shopping delivery. I imitated the delivery label to minimize the risk of having the book damaged and lost. The book cover is printed with the title “Fall sales, 50% off” and “Shop Now”, the banner in red colour exactly shows how online shopping webpages attract people to click into the website. A mouse icon is deliberately added next to “Shop Now” which helps to differentiate the differences between a poster in a physical store and an online store. For the internal pages, a nice photo of the featured item will be placed on the left page, illustrating the idea that it was once a favourite of the owner. A blank page with a cut-out outlining the featured item will be on the right page. A sense of mystery will be created before flipping over the next page as readers have a chance of guessing where the item would be placed. Flipping over the blank page will reveal the actual situation of where the item has eventually been placed at. The background of where the item was placed at, regardless it being on a shelf or a wardrobe do reflect one’s personality and style.