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.