HYPERION and THE FALL OF HYPERION: A DREAM is unfinished poems of John Keats, a famous English poet.About 20 years ago, American writer Dan Simmons wrote a popular science fiction novel with the same name, as a tribute to the poet. In this personal project, I was seeking a special expression, in the context of book design, to combine the poem with the sci-fi novel. The books were finished in 2019.
The science fiction Hyperion(Simmons, 1989) implies and quotes many sentences from Keats' poems. The storyline is also set under the theme 'maker overthrown', same as the background of the poem HYPERION. I made a backward quotation--quote sci-fi novel in the mythological poem. In addition, specific visual elements were applied to blur the edge of sci-fi story and ancient myth. Bitmap font, deep blue, coding format and such were used on the chapters of poem HYPERION to make it looks like records in computers or on network. Meanwhile, serif italic font, yellowish brown and such were used on the quotations of novel to make it look like literature scripts.
The book cover is made of a piece of A4 kraft paper folded lengthwise in half. Page inside is 194x130mm when folded and 194x240mm as full size with a 2cm-wide edge for binding. Copper album binding screws solve the problem that a batch of folded paper is thicker than the binding edge.
No-backcover structure is specially designed for this unfinished poem. A brand new book is intended to be opened like a POCKEY box by pulling off a paper zip cut on the back. After this step, the book will no longer have a back cover. The idea of folded pages inside comes from the cover-design as long as the reading experience. One paragraph of the poem is usually so long that it extends at least four pages. Folded-paper frame enables reader to read more without turning pages to improve reading coherence. Cutting triangle windows on folded papers could also bring some interesting result.
