Nicolas Turki Duchesnay- Mountains (Final prototype)/Montagnes (Prototype final)

For this Workshop with Mr Komagata, I chose to work on a book for partially sighted people. My goal was to create a book designed for children but also for adult. A simple book to start learning things on a subject like pictures book we red in our childhood. Instead of creating a pictures book, I thought this book has to be more like a game to engage other sense like touch and to lead up people put  the shapes in the space.

I finally chose to work on mountains, because they are imposing, they are relaxing for the sight, they stand out in simple shapes against the sky. First, people distinguish their blurry shapes in the distance then they become clearer. Moreover, a physical link exists between people and the mountains : travelling in such landscape involved many senses as smell, sight, touch, hearing…

These are the feelings, that I intended to  relate by this book.

I focused on the world's 18 biggest peaks, and chose to class them from the biggest to the smallest. I did large gradations by silkscreening and cut the shapes of these mountains out the gradations with care to respect the proportions of there height. The biggest is 1meter length by 50 cm height and the smallest, 1m length by 5,7cm height.

All along my researches I decided to transform this book into a box containing all the mountains and a booklet.  All the mountains are classed from the biggest (EVEREST) to the smallest (VESUVE) in the booklet and come along with a few information. This way, the reader has to find which shapes goes with which mountains.

The final version of the project is a box (dimensions 30x51cm) containing all the mountains and the booklet. My goal is to make the reader learn a few things about the world surrounding him.

Emmanuelle Bastien- Le nouveau, une histoire à lire du bout des doigts / A New Boy, a story to read with the fingertips

A tactile story made with thread and paper

I favoured the technique of embossing where the differences of textures, that make recognition easier for blind people, come from embossed materials and not from papers types. Although less attractive for sighted persons (the book seems all white) each page invites to experience of touch, without any visual stimulation. The text, printed on a flap at the end of the book, provides access to the story without disturbing tactile reading. I wanted the pages to be like a small theater where the protagonists come on stage and meet. 

Conceive a book for this specific public, requires to consider new criteria because their perception of real is, obviously, different. In the case of this book, the difficulty was in the expression of feelings with a minimum of means. Working with Katsumi Komagata allowed me to simplify and get to the point. The tactile dimension opens up news ways, maybe another adventure for illustrators?

Avec de la ficelle et du papier est née une histoire tactile 

J’ai privilégié la technique du gaufrage où les différences de textures, indices de reconnaissance pour les personnes en césités, sont directement issues des matériaux gaufrés et non des types de papiers. 

Bien que peu attractif pour des voyants (le livre semble tout blanc), chaque page invite à faire l’expérience du touché, sans autre stimulation visuelle. Le texte, imprimé en noir sur un rabat en fin d’ouvrage, permet l’accès à l’histoire pour les voyants sans en perturber sa lecture tactile.

Je voulais que l’espace de la page soit comme un petit théâtre où les protagonistes entrent en scène et se rencontrent.

Penser un livre pour des personnes déficientes visuelles demande de prendre en compte de nouveaux critères car la manière d'appréhender le réel est autre. Dans ce cas précis, toute la difficulté résidait dans l’expression de sentiments avec un minimum de moyens. Le travail avec Katsumi Komagata m’a permis de simplifier et d’aller à l’essentiel. La dimension tactile ouvre de nouvelles pistes, peut-être un autre terrain d’aventure pour les illustrateurs ?