The 2022 "World's Most Beautiful Book" awards were announced in Leipzig, Germany, on March 10. Despite the global epidemic, this year, the German Book Art Foundation, the organizing committee of the "World's Most Beautiful Book", still received more than 500 book works from nearly 30 countries and regions. The international jury finally selected 14 works to win the title of "World's Most Beautiful Book" this year, and China's "Water: Wang Muyu's Works" won this year's "World's Most Beautiful Book" honorary award.
Founded in 1963, "The World's Most Beautiful Book" is an annual global book design competition organized by the German Book Art Foundation, which is dedicated to judging the unique charm of books from a professional design perspective, and the works of books must be awarded by the countries and regions in which they are published, or recommended by a team of professional experts. This year, China, Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, South Korea, Sweden, Spain, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela and other countries and regions have selected and sent books to participate in the selection. At the beginning of February, five international judges screened the finalists at the German National Library in Leipzig. After that, after online discussion and final evaluation, the 14 winning books that stood out were from China, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Japan, Austria, Ukraine, and the Golden Character Award and the Gold Medal were all won by Dutch works.
"Water: Wang Muyu's Collection" is a collection of works by artist Wang Muyu, inspired by the Southern Song Dynasty Ma Yuan's "Water Map" volume, the artist reconstructed it, all works only painted water pattern parts, other mountain stone tree houses and boat people, are presented in a blank manner, the album is therefore named "Water". In the design of the book, the two book designers Qu Minmin and Jiang Qian hope to echo the artist's thinking on the work, and through the improvement of the traditional binding form, the whole book presents a contemporary feeling. The indented waves at the edges of the green envelope are like calm streaks of water, waiting to be opened. The green paper wrapped in the envelope is vaguely printed with the word "water" Chinese lines. After the reader opens the layers, the information of the work and the painting are divided into two volumes without interfering with each other. Among them, 1 volume of works information is thread-bound and printed in spot colors; 1 volume of paintings is traditional Chinese folding. When the entire book is infinitely elongated, the rise and fall of the paper is like a horizontal plane. The designer hopes that through this way of opening, the reader's perspective will become more diverse and open.
In last year's "Most Beautiful Book" (formerly "China's Most Beautiful Book"), "Water: Wang Muyu's Works" and the remaining 24 books from 25 publishing houses across the country jointly won the title of "Most Beautiful Book" in 2021, and were qualified to represent China in the 2022 "World's Most Beautiful Book" selection. The "Most Beautiful Book" jury commented that the reading of "Water: Wang Muyu's Works" is very ritualistic, and the reading process gives people a beautiful enjoyment. The book focuses on a high level of image reproduction without any text or even page numbers. Although the layout of each page is different, once the folded pages are expanded, they present a flowing picture. The different surfaces of the water seem to be connected together, and when the book is fully unfolded, the length and thickness of the pages form an undulation of the sea. On the other hand, the structure and content of the index provide good guidance and interpretation for the subject. The book printing is delicate, the artist's paintings are well restored, and the binding is exquisite, which builds a calm and long oriental artistic beauty.
Founded in 2003, "The Most Beautiful Book" is an annual book design selection event sponsored by the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Press and Publications. For more than ten years, the "Most Beautiful Book" jury has invited top book designers at home and abroad to serve as judges, select and recommend the "most beautiful books" from China to participate in the next year's "World's Most Beautiful Books" selection, a total of 421 works stand on the world stage, 23 works won the "World's Most Beautiful Books" award, of which 2 won gold awards.
What kind of book can be the "most beautiful book"? The organizers of "The Most Beautiful Book" have a brilliant summary - "the beauty of form and the joy of reading". If we say that "the joy of reading" focuses on the inner beauty of books and emphasizes the creative level of authors, "the beauty of form" focuses on the external beauty of books and emphasizes the creative ability of designers. Good creativity can make the design a window for readers to understand the author and his work, and become a magnetic field that deeply attracts readers to read. In the eyes of many book designers, the arrival of the era of e-books is precisely an opportunity for the art of books, how to make the public more willing to get close to paper books, understand the charm of paper books different from electronic carriers, designers have great responsibility.