Architectural Book Design - Middle East Architecture

•

This book about private houses of Middle East is meant to be a part of the upcoming book series about architecture of the region.

When designing it, I was wondering how to express images and сoncepts associated with Middle East (such as tiering, eclecticism and fluidity of time and space) with the structure of the book itself. At the same time I wanted this book to have strong logic, which would be visible and clear for the reader. As a result, I chose a travel through Middle East cities metaphor to build the book around.

Everything in this book is consistent with the initial idea.

Format: A6, which is compact and сomparable to size of an average guidebook;

Fonts: 2 serif fonts – distinctive Panama and conservative Baskerville;

Structure: 9 architectural projects are included in the book, divided by countries; countries are in reverse order along the book (projects within countries, in turn, don't comply with any order). There are plans for some projects, yet there is a specific dimension for them at a 90 angle towards the main content.

On cover and on a book's spine there are outlines of all the buildings, presented in the book.

The main table of contents is divided by countries and alphabetically reverse-ordered.By its structure it shows how much place in the book each country's projects take.

In each article, text lies within 1 column, yet can flow from one to another through gaps between pictures. Pictures are cropped freely, but placed in precise way, in which horizontal gaps are sufficient to let the text flow through, and vertical ones are narrow.

This rule is also relevant for spreads without text.

Plans stand apart from the main content: to review them, one should turn the book at a 90 angle. There is a special table of contents for plans in the end of the book.

There is index section in the book, which contains architects' and studios' names, related to projects. It is reverse-ordered as well. Gaps are saved for the absent letters.