A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes

The purpose of this project was to reinterpret an existing book through the binding method. I chose the book A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes by Stephen Hawking. My goal in this project was to communicate the book title and some of the theories of the universe through the method I chose for binding.

For the cover I chose to use all black to represent the blackness of space and black holes. I used tile underneath the book cloth to add weight to the book, alluding not only to the extremely large mass of black holes and other objects in space and the weight of the content itself, but it also allows the book to literally open with a big bang when the cover hits a hard surface. The tile also adds a rock-like texture. I used a fibrous gold paper to line the inside cover which is representative of the string theories discussed in the book in addition to the wonderful colors of nebulae.

The concept of time is a big topic in this book. There is a theory that at some point the universe will stop expanding and begin contracting, which would reverse time. Playing off this idea, I decided to bind the book starting with the last page and ending on the first page. When reading through the book, the reader will notice there are holes randomly punched through the pages. The number of holes punched indicates the chapter the reader is on.