Ingrid Picanyol Studio.

The main goal of this personal project is to create an artifact that serves as a tribute to editorial design and a creative and poetic dialogue with the book “Así se hace un libro” by designer Enric Jardí. This project begins with a specific question: how is a book made? First, I turn to Jardí’s book to find out, and then I decide that this will become the raw material to create my own. With “Así un libro se hace Jardí, Enric,” I create a new artifact from the original, offering readers a poetic reading of a reference manual for many design professionals.

Inspired by the masters of surrealism from the early 20th century to the present day, my artifact starts from the guts of the original and proposes different graphic exercises with a poetic purpose. However, it also aims to adopt the formal characteristics of that photographed book for its cover, both in terms of format and binding. With “Así un libro se hace Jardí, Enric,” I put on the glasses of a designer and poet to explore the author’s book-garden with the intention of gathering flowers to make bouquets. I do this with the intention of experimenting and inspiring others to blur the boundaries of our discipline, offering everything but unchangeable answers.

Turning a manual of rules and advice into literature was fascinating to me. I have been studying poetry for a while, and I was interested in exploring how this discipline could intersect with graphic design.

I do not intend with this book to create a new book independent of the other, but rather to make it a complementary artifact that offers a new perspective on the original. Enric Jardí’s original book is a technical manual that avoids literary pretension. Mine turns his words into art and literature, like someone exploring a garden.

Thanks to the Design Documentation Center for opening the doors of their catalog to me, and especially to Maria José Baucells for accompanying me during the brainstorming phase when I still didn’t know which thread to pull. To Raquel Boquet for telling me about the book ‘El Infinito en un Junco’. To Olga Capdevila for introducing me to André Breton and Tristan Tzara and their surrealist manifestos. To Sandra Sarmiento for letting me create, getting excited, and highlighting the essential in a final degree project. To Enric Jardí for his generosity in sending me the layout of his book so I could ‘do and undo’ as I saw fit. To my studio colleagues Vicky González and Laia Clos for the lunches where they gave me their opinions at each stage of the process. To Marc Permanyer for recommending Tecnoart to print the copy. To Núria from Tecnoart for striving to understand the characteristics and peculiarities of the project and helping me formalize it quickly and professionally. To the wonderful bookbinder in my neighborhood, Pere Sacot, for his patience and craftsmanship. To Esteve Plantada for inspiring me during the poetry classes at Escola Bloom, focused on analyzing different architectures of poetry collections. And finally, to Albert Porta for supporting me and being a sounding board and a mirror.