Design ∞ Exhibition Series 2


Books were valued and kept by many, indeed respected as the media for knowledge in ancient China. There is a tendency for traditional Chinese books to be tastefully bound and laid out, showing a cultivated sense of scholastic refinement. This is especially so with the thread-bind books that were popular in the Ming and Qing dynasties. These books had their texts laid out vertically, and their pages turning from left to right. Such simple, elegant books are typical of traditional Chinese culture.


Western concepts of book design and printing technology were introduced into China at the beginning of the 20th Century. These brought fresh impact to the presentation of Chinese books. When one talks about book presentation today, it is not simply a concern about binding and layout, but the consideration of a unified work in which form and content complement each other. It is, in the simplest term, an artistic undertaking. Book designers played important roles in the production of a book.


Co-presented with the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University and the Cheung Kong School of Art and Design, Shantou University, the Leisure & Cultural Services Department purposely presents this exhibition to reflect the current trend of contemporary book design in the Mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan by displaying over five hundreds selected works as a panorama of Chinese contemporary book design.