BLACK ALBUM
The graphic project “Black Album – the dark side of aesthetics” was born to meet the needs of a young architecture student wanting to publish a book of images, thoughts, notes and observations regarding the development of Western Aesthetics over the last three hundred years. The author’s aim was to reveal the light and shade of three centuries of aesthetic chaos and examine how the production of the beauty related to the production of culture and revolutions in taste.
In his work, the author pays particular attention to the transgressive aspect of aesthetics, when faced with the ethics and morals generally disseminated during different periods of European history.
The work’s structure, subdivided into short and visually incisive chapters, where ideas alternate with images and expansive quotes, positions it between a form of expression and a book of art. The author wanted to give ample room to the images and text in two columns, with clear titles and an abundance of white space.
The 25 x 20 cm horizontal format allows greater pagination freedom, not only for the images, but also for the text, giving the publication an appearance more typical of a volume of art. It does not, however, undermine the centrality of the text that remains, nevertheless, the work’s foundation.
The Century font, employed for the body, is classic and elegant, combining in the tiles with Quicksand, more contemporary and irreverent. At the author’s request, the part of the title composed in Century has the distinction of simulating the embossing of the paper, typical of a traditional printing press.
The cover, halfway between censured text and that hastily underlined by a student, summarizes the two spirits of the work: that of an apology of aesthetics – beauty pitching itself against tradition and censorship – and that of a series of notes and annotations by a university student.
Some chapters are introduced by quotes taken from novels in which aesthetics play a leading role; rather than inserting these quotes at the start of the chapter, it was preferred to leave them alone and centred, on the right hand page, to give them the necessary emphasis.
