The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2024
The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons is reissued as a bamboo-slip classic
A Shaanxi Normal University Press edition of the Chinese classic takes its cover from bamboo notes and its text setting from traditional books
Shaanxi Normal University General Publishing House
What it had to solve
Shaanxi Normal University General Publishing House (陕西师范大学出版总社) planned a new edition of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (文心雕龙), a classic Chinese treatise on literature and literary thought. A cover that merely looked old would say nothing about this text; the physical book had to carry the tradition it contains.
How it works
Shaanxi Normal University General Publishing House planned a new edition of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (文心雕龙), a classical Chinese treatise on literature and literary thought. The challenge was a reissue of one of China's traditional masterpieces whose design would mean something rather than merely look old.
The answer was to take the book's design from its own history. The cover concept comes from traditional bamboo notes, the material form on which such texts were first written; inside, the vertical arrangement of the text and the separation of punctuation marks follow traditional books. The physical edition is shaped by the tradition it carries.
Combining designed the book and Nanjing Amity Printing produced it, with the publisher as client. The result is an edition whose bamboo-slip cover and vertical setting make format itself an argument about how the classic was read. D&AD kept the work in its awards archive, catalogued alongside other typographic and graphic design entries.
Why it lands
- Borrowing the cover from bamboo notes identifies the classic before a word is read: the object's form points to the era that produced the text.
- Vertical setting with punctuation separated as in old books is method rather than ornament, restoring the reading rhythm of the original tradition.
- Drawing on the text's own manuscript history instead of generic heritage motifs makes the design specific to this book, not interchangeable with other reissues.
- Turning the edition's format into a lesson about how the classic was transmitted gives the publisher a story that a standard reissue cannot tell.
What it did
The book's format becomes part of its content: opening the new edition mirrors the reading experience of the manuscript era instead of decorating it from outside. D&AD kept the work in its awards archive, where it sits among typographic and graphic design entries.
What you can take
A classic's own history is design material: dress the new edition as the bamboo-slip manuscript it descends from, and the object teaches the tradition before a word is read
Since then
The edition is preserved in the D&AD awards archive, credited to Shaanxi Normal University General Publishing House as client and Combining as design agency, with Nanjing Amity Printing as production company; the page records no sales figures. The transferable idea is that a classic's own material history can supply the design language for its modern editions.
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