An Artist's Life, Digitized: A Unique Book: Elora's Project

Text & Photos by Elora Lyda for her inventive SEE THRU book project

This book was created for my UCLA Visual Communications 2 Class. Each student interviewed an artist of their choice, and the assignment was to take the transcripts of each interview and put them together into one publication.

The interviewees came from various creative fields ranging from illustration, web and graphic design, to music and motion graphics. Interviews were also conducted in different ways -- in person, online, and on the phone. The challenge was to somehow connect and balance these 20 interviews with a solid and logical concept.

SEE THRU is based on the connection between human beings, and the process of breaking through the invisible walls we naturally raise against strangers. I chose to make the entire book out of vellum (semi-transparent paper), with each page metaphorically representing these walls. The information on each page then turns into layers, running into each other and sometimes blurring the original intent.

Professions are designated by different colors as a method of navigation, and each interview is set up as a conversation.

The interview starts with the person's name, and then a picture of the interviewer on the next page with their back turned to the reader, as if they were speaking with someone else.

At the end of the interview, a photo of the interviewee faces the reader, but so does the picture from the beginning, as if these two people were actually speaking to each other and all the pages in between portrayed their attempt to get to know one another.

Each section ends with a single word that I asked from each interviewer to describe the person they conversed with. This provides input from the student on what they personally gained from their interaction with the artist.

I wanted to include as much personality as I could with each discussion, of both the interviewer and the interviewee. I found that the artists the students chose really reflected a part of themselves and their own work, and I wanted that to come through as well.

For me, this was very important to express that deep connection the student had with their artist, and how their experience unfolded through the course of the interview.