Hic!
Expressive typography meets experiments with a new printing process
WITH TARA BOOKS
Published by Tara Books, Hic! is a children’s picture book that offers readers unexpected solutions on how to get rid of hiccups. In this book, words are designed to act as images to complement artist Christiane Pieper’s dynamic illustrations and author Anushka Ravishankar’s nonsensical verse.
This was the first project of Tara Books to be printed on a Risograph, a Japanese printing system that is both incredibly creative and economical as well as limiting in terms of paper size and inks (add to that an intolerance for humid weather!). Many design decisions during the making of this book such as book size and choice of colours were driven by the constraints of the printing process.
As the narrative moves forward, the word ‘Hic’ becomes more and more expressive, building up to the high point of the story: will the hiccups finally go away?
The book was also translated and published in German. The word 'Hic' translates to 'Hick' in German and the shared Latin script made the process of adaption quite easy.
The complete design process of this book was presented at TypeWknd 2021. Watch 'Don't judge a book designer by their layout' here.
