Diderot Project

Limited Edition Book

Edited, written, designed, and printed by Ken Botnick, emdash, 2015

6 different paper types used, 150 pages, 11.25x7.25 inch

This book project resulted from an investigation of the Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers of Diderot and d’Alembert. Denis Diderot desired a society with transparency, which inspired designer and book artist Ken Botnick. Botnick began designing a book about Diderot's Encyclopédie and slowly it adapted to the concentrated topic of the craft, tools, memory, and imagination.

from https://www.kenbotnick.com/work/diderot-project

“Letterpress printed in an edition of 70 copies. 150 pages with 6 different paper types including papers with watermarks designed for this edition made at Dieu Donné Paper. Bound in handmade papers over boards by Daniel Kelm with modified sewn boards structure.”

“The process of making this work could be compared to that of weaving: the warp of my book would be the images and texts of the Encyclopedia; and the weft— the threads moving over, under and through the warp— was spun from the two primary research interests that predated my work with the Encyclopedia.

The first of those research threads developed in India in 2003 when I made the first of many working trips there, including during a Fulbright fellowship in 2006. My research in India is focused on the relationship of craft to Indian culture, particularly the relationship of people to tools and objects, and to the role of color and pattern in everyday life. India was the catalyst for me to begin writing critically about design thinking, and that practice— writing— has had a profound effect on the way I work in my studio.

The second thread is my research into visual perception— including cognition and memory— and the role it might play in design education. The links between these two threads of inquiry— of craft and cognition— are combined, for me, as two components of perceptual learning, a subject that was at the foundation of my work with Diderot.

Diderot Project compares and combines those two bodies of research with my study of the Encyclopedia plates and texts, exploring them in the way that is most natural for me— through the landscape of the two-page spread of a book. What eventually became Diderot Project is not a book about the Encyclopedia of Diderot as much as it might be described as being a book of the Encyclopedia, or with it, or, even, because of it.

Before I go further, here are the production details. The book is 150 pages and 11.25 x 7.25 inches. It required 220 press runs using over 8 lbs. of silver, black, gold, and transparent inks. The illustrations are extracted from the plates of the Encyclopedia, interwoven with the texts of 40 authors. The two primary authorial voices are Diderot’s— in the form of entries from the encyclopedia— and mine.

There are 6 different papers used, including a special edition of hand made paper with watermarks I designed based on the engravings. The cover is hand made flax paper, made by Cave papers, that is triple dyed in indigo and walnut to obtain this quality of black. I chose the flax paper because it is especially tough and actually looks better the more it is handled, eventually taking on the quality of leather.

There are three sections in the book. The first is on the subject of the hand; the second, the object; and the third, the senses. I refer to those sections of the book as volumes, a reference to Encyclopedia’s 28 volumes, though in my book they are bound as one binding.”

INFORMATION/TEXT CREDITS:

Ken Botnick https://www.kenbotnick.com/work/diderot-project

Getty EDU https://www.getty.edu/visit/cal/events/ev_2306.html

PHOTO CREDITS:

https://library.wustl.edu/news/inspired-by-special-collections-ken-botnicks-diderot-project/

https://books-on-books.com/2022/06/16/books-on-books-collection-ken-botnick/