Assignment 1: Create 3 book stacks
To select my books, I used my dad’s library where I found many books about history and music, my sister’s book collection where I found numerous books about social issues and fantasy, as well as other books from around my house which gave me a wide selection to choose from. To begin, I focused on books which distinctly showed the titles as the authors’ names were much smaller. The colour of the spines and the letters as well as the font really attracted me to many of the books as well. I also leaned more towards books that had phrases as titles instead of one word titles; making it easier to mix and match according to several different themes/scenarios. I spent a lot of time creating the different stacks; changing the order around within themselves, and adding or taking books away as the themes became more apparent. Lastly, I chose to photograph my book stacks in front of a plain white background so that the main focus of the pictures are the books themselves… I didn’t want the background to take away from that and be distracting.
Book Stack #1 – “Acceptance”
While looking through my sister’s collection of books, “two boys kissing” really stood out to me. I like how each word is in lowercase letters; kind of like it’s suggesting that boys kissing each other is something so simple and casual/normal and not bold or should really stand out to people. The first book in the stack, “An Acceptable Time” seemed like a really fitting beginning. I chose “DON’T CRY FOR ME” because people should not feel sad or sorry for two people of the same gender who really love each other. Then to add some humour, I included the next three books: “WE REGRET TO INFORM YOU,” “THE WAY IT WORKS,” and “WATCH US RISE,” as if the two boys were really speaking up for themselves and giving it to people how it is. Lastly, I decided to add the third book, “STRAIGHT FROM THE HEART” directly after “two boys kissing” because I wanted to show that they had a true relationship or genuine love for each other; not just a fleeting moment. All of the books after the first two are written in capital letters which emphasize the importance of accepting everyone, no matter who they love and realizing that you can’t change how or who people love, so you should just let them be.
Book Stack #2 – “Emotions”
As I was going through the different books I had selected for their titles, I noticed the variety of colours around the perimeters of the books which gave me the idea to do a stack of books representing emotions. Having watched the popular movie, “Inside Out 2” this summer, as well as loving the original “Inside Out” movie when I was a kid… I wanted to create a stack with those specific colours and emotions (Yellow – joy, White – nostalgia, Light Purple – fear, Blue – sadness, Orange – anxiety, Turquoise – envy, Green – disgust, Pink – embarrassment, Dark Purple – boredom, and Red – anger). The books within this stack have been placed on different angles, as well as in a random order, excluding Yellow (joy) at the top, as your emotions are not a constant, intensity wise, and they can continually change throughout a single day, multiple days, weeks, months, or years depending on events happening in your life, relationships with others, and your reactions towards expected and unexpected circumstances. Yellow (joy) has been placed upright at the top of the book stack, being the most prominent and noticeable book, as this is the emotion everyone would ideally like to feel on a daily basis and strives for throughout their lives. The sizes of the books are different to show how the intensity of an emotion can sometimes be stronger or weaker than others at times. Lastly, some of the books reveal white pages while others have coloured pages which was done to add visual interest to the stack.
Book Stack #3 – “Secrets”
For my third stack, I wanted to focus on a theme and chose SECRETS because I find it very interesting how there can be numerous different types of secrets and the titles of the different books were very interesting and give a sense of secrecy (e.g. people keeping secrets, secrets taken to the grave, secrets within a garden). I also liked the different styles of font and the colours of the titles, maybe suggesting the various kinds of secrets that are kept; good or bad. As I was looking through the piles of books I had chosen from the shelves, I really liked two of the titles, “LISTENING IN” and “THE TRUTH SHOWS UP” which I tried to use in a variety of stacks I was experimenting with. After creating my stack of “secret books”, I had finally found a suitable place to put, “LISTENING IN” on the top as if you are listening in on the secrets and “THE TRUTH SHOWS UP” at the bottom to represent the truth eventually coming to light sometimes.