Nicholas Rougeux

A reproduction of Oliver Byrne’s celebrated work from 1847 plus interactive diagrams, cross references, and posters designed by Nicholas Rougeux.

A book’s title page contains more than its namesake—including its author, contributors, publisher, and release date, and. Antiquarian books are known for having lengthy titles, especially those of a scientific nature. These books’ frequently unassuming title pages are gateways to a wealth of knowledge and the focal point of this project.

Title pages of antique influential scientific books covering a variety of subjects were coded and reimagined as colorful cityscapes based solely on their words to illustrate the unique body of knowledge readers would find within.

Boxes were drawn around each word of a title page and color-coded by its first letter (words beginning with “A” are one color, “B” another, and so on). Each title page has its own palette. Those boxes were then upended and arranged to form an abstract cityscape while maintaining their original sizes relative to each other.

Between the Words is an exploration of visual rhythm of punctuation in well-known literary works. All letters, numbers, spaces, and line breaks were removed from entire texts of classic stories...leaving only the punctuation in one continuous line of symbols in the order they appear in texts. The remaining punctuation was arranged in a spiral starting at the top center with markings for each chapter and classic illustrations at the center.

A recreation of the original 1821 color guidebook with new cross references, photographic examples, and posters designed by Nicholas Rougeux.