Video about the production of 'Tree of Codes' by Jonathan Safran Foer

More information from the publisher, Visual Editions.

'Tree of Codes' by Jonathan Safran Foer

Tree of Codes is Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, which is a 'treated' edition of The Street of Crocodiles by Bruno Schulz, in the spirit of Tom Phillips' A Humument. It is published by Visual Editions. There's a good interview with Safran Foer in the NYT (extract below).

Q.Where did this strong affinity for graphic design come from?

A.Where would the lack of interest in design come from? Why wouldn’t — how couldn’t — an author care about how his or her books look? I’ve never met an artist who wasn’t interested in the visual arts, yet we’ve drawn a deep line in the sand around what we consider the novel to be, and what we’re supposed to care about. So we’re in the strange position of having much to say about what hangs on gallery walls and little about what hangs on the pages of our books. Literature doesn’t need a visual component — my favorite books are all black words on white pages — but it would be well served to lower the drawbridge.

Tristram Shandy by Visual Editions

VE1 Tristram Shandy from Visual Editions on Vimeo.

Visual Editions manifesto:

We think that books should be as visually interesting as the stories they tell; with the visual feeding into and adding to the storytelling as much as the words on the page. We call it visual writing. And our strap line is “Great looking stories.”