the abyss

The main source of visual inspiration were deep-water coral reefs and other creatures living in oceans’ depths. In my project I was trying to recreate delicate, white-on-white colour palette, as well as variety of textures that can be encountered in the abyss. I picked red as the only accent colour, to symbolise all of the animals using it as a mean of camouflage, as it makes them virtually invisible in the darks of the deep.

Being inspired by the Hadal Snailfish, and its ghost like qualities, I decided to use different levels of transparency to depict depth of the water.

The book is divided into five chapters symbolising different sea zones. The length of the chapters represents the size of respective zone.

The choice of semi-transparent paper was also not accidental. I wanted to represent the murkiness of the water, as if the reader was standing on a boat looking down. It is possible to see what’s beneath, but it is highly unlikely to see the bottom straight away. The further reader gets in the book, the deeper in the ocean, and the smaller the laser-cut trench gets. Similarly, the illustrations become more sporadic and spread out on the pages as life if the depths is rare and not as concentrated.

The book was hand bound.