The items listed below are recommended to students by University of Melbourne academics in Graphic Design. Some of these items are in Southbank Special Collections and cannot be borrowed, but they can be viewed at Southbank Library. Visit the Southbank Library service desk to request access.
Composition No. 1 by
VE3 is a re-imagining of a book originally published in the 1960s. The book is the first ever "book in a box”, called Composition No.1 by Marc Saporta. When we say book in a box we mean: quite literally a book that comes in a box with loose pages. The narrative is contained on each page, leaving it up to the reader to decide the order they read the book, and how much or how little of the book they want to read before they begin again. In so many ways, Composition No.1 was published ahead of its time: the book raises all the questions we ask ourselves today about user-centric, non-linear screen driven ways of reading. With this in mind, Visual Editions approached Tom Uglow of Creative Labs Google and Youtube to write an introduction for the book. This re-imagined edition also includes several of Salvador Plascencia’s (author of The People of Paper) drawings, looking at all the different components that make up a "typical” book. The book is designed by Universal Everything, a London based design studio known for their interactive screen-based work (clients include MTV and AOL). The book, as Visual Editions have shown with their other two titles, will have a high attention to design and production values and in many ways is the best example of a book as an object, or better yet, the book as an experience. Along with their usual consideration to high quality craft and finish, the designers have also generated unique digitally-generated artwork for the backs of each page, making for a gorgeous, tactile design relevant to literary, art and design and digital audiences. Ultimately, Visual Editions’ re-imagined Composition No.1 asks readers to question: what is it that makes a book a book?
Fuse 1-20
Irma Boom. Book Manifest by 
The life and opinions of Tristram Shandy, gentleman by
When talking to people about visual writing, conversations always seem to come back to The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Originally published in the late 18th century in nine volumes, it is still one of the most contemporary books around in terms of how it looks and reads. When Visual Editions briefed design studio, A Practice for Everyday Life, they asked them to breathe new life into the book's design, adding new visual elements, while staying faithful to the original spirit. Will Self introduces the book with typically irreverent brilliance.
Listen to the Golden Boomerang Return by 
Morla by 
A Roll of the Dice Will Never Abolish Chance by 
Tree of Codes by
"Tree of Codes is a haunting new story by best-selling American writer, Jonathan Safran Foer. With a different die-cut on every page, Tree of Codes explores previously unchartered literary territory. Initially deemed impossible to make, the book is a first -- as much a sculptural object as it is a work of masterful storytelling. Tree of Codes is the story of an enormous last day of life -- as one character's life is chased to extinction, Foer multi-layers the story with immense, anxious, at times disorientating imagery, crossing both a sense of time and place, making the story of one person's last day everyone's story. Inspired to exhume a new story from an existing text, Jonathan Safran Foer has taken his 'favorite' book, The Street of Crocodiles by Polish-Jewish writer Bruno Schulz, and used it as a canvas, cutting into and out of the pages, to arrive at an original new story told in Jonathan Safran Foer's own acclaimed voice."--Publisher description.
The library holds many artist books in the Southbank Special Collection, which can be viewed in person at the library on request. The linked list does not include all artist books in the collection, so you may also like to click on subject headings or search in the catalogue by publisher or creator.
Check the find books section of this guide for more information about searching for graphic design and typography books in the library.