Porfolio
Shaping Understanding – A Glossary
Design shapes how knowledge is understood and communicated. Through engagement with significant bodies of knowledge, it becomes clear that the book remains a central medium of mediation. In this context, design has always structured content and shaped its value. Without it, what becomes legible – shifts. The glossary makes these relationships accessible, where terms are read, compared, and explored through references. Drawn from a diverse library spanning different genres and contexts, they broaden how these terms can be understood. It reveals a practice that often remains in the background: book design.
Throughout the research process, I studied a wide range of books and catalogues gathered from libraries, archives and my personal collection. The aim was to assemble a selection of publications spanning from the seventeenth century to the present day, demonstrating the diversity of book design across literature, art, history and science.
I explored how different ideas and concepts are translated into the printed medium, looking not only at their visual design but also at the making of the books as physical objects. Their material qualities, production methods and construction informed my research and helped connect the selected examples to the definitions in the glossary.
A central aim of the project was to make the research and its findings as accessible and transparent as possible, reaching beyond the design discourse to readers without a background in design. The glossary is presented in both German and English and organised into three chapters that follow different stages of the book-making process. Each chapter concludes with additional texts and excerpts from literature and other writings, extending the definitions and introducing further voices and perspectives.
Bachelor Diploma Project
Visual Communication ZHdK 2026
Mentoring: Matthias Michel and Jonas Voegeli
Design shapes how knowledge is understood and communicated. Through engagement with significant bodies of knowledge, it becomes clear that the book remains a central medium of mediation. In this context, design has always structured content and shaped its value. Without it, what becomes legible – shifts. The glossary makes these relationships accessible, where terms are read, compared, and explored through references. Drawn from a diverse library spanning different genres and contexts, they broaden how these terms can be understood. It reveals a practice that often remains in the background: book design.
Throughout the research process, I studied a wide range of books and catalogues gathered from libraries, archives and my personal collection. The aim was to assemble a selection of publications spanning from the seventeenth century to the present day, demonstrating the diversity of book design across literature, art, history and science.
I explored how different ideas and concepts are translated into the printed medium, looking not only at their visual design but also at the making of the books as physical objects. Their material qualities, production methods and construction informed my research and helped connect the selected examples to the definitions in the glossary.
A central aim of the project was to make the research and its findings as accessible and transparent as possible, reaching beyond the design discourse to readers without a background in design. The glossary is presented in both German and English and organised into three chapters that follow different stages of the book-making process. Each chapter concludes with additional texts and excerpts from literature and other writings, extending the definitions and introducing further voices and perspectives.
Bachelor Diploma Project
Visual Communication ZHdK 2026
Mentoring: Matthias Michel and Jonas Voegeli