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    P002 → Grendel





    Grendel Bookcover


    Broken wood type, ink, digital mockup

    University of Minnesota Spring 2022
    Professor Bill Moran    Grendel is a novel by John Gardner that tells the story of the titular monster’s perspective of Beowulf. It is a conversation of humanism, religion, existentialism, and materialism. 





    “His mouth did not seem to move with his words, and the harder I stared at his gleaming shoulders, the more uncertain I was of their shape. The room was full of a heavy, unpleasant scent I couldn't place.
    I labor to remember something:

    twisted roots,

    an abyss

    . . .

    I lose it.”




    Using pieces of assorted wood type, both broken and whole, I  assembled the endsheet of the front cover. Then, using more broken type, I arranged the front and back cover to camoflauge the title and author within the twisted roots of shattered letterforms, creating an abyss of black ink that can only be revealed and translated by opening the book to the endsheet. 

    The use of camoflauge, broken type, and the act of translation is essential to the design as it is to the text itself. Language is used as a tool to “otherize” the monster Grendel. It is a gift bestowed to the civilized and a divine battle axe wielded by the zealot Beowulf.