A Brief History of Civilisation
A Brief History of Civilisation
Book
Bringing together Sacha Gusov’s photographs and Yevgeny Vodolazkin’s texts, “A Brief History of Civilisation” is a witty tale of human nature. In this hybrid between an artist’s book and a classic photo book, Gusov’s often humorous black-and-white images depict ordinary people and everyday scenes, while Vodolazkin’s playful and clever captions connect the series by making a consistent story from individual illustrations.
Researching references from the soviet avant-garde, whose ideal vision of art for the masses aligned with Gusov’s photos of everyday characters, we borrowed the visual language of 1920s publications and developed our own contemporary reinterpretation. After spotting a characterful typeface online, we identified its author, the Russian female designer Julia Plotnikova, and collaborated with her to develop unique glyphs. We were also inspired by the simplicity of classic photo books of heavyweights such as Walker Evans, Ed Ruscha, Johan van der Keuken and Man Ray to create a strong sense of story through the image pacing and layout, which brings observation rather than judgement. The humorous touch of the publication carries on to the back cover, which bears a fictitious, oversized price tag — 3 roubles, in a nod to the price of books in Soviet times.
Publisher: Paulsen
Editor: Amanda Renshaw
2022
