Whether Johannes Gutenberg would be a Kindle user were he alive today is debatable, but the pioneer of the Printing Revolution would almost certainly be intrigued by recent iterations of the movement he launched.
Visual Editions, the London publisher responsible for
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Tree of Codes,
continues to astound with its conceptual typography, while quirky marketing efforts for everything from rappers to autos are leveraging books that aren’t just for reading.
Edible Desert Survival Guide: As natural disasters—not to mention threats of a
zombie apocalypse—persist,
emergency preparedness has arisen as an unlikely new consumer desire. With this in mind, Land Rover created a manual that could save the lives of stranded desert drivers. The automaker worked with Y&R Dubai, who researched the ecosystem and topography of the Arabian Desert, to write
a survival guide that was sent to 5,000 Land Rover owners and made available, for free, in sporting goods stores. All pages are made of edible ink and paper and, while its flavor profile isn't the stuff of Michelin stars, its nutritional value is equal to that of a cheeseburger.
Smokable Lyric Book: Snoop Dogg may be as famous for his affinity for herbal refreshments as he is for his rhymes. This spring,
the perpetually chilled out rapper dropped an ingenious piece of merch that allows fans to “roll with him.” Developed by San Francisco ad agency Pereira & O’Dell, Snoop’s
Smoke Book is a compendium of the Doggfather’s lyrics, but it's more than a flimsy chapbook intended for DIY karaoke. In fact, its spine is a match striker and its pages are rolling papers printed with non-toxic ink. The book, which has yet to be made available for purchase, was reportedly seeded with select Coachella attendees and other influencers.
