Files
Download (115.6 MB)
Student Narrative
At a certain moment in the history of book and graphic design, around the 1450s, the famous printer Gutenberg started printing with movable type, which are letters shaped in steel instead of handwritten. The letters began to be designed from their negative spaces. The counterpunch is the metal mold that surrounds the original punch and produces the movable type.
Counter Dots is a book that explores a tactile quality of letters. It began from observing the mobility of a spiral binding, and when in do-si-do binding, two spirals on each side form a kind of hinge. Using the same modules of the spiral hole puncher, I created a grid to base out shapes of a new alphabet
Publication Date
Winter 1-1-2025
Description
Entry for the 12th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening reception and award ceremony Wednesday, February 25, 2026 at 6:30pm, Fleet Library, 1st Floor Main Reading Room. Juror: Gabrielle Reed. Counter-Dots is an interactive book that explores playfulness and tactility through the design of letters. Each letter and number is composed on a 21 × 21 grid of perforated holes that matches the same module of a spiral-binding puncher. The holes create a layering effect, allowing the letters to relate to one another. The book can be completely unbound from the spiral, allowing for an open-ended use.
Keywords
artists' books; Baker & Whitehill
Disciplines
Book and Paper
Student Status
Graduate student
Year of Graduation
2026
Major
Graphic Design
Faculty / Course
The Tactile Book / Suzi Cozzens
Materials + Techniques
laser cutter, 5.5 × 5.5 inch 300 gsm Canson Colorline paper, plexiglass, and several colored plastic spirals
Photo Credit
Sabrina Love, FAV 27
Recommended Citation
Cutlak Soares, Barbara; Collections, Special; and Library, Fleet, "Counter Dots" (2025). 12th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest 2026. 12.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/bookcontest12th2026/12