A study in material memory and visual atmosphere, Spider Lake was conceived as a sculptural response to the photography of Eszter & David, translating a sequence of images into a tactile, time-suspended artefact. The design responds not only to what is seen, but to how the images feel: their diffuse light, peripheral detail, and psychological drift. Rather than organise the book by subject or chronology, we developed a structure led by texture, rhythm, and chromatic resonance. Imagery moves across translucent acetates, woven fabrics, uncoated and metallic stocks; miniature books are stitched into the spine, postcards sit loose within spreads. Materials appear, recur, and dissolve, suggesting not narrative but recollection.

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Each substrate was selected for its specific optical and haptic qualities. The material palette – two Mohawk papers, five embossed Colorplans, six Peregrina Majestics, and a soft, fibrous uncoated stock – establishes a shifting register of tone, weight, and reflectivity. The book becomes an environment: not a container for images, but an extension of their logic. 

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The cover was developed to evoke the feeling of water held in surface tension. Beginning with a photograph of the lake, we manipulated light and pattern to heighten its material ambiguity, then initiated a series of physical trials. Laminates proved overly uniform. Textured stocks broke the illusion. A reflective Peregrina paper offered the right instability – catching light unevenly, holding image without flattening it. We produced custom brass dies for the front, back, and spine, and foil-blocked the image in layers, allowing light to move across the surface with irregular motion. The result is an object that resists fixed reading. It invites handling, doubling back, and slow looking. Spider Lake is both a technical construction and a conceptual frame – an exploration of how photographs can inhabit space, and how books can think in light.

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Photography: Eszter & David / That Book

Design: Billie Temple

Produced by: Hurtwood ​Books