Perfect Pearl

Book coverPerfect Pearl
Book coverPerfect Pearl
Book coverPerfect Pearl
Book coverPerfect Pearl
Book coverPerfect Pearl

This intimate photo book in a signed, numbered edition of 250 copies, features truly fantastic spreads. Thanks to a folding technique that is as simple as it is effective, this becomes an interplay between different layers of experience: online and offline, inner and outer world, dream and reality. Perfect Pearl has a sewn binding in a cover with grooves, which is then quarter-folded to give a format of 170×280 mm. Intimate details remain hidden behind the fold, and can be seen only once the pages have been completely unfolded. This fold results in beautiful combinations of images – each page is as surprising as the last and we feel that we just have to keep on unfolding. An intimate, physical experience which one jury member remarked could be a nod to erotic magazines, which would be carried rolled up or folded to hide their content. A few jury members were less charmed by the typographic, card jacket. This could be a reference to Chinese printed matter, and if so appropriate to the subject. However, a number of jury members argued that for those unfamiliar with this project this doesn’t communicate a great deal, meaning that this choice fails to do complete justice to the richness of the book itself.

Edition: 2022
Date of publication: April 2022
Author: Tara Fallaux
Language: Chinese, English
Translator: Lova Yu
Image editor: Hedy van Erp, Eva van der Schans, Tara Fallaux
Photographer: Tara Fallaux
Artist: Tara Fallaux (texts: Lova Yu, Yining He)
Publisher: Tara Fallaux, Amsterdam
Available through: Bookshop, webshop
Graphic designer: Eva van der Schans (Haarlem)
Printer: die Keure, De Kijm & Zonen; papier advies / paper advise De Monsterkamer (Esther Krop), Amsterdam, Brugge (BE), Den Haag
Binder: Agia, Amsterdam
Size book block (w x h x d in mm): 170 x 280 x 7 mm
Number of pages: 60
Print run: 250
Price: € 40
ISBN: 9789090353579
Font and foundry: SF Pro (Apple Fonts), Lantinghei (Founder Type)
Binding style: Sewn softcover, hot melt gluing, book block is quarter-folded to give a format of 170x280 mm, wrapper and elastic
Paper for interior (grammage): 90gsm Arena® White Rough, 115gsm Magno Matt, Fredigoni, Igepa
Material cover (grammage): 210gsm Brossulin XT Bianco E/R05 Tela, Fredigoni
Special features: Cover and interior printed in CMYK, wrapper printed on one side in Riso (fluorescent pink)