Hand Shadows Sep 25
15 comments Latest by Flug
My wife recently ordered Henry Bursill’s classic Hand Shadows and More Hand Shadows. It was first published in 1859 and 1860 (in two parts), but what’s best about it is that, aside from the name of each pattern, the book is simply a book of pictures. No text. No preface by a famous hand shadow practitioner. No page of text describing the history and variations of each pattern. Just pictures.
Each page is a single picture, drawn in mid-19th century style, demonstrating how to position your hands, and showing the resulting shadow. No text is needed; the book explains itself.
Obviously, this extremely minimalist style wouldn’t work for every book, but how many books could be improved by including less than they have? How much do you really have to say about a hand shadow, when a picture says it all?
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15 comments so far
Henri Casale 25 Sep 08
Thank you sir! You are a genius!! Thank you for pointing me in the direction of these marvelous (yet ancient!) books!
mein kauf 25 Sep 08
Jamis, S-W-E-E-T post.. Yeah.. why waste a good book with text?
Julia Soergel 25 Sep 08
Bursill’s »Hand Shadows to Be Thrown upon the Wall« can be downloaded in full length from Project Gutenberg btw. Rocks!
Simon 25 Sep 08
For a modern take on shadow puppetry, you might want to check out Philip Worthington’s Shadow Monsters.
Brandon Durham 25 Sep 08
I feel like the same often goes for sites. So often it seems like people want to hire a copywriter to fill out a site visually when all it really needs is a bit of layout help, or simply some whitespace.
Mike 25 Sep 08
This made my day! When we read to our kids at night, we often try to make hand shadows but run out of ideas. This is perfect!
Tim Jahn 25 Sep 08
While the minimalist style might not work for every book, definitely could work for many, and also be carried over into other media.
There’s many, many sites that are bloated with unnecessary text, Flash, graphics, etc. Software, magazines, etc.
Of course, I’m preaching to the choir!
Darcy McGee 25 Sep 08
I think a minimalist “starter guide” for the Large Hadron Collider would work well.
Devon Mitton 25 Sep 08
I was reading a book (title not to be mentioned) that was otherwise very good, and very informative, except that the authors over-stressed their points way too much.
It was almost as if the authors loved to hear their own voices… in their heads… as they read their own book.
If it was shorter, with less rhetoric, it would have been more impactful.
Marty Neumeier (Zag, The Brand Gap) had a great balance. So did Steve Krug (Don’t Make Me Think).
Jesse 25 Sep 08
I did a book report on this book in 6th grade. I thought I was being clever at the time, we were allowed to a report on any book in the school library.
Teacher gave me an F.
Keith 25 Sep 08
Application is everything. Hillman Curtis used to tell people to “Eat Your Audience.”
By that, think about their needs and consider what will be most impactful. Too many books, etc. consider the author’s needs and not those of the readers.
Interesting post and find!
Mudassir 25 Sep 08
Hi, Tell me more about this book. Is this related to palmistry or what?
Thanks!
Janet 25 Sep 08
Does it really even need the pattern titles? If the shadow is not self-evident, it doesn’t work.
Bill DeFord 26 Sep 08
I think the kool aid is running out. HELP !
Flug 30 Sep 08
I really love hand shadows an I totally agree with you that there is no text needed to learn it, what makes it a best-seller among the illiterates. Surely it´s nice to have a book in your hands but the more efficient way to learn hand shadows is to search the internet: http://www.etre.com/blog/2008/01/manual_of_hand_shadow_puppetry/
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