Science Fiction - Book Design

It takes around 150-300 days to travel to mars, which is the best part of a year. In the Moving to Mars exhibit, there was a quote from Buzz Aldrin saying the journey would give you enough time ‘to read the Iliad and the Odyssey’. 

What struck me about this was that these are obviously massive texts, and the books would be very big, however one of the elements touched upon in the exhibit was that when humans do travel to mars, every fraction of space on the ship will have to be meticulously rationed and efficient. This is because the journey is so long, they won’t be able to get equipment and supplies easily, so they would have to pack what they bring very efficiently. So it struck me, would they even be aloud to bring such big books to read on the journey, if they are technically not essential?

Could graphic design be used to maximise the space and efficiency of a book, distilling it down so that the content utilises as little space as possible? 

Looking further into a mars based science fiction future, perhaps a lack of resources would mean this idea of efficiency focused editorial design would be carried forward. 

Maybe I could explore science fiction book design, and speculate how books would be designed in the future. I could redesign a book in this efficient and rationed way. 

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