Book Design as a UX Case
Project
“I Spoke with Mount Fuji” is a reflective memoir chronicling the experiences of its author during his formative years in Japan while pursuing a Master’s degree. The book offers a unique lens on Japanese culture, blending personal anecdotes with cross-cultural insights. It serves as a bridge between East and West, capturing the nuances of tradition, identity, and transformation from a Turkish perspective.
Tasked with designing the book, I aimed to make its physical form an extension of its story—quiet, thoughtful, and evocative of Japanese aesthetics. Every design choice was intended to immerse readers in the spirit of Japan while echoing the author’s reflective journey.
Problem Statement:
Designing a book that explores the intersection of two distinct cultures—Turkish and Japanese—presented a unique challenge.
How might I create a book experience that authentically reflects Japanese culture while maintaining the Turkish perspective—allowing readers to feel the spirit of the narrative from the moment they hold it in their hands?
The solution needed to transcend conventional book design, creating a form that invites readers into a cross-cultural dialogue.
Idea:
Readers engage with a book not only through its content but also through its form. For the design concept I aimed to disrupt the conventional physical experience of reading to reflect the heart of the story. In Western books text flows from left to right, and the pages progress accordingly. In contrast, traditional Japanese books are read in the opposite direction: pages progress from right to left, and text typically flows vertically from top to bottom. To embody this Japanese reading experience, I redesigned the book’s physical orientations.
First, I repositioned the spine so that, when held in the standard Western manner, the book’s cover appears on the back side—just as it would in traditional Japanese formats.
Second, I flipped the page orientation so that the internal layout further echoes traditional Japanese book design, with vertical columns guiding the reader’s eye from top to bottom. However, the reading experience remains aligned with the Turkish language’s left-to-right text flow.
This intentional disruption of physical norms created a subtle cultural duality: visually and sensorially, the book resembles a Japanese artifact, yet the act of reading remains familiar. It invites users into a tactile metaphor—challenging expectations while honoring both traditions.
