Here's a great article on Press Street's Room 220 blog about SIFT and Kieu Lam's Bound in Japan project.

How to Wrap Five Eggs Out in the World

It's rare for me to see what happens to something I made after it leaves my hands and goes out into the world. Is it on display, on a shelf, in a box? Is it brought down to be handled, read, or examined more closely? Shown to friends and guests?

Tracy Thomson from Kabuki Hats here in New Orleans was kind enough to send me photos of one of my paper covered eggs in situ. 

She created this lovely package of five eggs, including one of my Japanese dictionary eggs (without the ornament attachment). It's exactly the design and aesthetic I would've chosen.

This also strikes a deep chord with me because How to Wrap Five Eggs is one of those books that I come back to again and again. The book highlights traditional Japanese packaging and aesthetics and it has continued to make an impact on me since I first discovered it in my undergraduate school library. I used to own a copy but it was lost in a large box of books that never made it from Seattle to Philadelphia. I still feel a dense, physical pain in my chest, over two years later, at the loss of those books.

But now, thanks to Tracy, I not only have something delightful to associate when I think of the book, but I have the immense satisfaction of seeing something I made, out in the world, cared for and appreciated. 

Maybe it's also time to finally replace that empty space on my bookshelf.

Photos courtesy of Kabuki Design Studio.