The project Egg Diary is a collection of 6 booklets that include several interactive embedded pop-up objects. It contains a non-linear storyline in a fictional world view. In the title, “Egg” represents a special institution hidden in the story, whereas “Diary indicates the physical form of the production.

The whole story is separated into 7 parts: a preface and 6 chapters. The preface includes a contents list which is presented in the form of a newspaper that provides basic background of the story stage, a painting of all characters and a secret file of each person.

The inspiration came from one of my dreams.

Each chapter reveals each character’s identity and how they connect to one another with a small amount of related information, which means, if the audience intends to explore the most of the story, they have to collect details from every chapter and decode possible messages. The booklets are 8-12 pages and have a similar layout: a patterned cover, a puppet in a frame, one key scene in the house and a portrayal of themselves.

I was specifically interested in whether it was possible to ave interactive features in books that enhance the mechanics of the story while serving the appearance and aesthetic? Many creators have gradually tried to break the rules in a book, a single narrative medium. This time my experiment was to try to use different types of objects in multiple books, combining them while ensuring the thematic unity of the story.

I continue to give self reflection through my own journal and discussion of different philosophical concepts. I called it “a record of creepy ego crawling in the gloom” as most of the inspirations come from the negative thoughts of mine.

In my opinion, surrealism is all the things that are out of touch of what feels real.  This project is based on a pessimistic approach to life through the expression of surrealism.  Every chapter seems independent and with no connections, while they are like puzzles in different positions. The characters are mirrors of my desire or motivations who have different fates: someone accepts their lives, someone destroys themselves and someone rebels. Their images, whether they are
bees, goldfish or butterflies, echo every mood of my mind.

When one's identity is unable to reconcile the conflict between the ego and the superego, death is the only solution to its collapse. This is a conflict between idealism and realism.  I wanted to show this theme through simple but strong patterns. Black and white are the best colours to build the contrast.

At the very begining point, I wanted to do the illustration by digital painting, but I changed it to all hand-drawings. This is because the texture of hand-drawing lines have a stronger visual effect.

After finishing all the design of contents and layouts, I separated all the patterns I need and drew them on A3 paper.

Then, I scanned them, used Photoshop to adjust the pictures, edited them in Indesign and print.

Combine them together is the final step.

The detailed documentation can be found here: 
https://eggdiarylog.lofter.com/