Martina Zuzaňáková
The Lesikon (from the German word “lesen” = to read) is a German-language encyclopaedia compiled in 2010 by graphic artist Juli Gudehus under the title Das Lesikon der visuellen Kommunikation. The 3,000-page book offers an original and humorous version of a lexicon, dealing exclusively with concepts from the world of typography, design and advertising.
Juli Gudehusova worked on the encyclopaedia together with 627 authors for almost nine years and the result is 9704 entries, which are not arranged alphabetically but in groups according to their meaning. The book is unique mainly because of its broad scope. It includes concepts referring to the world of signs, printing, reproduction, advertising as well as to symbols from these categories. In Lesikon, we can simply find terms used by contemporary graphic designers and animators as well as historical context related to the topic – for example, the information that the first printed menu was printed for the Viennese restaurant “Zum roten Apfel” as early as 1784.
In the age of Wikipedia’s reign, Lesikon is an astonishing phenomenon, and in a way it is saving the medium of the printed book. Unlike classical lexicons, you can flip through it endlessly, make extracts and explore suggested secondary sources or literature.
Gudehus, Juli: Das Lesikon der visuellen Kommunikation. Hermann Schmidt Publishers, Mainz 2010. 3000 pages.
Excerpted at: https://www.fontblog.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/Lesikonprobe.pdf
More information at: http://www.lesikon.net/
