I have been talking to @harichaart about Chinese and Korean book design!! We're noting some very interesting design details when it comes to books haha. Thread forthcoming :) I'm going to pull some Chinese books from my bookshelf that have beautiful design because why not

Okay I had to go work but I am back now so let me do my thread about Chinese book design, from a reader's perspective. Here is a Chinese poetry anthology. Notice the lovely binding and the cover material. I see the binding as a nice tribute to some older Chinese paperbacks.

Here is a shot of the pages inside. I am noticing that many of these anthologies commonly make use of color and cool layouts, just to spice it up a bit

Moving on, this is a special edition of the Classic of Mountain and Sea. It is illustrated so this is definitely more fancy than usual but look at that gorgeous cover art!

Photos of illustrations inside! It is like an ancient encyclopedia about supernatural beings and magical places

Here is a travel book about canal cities in China that I bought second hand. I am not sure what material that cover is made of, but it seems to be quite popular. I am just a fangirl for high quality paper lol

Here is a short video of my flip through. These kinds of travel guides are quite common. Love the thick paper and beautiful photography alongside illustrations. It is very aesthetically pleasing and colorful. (Ignore my notes and marks--I use these books as reference books)

Here is another of these travel guides! This one is for ancient towns in Sichuan. Note the interesting binding style again...

This is a special issue of a magazine (Zhi China) that is themed around wuxia. Love the illustrations. I have a bunch of issues from this magazine and they all have cool pullout materials as well.

I am working on some stories about the Song dynasty so I hunt down this small folded replica of the scroll Along the Ricer During Qingming Festival. It came with a small text pamphlet. It slides out of a cardboard case. When fully unfolded, this mini version is 2-3 meters long

Here is my paperback copy of the web novel (which has been adapted and is on Netflix as Love O2O). It is quite common for these novels to come with a poster, bookmarks, or postcards. I really like the watercolor art!! Tagging @faye_bi because we were talking about this one haha

Last one! Thank you for taking this brief tour of a part of my bookshelf with me hehe :) If I spot anything other Chinese books that have interesting design elements I'll add this thread. (Also, friends, feel free to jump in) https://twitter.com/yilinwriter/status/1246541687196811264