CHEVAL’s design for bilingual publication Oriental Silk embraces contrast, tactility and subtlety

London-based design practice CHEVAL have worked with publisher Hatje Cantz and artist Xiaowen Zhu on the design of Oriental Silk – a publication documenting the latter’s investigation into the 1970s eponymous Los Angeles’ silk merchant of the same name. Concerning the material, the people and its place in American history as the country’s first silk purveyor, CHEVAL’s considerations for Oriental Silk were founded in the tactile and tangible. “We wanted the act of holding the book to be a really tactile experience,” Director Michael Mason explains, “so we designed the publication as a hardcover book – clothbound with a coarse linen fabric;” emblazoned with quiet embossing. Matching the heritage of its content, the book itself strives for a sense of nostalgia; particularly in the contextually vital consideration for the book’s own tactility. Internally the book utilises Munken Pure 300, creating a “subtly warm, almost sun-stained, hue and toothy texture,” as Mason explains. This is partnered with an equally subtle and soft grey for the cover – an interesting choice given the renowned vividity of silk, a plethora of which is found inside the book. Finding inspiration for this in the shop itself, Mason recalls his reaction to the surprisingly unassuming nature of Oriental Silk. “The shop boasts huge windows along the boulevard,” he explains, “but every one of them is completely obscured by nondescript beige curtains,” adding, “void of any window displays or signage.”