This book was a part of a bigger project, which connected my abroad experience with my home country. The task was to make a brand identity for a music genre. For this genre I chose a bad Estonian music genre, which contains of badly translated and usually very poorly performed Western songs in Estonian. I seeked for an answer, why the Estonians, who are said to be the Singing Nation and who sang themselves free once, all know the words and sing along to these horrible songs. The reason that I found it to be for was that we like to sing along and because these songs are so easy to remember and words so simple, then it makes sense that we all know these words and it is in our heritage the habit to unite our voices and sing.
As a part of this assignment we had to create a book containing only type and typographical elements which would illustrate our genre and idea. Therefore, I created a book which contains of two songs from the genre "süldimuusika" but I translated it to phonetic English so that other people could also sing themselves free with the Estonians, singing these awful, but simple songs, that we use to blow off steam and unite our voices.
Although, it also represents the character of an Estonian. Therefore, it contains of closed pages where the chorus and the English translation is hidden, and before that an error to represent the closed nature of an Estonian and the fact that it is very hard for a foreigner to belong into the Estonian community but when they eventually win their trust then it is all worth it. I have heard from many foreigners in Estonia, who say that Estonian friendship is worth fighting for. Therefore, the last page of the book contains all the translations and phonetics and the chorus as a symbol of the reader finally gaining the trust of an Estonian.
2015 Belgium
The closed pages include the translation and the chorus of the previous verse. They symbolise the closed nature of an Estonian and that although an Estonian friendship needs work, then it is well-known that in the end it is all worth it.
In the first paragraph, before every closed page there is an error symbolising the fact that the reader has to break through to get more out of an Estonian.
The second song is a dialog between a woman and a man, therefore the fonts have been chosen accordingly. The feminine and the manly fonts and their relations.
There is also a confusion, as every verse includes besides the phonetic version of the verse, also the original Estonian version of the version, but mostly in a smaller font. This is there just to confuse the reader even more – what to read and what not to read. Therefore, the "Estonian character" secretly teaches the foreigner some Estonian.
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