Customer Reviews

Glyphix for Visual Journaling: Drawing Out the Words Within

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This book describes briefly, in several passages scattered throughout the book, and demonstrates amply, a technique for exploring ideas that the author has dubbed "glyphix."

The first step in creating a glyphix is to represent a chosen word through a drawing. For example, the way the author describes the glyphix for the concept "glyphix" itself (the drawing that appears on the cover of the book above) is that it is the "profile of an eye, open wide with curiosity; the projection from the eye signifies true seeing/understanding." The author uses a _shodo_ brush and _sumi_ ink to produce elegant characters with an Asian feel, but the editor's introduction encourages readers to use tools on hand. The glyphix is somewhat akin to the symbolism used in American Sign Language and the Word Sculptures of Gabrielle Lusser Rico.

The second step (the author is not particularly rigid about the order in which these steps should be followed) is to create a "string," which is a list of the denotations of the word.

The third step is the "exploration" of the word's associations and connotations.

There are two problems with the way the above information is summarized and illustrated in this book.

The first, which is minor, is that the explanatory text is scattered throughout the book. For me to understand the artist's method required a lot of paging back and forth in the book aside from looking at the illustrations. It struck me as odd that a book about a method of integrating drawing and text wasn't successful in doing so in a didactic fashion. This is an organizational issue, however, and not unusual.

The second problem I had with this book is more significant: a flaw in the way the publisher chose to display the glyphix. Many of these truly exquisite drawings are spread across two pages, which means that a good part of the drawing runs into, and is cut off by, the bindings in the center of the book (I think this is called the "gutter" in bookbinder's terms). This seriously diminishes their impact, and the ability of the reader to enjoy and absorb them. Those glyphix that appear on a single page, with explanatory text on the facing page, are much more pleasing to the eye.

The choice to make the book smaller, and the glyphix larger, while it may have decreased the cost of the book, impairs the visual value of the art portrayed as well. It's a shame that such a business decision was made in production, because the concept is truly useful.

Shimoda's book is a wonderful tool for exploring your emotional side and bringing balance into your life. In a culture where life balance is rarely encouraged, spending an hour doing glyphix journaling in the morning could make your whole day go better. (The simple act of centering yourself enough to make the drawings will give you a sense of inner peace.) You don't have to be an artist or writer to enjoy this book. Even if you think it's slightly wacky, give it a try and you might be surprised at your new inight.

This book suggests an approach to writing that begins with drawing your own artistic rendering of what a word looks like. The author's illustrations are Zen-like, simple Shodo brush drawings that encourage a meditative approach to language. I have no artistic ability at all and was astonished both at the ways I found to interpret a word through form and shape, and at the deepened relationship with it that emerged as I encoded my own interpretation.