Idea 410. Shaping Fear: Visualizing Terror and Unease in Book Design

Direction by IDEA
In cooperation with Toshiaki Koga
Design by LABORATORIES （Kensaku Kato, Sae Kamata, Sakura Koizumi）
Photography by Satoshi Aoyagi

What is fear exactly? Is it the sum of related emotions— dread, anxiety, disgust, surprise, or even the irrational and outrageous—which can shake us to our very core? This issue’s feature provides an exploration of how fear is visualized and expressed through the media we know as books, or more precisely, their designs and covers.

The layout in a novel’s cover, the odd colors in a picture book, the weathered taste in a magazine, the sense of discomfort in the combination of comical and creepy oozing through the pages of a manga: a common trait with all media that deals in fear is the use of design in exposing us to something we cannot process within our scope of reason. These designs draw out their readers’ imaginations, and cause emotions to become unsettled even before pages are turned. Visual expression in scary books is not a mere ornamentation or marketing tool: it is a functioning device that, when coupled with content, can sway any reader’s emotions.
Especially today, the sense of fear is not limited to conventional expressions of terror; it has begun to take on more complex and multilayered meanings. It could include the unease felt around creepy things, threats that are impossible to explain, or the fear of social incompatibility or exclusion. Add some visual orchestration (not necessarily blood or violence) and these can really leave a strong impression. In recent years, a fresh challenge for designers has been finding ways to show fear in what we cannot see.
In this feature we will be looking at visual expression of fear across four genres: novels, picture books, manga & comics, and magazines. The issue also includes interviews with those actively working to express fear—designer Koichi Sakano (welle design), manga artist Junji Ito, game creators Chilla’s Art, and illustrator fracoco. There’s also an additional contribution from anthologist and literary critic Masao Higashi.
This feature is an attempt to reexamine the diversity behind this feeling of “fear” and how it is shaped in the modern day. We hope it offers an opportunity to verify exactly how deep the connections are between our emotions and memories, and fear as visual expression.