Da tinta ao pixel: a influência das materialidades dos suportes na experiência de leitura

Abstract

The role of books in our society is being discussed again with the emergence of new media and new forms of reading and storing content. The e-books are at the center of these discussions, either as responsible for an impending "death" of printed books or as a messianic figure that will rescue the reading habit, especially among younger people. In order to reflect on these changes from the perspective of graphic design area and based on the materialities of communication as theoretical paradigm, this study aims to compare the main design characteristics of the printed book and the e-book, analyzing how they can lead the reading experience on both types of devices. The objects of analysis are the printed book and the digital devices Kindle and iPad. First, there is a literature review to understand the "culture of the printed book", from the transition of an oral society to the emergence of the printing industry, including the forms of building the codex. In a second step, we make a comparative analysis of the reading guides of three literary works in three different media printed book, Kindle and iPad , in order to understand how the materiality of these media affects the reading experience. Thus, we define a comparison methodology by using not only the characteristics of the printed books materiality, but also the concepts of the digital world to check the suitability of digital books to the materiality of the tablets. For this, we use subjective criteria - to analyze the "reading experience" in different media - and objective criteria - to compare the guide of reading in printed and electronic versions. The results show that the fundamental structures of the printed book influence directly the reading experience in digital media. There is not yet a culture of reading proper to the e-books materiality. In the case of the digital book, there are a number of elements that are native from "printed culture" that are just "adapted" to the digital materiality.