Books come in different shapes and sizes. The Sandwich Book, is one example of an unusual publication that cannot pass unnoticed by both gourmands, as well as graphic designers. The Sandwich Book, designed by Polish designer and photographer Paweł Piotrowski combines the appearance of a sandwich with the feeling of paper in a deliciously looking book the size of a big sandwich (21 cm x 15 cm x 5 cm). The handmade book with jacket started as a project in 2010 when Paweł was in his fourth year at the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. The task was to create an unusual book, and during a breakfast with his girlfriend Irmina, Paweł had the idea to create a book which looks like a sandwich. The hardcovers of the Sandwich Book look like bread slices, which are “smeared” with butter on the inside covers. Each one of the inside pages represent one layer of a classic sandwich, including tomatoes, ham, cheese, onions, fried egg, and lettuce.

Sandwich Book

The Sandwich Book emphasizes form, rather than content, and focuses on the use of materials, especially the use of paper, and the binding of the book. Paweł says the idea behind the Sandwich Book was to create an unusual publication which would be able to draw people’s attention to the unique form of the book, and would encourage them to view books in a different way than in the traditional text and images format.

Sandwich Book from profile

To achieve this, Paweł used a different type of paper for each layer of the Sandwich. The papers used in the Sandwich Book  are of different weights and textures. The layer of slices of cheese with holes for example, is printed on rough, thick paper. For the lettuce layer, on the contrary, Paweł chose a lighter, fibrous paper. It was also the lettuce layer that Paweł described as the most challenging in the production of the book. “Each card was very carefully crumpled up and then I formed it to look like leaves of lettuce” the designer explained. The fried egg was torn from pieces of paper, laid out and sewn all together.

Sandwich Book cheese

Sandwich Book lettuce

Sandwich Book fried egg

Paweł says he did not choose a particular provider for paper as he was mostly interested in what the papers can achieve. “I was more interested in quality, and that every individual piece of paper needs to agree with my imagination of that what I want to achieve,” he added. The Sandwich Book was carefully assembled by hand, although not yet published, is worth noticing. “I remember that laying it all together and sewing gave me a lot of joy,” added Paweł about the process of creating the book.

Sandwich Book onions

Sandwich Book ham

Interview by Cristina Poiata (De Monsterkamer) with Paweł Piotrowski.