Portrait In Words

Background

Studies showed that 50% of Romanians had not read a book in 2012. Also, Bookfest, the Bucharest International book fair was going through a tough period.

At a time when it seemed that people preferred images to the power of the written word, Bookfest thought they would try to remind people of the pleasures of reading through a little experiment.

Idea

Many city parks have portrait artists, who sketch likenesses of passers-by.

The idea behind this initiative was to do the same but to get best- selling authors to write pen portraits of the people they encountered.

The portraits they wrote became personal invitations to the bookfair.

Media attention was secured by sending celebrities and public figures pen portraits of themselves, prompting them to attend the fair as well.

The experiment caught the attention of Bucharest University, where the concept was used for the Narrative Journalism exam.

Results

94,400 visitors to Bookfest.

245,200 books sold at the fair

The Book of Word Portraits produced and distributed.

Our Thoughts

I looked at this entry over and over again. There was just something about it.

First, it was the surprising fact that only 50% of Romanian people read books. Second, it was the realisation that my (just) adult offspring probably don’t read any books at all.

Sometimes, the ideas you just cannot ignore, like this one, are surprisingly simple. You wonder why no-one ever thought of them before. But that’s what keeps creative people at their desks till late at night, looking for the answer to a problem which is both neat but original.

Inversion, drawing portraits in words rather than lines, is a useful creative tool and one which has been put to good use here.