The design outcome is a two-sided book.
One side is the original story and the English translation side-by-side layout. Special thanks to Dang-Duy, Nguyen-Ta for the English translation.
'Lão Hạc' (The Old Man Hac) by the Vietnamese writer Nam Cao is a story about an old impoverished father who gradually gave up everything for his son, including his beloved dog and his own life. (Detailed summary below)
The other side of the book is the creative interpretation in the form of digital illustrations.
Most of the tragedy from the story was due to poverty and the struggle to make money, forcing the characters to make decisions against their own will and conscience, causing pain, misery and eventually a suicidal death. Money in this way could be understood as the main enemy, a disease. Along with the common saying with the same sentiment, that money is the dirtiest things, touched by all kind of people and carrying a lot of bacteria.
This gives one the idea of illustrating the story by creating the money virus.
All the virus visuals and backgrounds were made by extracting elements from banknotes used within Vietnam in 1943 (the year the short story was written). The banknotes appeared in each visual were the exact amount of money mentioned in each quote. The results are colourful but intoxicated images with the effect of looking at a banknote under a microscope.
The whole book was hand-bind with the double-needle Coptic stitch method and an open spine to expose the different signatures with the white thread to keep the clean minimal look. The book cover is screen printed.
The short story is a classic about the dark years of starvation in the North of Vietnam, specifically the struggle of the man Hac, told from the perspective of his neighbour. Because of poverty, Hac's son worked at a rubber plantation, far away from home, leaving Hac alone with his puppy friend, whom he lovingly called The Golden Boy. Hac treated Golden like his own missed son and cared for the dog more than himself. Unfortunately, his circumstance turned for the worse, he could not find any source of income to feed himself and Golden. Refusing to take advantages of the resources that he saved up for his son, Hac was forced to sell Golden for slaughter. He felt as if he had failed the trust of Golden. He gave the money from selling Golden to the neighbour to prepare for his own funeral, and eventually took his own life, by taking dog poison.
