Launched by communications group DDB New York for charity WaterisLife, the Drinkable Book is a sanitation manual with pages that double as water filters. It was created by researchers from American institutions Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Virginia.
The book’s pages contain unique technology, invented by chemist Dr Theresa Dankovich, which can help decrease the bacteria count of contaminated drinking water by more than 99.9 percent.
New-York-based typographer Brian Gartside was brought on board to help shape the book’s aesthetic.
“At the moment, this is by far the most exciting project I’m working on,” he told Dezeen. “The process of designing the book itself was unlike anything I’ve done before, simply because of all the variables that were beyond our control.”
Historically, WaterisLife faced serious challenges when it came to providing both clean water and useful information about sanitation to communities in need, but The Drinkable Book appears to tackle both issues simultaneously.
Each page gives 60 days of safe drinking water, while an entire book can provide up to four year’s worth.
A single page can be broken into two 4.5 by 4.5-inch filters; the top one is printed with hygiene information in English, while the bottom is translated into the relevant local language. Up to now, they have printed a run of books destined for Kenya, which are written in English and Swahili.
“The end goal would be to produce books/filters for each of the 33 countries that WaterisLife works in, but we had to start somewhere,” Gartside said.
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Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!