From Friday 16th to Sunday 18th of October we participated on a workshop called Tee Koskettelukirja (Design a Tactile Book) at the Kalliolan Setlementtiopisto, Helsinki. Tactile books are designed for visually impaired children and are equal to picture books for seeing children.
The design process starts from choosing or writing your own story and then planning which would be the key illustrations for the story. We had some materials ready and started thinking of their sounds when small hand would be touching and pressing them. Idea evolved into a story titled “Sounds when you walk”.
Our book contains 7 tactile pages, which are to be used with a small shoe that the reader will wear in her hand and walk along the pages. Text can be read from the text pages either visually or by fingers.
Celia Library
The teacher of the workshop was from the Celia Library Helsinki. In Finland tactile books can be borrowed from their library. “Celia produces talking books, Braille books and electronic books for the library’s lending department as well as for schoolchildren and students at different levels of education, vocational training and self-study. The study materials are designed to be suitable for and accessible to the visually impaired.”(1)
More detailed information of how to design a tactile book can be found from Celia Library’s website in Finnish and from the TBAG’s (Tactile Book Advancement Group) page in English.
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