Why Can't You Afford a Home?
為何你買不起房子？
Book Design, Cover Artwork, Editorial Design 

130 × 190 mm, 172 pages
Traditional Chinese

Published in July 2021
ISBN 978-988-74161-6-6

The book Why Can't You Afford a Home? ( 為何你買不起房子？) delves into the systemic issues that have contributed to the housing affordability crisis. The design of the book corresponds to its content by highlighting the issue of unaffordable housing, and by using the imagery of two interior floor plans with a massive and solid object between them to emphasizes this unattainability. The presence of this expanding object sharply highlights the narrowness of the unit's space.

The design also employs a touch of black humor–a price tag label–an easy symbol of capitalism, which is typically associated with commodities, and places an unaffordable price tag of $100,000,000 on it, satirising the reality of the housing market.

這本書《為何你買不起房子？》深入探討了導致房屋負擔危機的根本原因。書的設計與內容相呼應，透過展示兩個室內平面圖間隔著一個龐大的障礙物，來強調住房難以負擔的現象。這個持續擴大的障礙物尖銳地突出了住宅空間的狹小。

設計中還加入了一絲黑色幽默：一個價格標籤。這個簡單但強烈的資本主義符號，通常用於商品，這裡卻被用來標註一個高達1億美元的天價，諷刺地反映了當前房地產市場的荒謬現實。

Additional Resources: 
[1]  “why can’t you afford a home?”: A talk by Josh Ryan-Collins. YouTube.
[2]  書介﹕《為何你買不起房子》，香港獨立媒體

↑ full video of the project

Author   Josh Ryan-Collins
Translator   Lina XIE 
Publisher   Typesetter Publishing, Hong Kong    
Art Direction and Graphic Design   Lai Ping So, Wai Lun Hsu
Printing & Production   Suncolor Printing Co., Ltd., Hong Kong
Video & Photography   mmmmor studio
ISBN 9789887416166