Oloris Publishing is proud to work with Emil Johansson of the Lord of the Rings Project by making some of his work available as posters.
Lord of the Rings Project, commonly shortened to LotRProject, is a creative web project dedicated to documenting details in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. It is perhaps best known for its extensive and ever updating genealogy, its historical timeline of Middle-earth, and its statistics concerning the population of Middle-earth.
LotRProject was published in January 2012 by Emil Johansson with the genealogy as its only feature. It quickly gained a lot of attention which spurred the development of the site. Since then, the project has expanded to become a creative outlet for Johansson and now features several interactive Tolkien-related projects.
Johansson, a Chemical Engineering student currently living in Gothenburg, Sweden, first read The Lord of the Rings in 2000. To satisfy his curiosity about Tolkien’s legendarium, he went on to read The Silmarillion. While trying to keep track of the book’s many characters, he started doodling on a piece of paper—and the Lord of the Rings Project was born.
Johansson’s work has captured the attention of such publications and news outlets as Smithsonian Magazine, WIRED, CNN GEEKOUT, TIME Magazine US Edition, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, NPR, TheOneRing.Net, and Middle-earth Network. He was delighted to make a presentation on his project at TEDxGoteborg in October 2012—only ten months after the launch of his site!
As extensive and serious the undertaking of LotrProject has been, there is also a humorous side. Along with its painstakingly detailed timelines are flow charts, Venn Diagrams, and other data visualizations that portray elements of Tolkien’s world with fun and wit. Three of the posters that will be released are more academic in nature, and one will reflect the lighter side of the project.
The first two posters that will be available are:
- “Timeline of the Elves” is a rather ambitious part of the project that traces the lineage of Vanyar, Noldor, and Teleri all the way through The Return of the King. Johansson’s background in chemical engineering is evidenced by the color-coded timelines that make the characters and events much easier to follow.
- “Timeline of the One Ring” is elegant in its simplicity, but don’t be fooled—a lot of information is included, while the presentation is such that it is easy on the eyes as well as easy to understand. It covers the complete history of the Ring from the time it was forged in S.A. 1600 to its unmaking in T.A. 3019 and includes the seven Ring Bearers.
Two more posters will be released on March 9th:
- “Character Mentions in The Hobbit” contains the most intensive information of the four posters. A detailed study of the frequency of mentions of characters in the book, it also includes a colored bar graph that reflects the sentiment of each page.
- “Gandalf’s Gear” examines the Grey Wizard’s essential gear which apparently includes, among other things, a pocket comb, extra pipes, and a book on how to speak Moth. The secret power source of Gandalf’s staff is revealed.
“If you love this legendarium, it’s hard not to be a fan of the work Emil is doing at LotrProject. At Oloris, we admire his work very much and we are thrilled to be able to help him bring these incredible posters to fans.” ~ Lara Sookoo, Publisher at Oloris Publishing
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Although this doesn't pertain to the Gadsden Public Library specifically, it is a unique product for a greatly loved book so we thought we would share it here.