Tag: Book Design

Assignment 5 – Your choice

Craig Roberts DesignLeave a comment

Your final assignment asks you to draw on all the skills, insight and experience you have gained so far, by designing and producing a book of your choice. Use the following options to as a starting point or alternatively identify your own project.

● Influential book designers
Identify one or more book designers to present through your book. Find ways to develop your own creative responses to their ideas and visual approaches. Delve into their work, find suitable quotations, investigate their influences, and find ways of communicating this material, and your interpretation of it, to an audience through effective use of layout, narrative, and choices of material.

● Typography
Extend your exploration of typography by continuing to develop creative approaches to how typography, layout and your material choices can help generate meaning. Develop a book that explores one aspect of typography in more detail, or combines a variety of approaches. Just because your project explores typography it doesn’t mean you can’t also include images, colour and narrative.

● Found and altered books
Use an existing book as a creative starting point. This could be an extension of exploring altering books in some way, or as a research project into a specific book that will generate content and creative ideas for a new book. Find a physical book to work with or pick one of your influential books from Part One.

Research the subject in depth and think about the editorial structure (described in Part Three) of your book. What is the flow of the content, would you write articles or create imagery or both? What do you want to tell about the subject and how would you communicate this? And who is your audience? Make a flatplan before you start designing your book, and have a look at other books on the subject to see a different design approach on the subject. You may want to look at the work of designers you inspired by, in order to develop your own design approaches.

You may have identified an alternative area you wish to pursue. This is fine as long as you check this out with your tutor first and document the reason(s) for your choice.

Follow the creative design process in developing your creative thinking and how you will approach the workflow, in terms of content and timescale. Decide on your subject and start researching, creating content, editing content, making decisions about the materials you want to use, and designing your book. Frame this process within an overview of your workflow to help plan the production of your book. Planning the process of generating content, and how this can then be

developed, is key to successfully finishing a designed physical book. Keep notes to accompany the process of making of the book in your learning log, and reflect on your design process.

You can use any medium or materials you want to in the production of your book. You may want to research and explore hand-binding, or work digitally with print on demand for production. You may want to combine these approaches and you may want to consider whether you want to produce a one-off copy or a small edition. If you would like to use a particular paper for your book, make print proofs before printing the whole final book. Test the paper, the colours and how your design works on the paper.

Explore the materiality of books in more depth by considering the paper, printing and bookbinding of books, both as content and form. Think about how books are held, interacted with, and the associations of the materials you might use. Explore how these choices can start to create meaning within your book.

Reflection

Give yourself a final self assessment check against your assessment criteria to see how well you think you’ve done. Use this process to help reflect on your work and your achievements on the course as a while. It will also help to identify to you and your tutor any areas you may need to work on prior to submitting for assessment.

Sharing your work

Digital companies such as​ blurb.com​ have an online ‘sharing’ facility – this would be a useful way for your tutor to see the whole work without the need for expensive mail costs.

My choice

For my choice for the final assignment was an easy choice for me. I wanted to do something in and around typography, but I wasn’t initially sure which direction to take.

I started by mind-mapping a few things to se if anything jumped out at me.

I had so many directions to choose from when it came to typography. Should I use all or focus on just one? I started making some notes to see if that focused my thoughts a little better.

This actually confused the matter even more! I had given myself ‘too many’ choices of what to include in my book. I needed to hone my ideas down, as I thought that I needed to specialise.

As well as trying to find a niche for my book I began collecting some inspiration via Pinterest. I already had a well establish typography board to draw from, but I also started a layout board to collate images of interesting layouts or layout elements.

I also found this video on YouTube which I thought was fun.

Source: YouTube

After mulling over what direction to go in for this assignment I had managed to whittle it down to 3 ideas:

  • Different styles of type
  • Type designers
  • History of typography

I am fairly familiar with the different classifications of type, and I had done some work around type history in my previous module: Graphic Design Core Concepts. So this left type designers…..decision made.

So now I could write myself a brief…

Having a clear direction and an actual brief helped focus my ideas and I was able to begin the design process.

Design

Firstly I needed a list of designers. I hit the books and scoured the net to find a list of suspects. The most useful tool I found was my copy of ‘A Visual History of Type by Paul McNeil‘. It covers 320 of the most influential typefaces of the last 500+ years.

Source: gilburtandpaul.co.uk

I worked my way through the book and picked out some of the typefaces that I personally thought were important and listed who designed them.

A couple of the typefaces I had chosen didn’t have specific designers which was a little disappointing and some of the designers had very little information about them. I wrote these off with one exception: Akzidenz Grotesk which was the basis for Helvetica, which was too important not to include.

I eventually got the list down to 18 designers:

  • Johannes Gutenberg – Gutenberg
  • William Caxton – Caxton
  • Claude Garamond – Garamond
  • John Baskerville – Baskerville
  • Firmin Didot – Didot
  • Giambattista Bodoni – Bodoni
  • Robert Besley – Clarendon
  • Berthold Akzidenz – Akzidenz Grotesk
  • Morris Fuller-Benton – Franklin Gothic
  • Paul Renner – Futura
  • Eric Gill – Gill Sans
  • Stanley Morrison – Times New Roman
  • Howard Kettler – Courier
  • Max Miedinger – Helvetica
  • Jan Tschichold – Sabon
  • Carol Twombley – Myriad
  • Eric Spikermann – FF Meta
  • Tobias Frere-Jones – Gotham

My 18 designers fitted neatly into 6 time periods(by design) which were to be my 6 chapters. Technically this was only 18 pages unless they were all to be double-page spreads. This needed some more thought.

I decided to move on to the format of the book. What type of book would this be? Referring back to the brief, I had identified the audience as people who would specifically be interested in typography and its history. Therefore, I felt that the book would be some sort of coffee table read with a high-end feel, something that people would want to pick up and browse through. It had to be tactile and eye-catching. This would be achieved by the choice of finishes for the book.

I had started to sketch out page layouts in a traditional portrait format based on my Pinterest research.

However, the more I sketch, the less I felt the format worked. I felt the book would work better in landscape format as this gave a larger overall width to the spreads which would carry the information better.

I drew up a flatplan consisting of 36 pages to start with, which gave me a double page spread for each designer.

I added a cover and back cover. I then realised I needed to think about the inside cover and contents/index etc..

I din’t really want to go over the 40-page mark, so I made the decision to give my designers a single page rather than a spread.

This didn’t really work, as the page count wasn’t enough.

I laid out a 36-page document in InDesign to see if it made more sense. I set the document up as 36 facing pages with an outside, top and bottom margins of 15.4mm and an inner margin of 40mm. I lated out the page with 8 columns with an 8.5mm gutter. Also, as a matter of process, I set up a rich black colour in the swatches menu as this gives a better result when printed than the default black. The settings were: C25 M25 Y25 K100.

In response to the part of the typography unit about grids, I decided to use the same grid/column structure for each page and demonstrate how type could be laid out in different ways using just one grid. I started with just one page, and my first designer.

I found an image of Johannes Gutenberg on Wikipedia and began with that.

File:Gutenberg.jpg
Source: Wikipedia

I placed the image on the page and added some filler-type to try and get the layout right. I also added a title and page number. I needed to decide what typeface or faces to use for this publication.

I wanted to create contrast in the book and wanted to use typefaces that would do this. I wanted to use both serif and sans-serif typefaces to achieve maximum contrast and began with one of the typefaces that was a possibility in my initial stages of research: DIN 1451. This was discounted as one of my subjects as there was no evidence of who created it, but I liked it as a minimal, no nonsense, German sans-serif. I used this as my headline on the page in all caps to identify the designers.

Next came the page numbers. Rather than straight forward numbers, I wanted the pages to have classical numbering and used Roman numerals. These would look better in a serif typeface and for this I chose IKANSEEYOUALL by Swiss Typefaces which has a high-contrast of stroke width.

For the body I chose Helvetica Neue as this was a modern, easily readable typeface. To create even more contrast, and building on the Good/Bad Typography exercise, I wanted to use the same typeface in different sizes and weights.

Once I’d laid it all out on the page using the grid, I realised it was a little monochrome. I decided to add some red. I changed the page numbers to red and added an underline covering the width of one column. I then added the designer’s initial as a red overlay on the image in DIN 1451 to mirror the title.

Once I had the basis for the first page layout, I went on to create variations for the other 17 designers I had chosen. I decided to keep the image in the same position on all of the pages as well as the title and page number, these elements were added to the master-page so that the layout would repeat throughout the book. Any images that weren’t black and white I took into Photoshop and desaturated and changed the contrast to fit with the non-photographic images.

As I had divided my designers into 6 chapters of 3, I needed to set up a contents page and clearly define the chapters.

I started with defining the chapters by inserting whole-page dividers with over-sized numbers indicating the different chapters. These were again done using DIN 1451 reversed in white out of a rich-black background.

I then needed to sort the contents page. I did this as a double-page spread and used the over-sized type to write the word ‘contents’ across the spread and lowered the opacity so that I could then write the contents over the top. I did this by numbering the chapters using IKANSEEYOUALL and then I had to decide on titles for my chapters that I then labelled in Helvetica Neue. I confined these to single columns and hyphenated the all-caps chapter titles that I had named:

  • Originators
  • Timeless
  • Distinctive
  • Groundbreaking
  • Modernity
  • Digital.

I now needed a cover. During my research of designers, I came across Saul Bass’ famous quote of “Design is thinking made visible” and decided to use a variation for my book title. I used ‘Thinking Made Visible’ as my book title and added the subheading of ‘The Art of the Type Designer’. I again used DIN as my typeface of choice, but this time I outlined it and lowered its opacity but gave the word ‘visible’ a gradient to make it look as if it was becoming more visible. The subheading was given the same opacity as the title and Helvetica was used.

I found another quote which I wanted to use on the back cover. I didn’t want to mess with it this time and just used it as is with some hanging punctuation, reversed out of the back cover.

I now had my page layouts, my covers and contents. Now all I had to do was to write the content!!!

I had calculated with by using the placeholder type that I needed 200 – 300 words of type for each designer. This was going to be a daunting task. Using the book I mentioned earlier and the internet I began researching my designers. This was much harder than designing the book itself. After I had collated the type for the first 9 of my designers I was relieved to be halfway through. This prompted me to create a double-page spread with the word ‘half.’ written across it in IKANSEEYOUALL, in the red that I’d used earlier.

This led me to produce another spread with the word ‘full.’ at the end of the book. The book didn’t seem balanced. It needed another similar spread at the front of the book, so I added a spread to the front of the book with the word ‘type’ across the spread.

I felt that the book was lacking context. It needed an explanation as to the meaning behind the book. I decided to add a summary section…more writing! I managed to write a few more words to summarise the development of type design over the last 500+ years.

My Content: type-designersDownload

This, again, was reversed out of a black background. The type needed a little more spacing for these to help with the legibility of the paragraphs, as white type appears larger than its black counterpart so the leading and line height need to be larger.

It also gave me the opportunity to add the information about the typefaces used in the book. This seemed to make the book more cohesive. I went on to mock it up.

Now I had to prepare it for print. I had set up my document with a 3mm bleed, which is pretty standard. I had to make sure all my images were linked correctly and at the correct dpi and all colour were CMYK.

I had decided to use Mixam as my printer of choice due to Covid restrictions and they require pdfs to be uploaded as seperate pages which meant my spreads needed to be separated and an extra bleed added to the inner edge. Another point made by a fellow student, that was confirmed by the printers, was that if I was planning to perfect-bind my book, that any ‘read-across’ elements of my book would need to allow for binding to make them legible. This meant that I need to add an extra 4mm to the inner edge of the affected pages, namely the large, single word spreads and the contents page. The printer suggested that I print out the pages at full size with crop marks with the 4mm added and then fold along the 4mm line and then see it the type meets and is continuous across the spread.

Taking into account the crossover.

The printers were very helpful and communicated with me with any problems and offered lots of useful advice.

I had opted to print the book on 150gsm silk paper with a 250gsm silk cover with a matt lamination to be perfect bound. I felt that the pages would be thick enough at 150gsm and the matt laminate would give the book a high-class feel. The cost for a print run of just 3 copies was approximately £30.

The printers turned the job around in less than a week and I received 6 copies of the book instead of 3. I was amazed at the quality and finish of the book and the time that they took to produce.

The final printed book

Reflection

I really enjoyed this last assignment. It was good to go through the whole process of designing a book and following through to dealing with printers and having the physical book in hand.

I really like the design and feel that I fulfilled the self-defined brief. It has a classy look and feel and I think it would appeal to the target audience. I think that the book has a defined form and function, but also has an element of fun within it. It would make a good coffee table book.

Over the course of the assignment I have explored typography, grid use, layout design, curating images, material choices, finishes and the print process. I feel that using the body type to demonstrate different layouts on the same grid worked really well and showed the flexible possibilities even in the confines of 8 columns.

I have used a vast amount of online and offline research for both the design process, the content writing and the print process. It was a daunting task, but I actually enjoyed the process. Filling the roles of both designer and copywriter gave me a lot of creative freedom in how the book layout worked. I had the ability to fit the content to the design, rather than having pre-written content that couldn’t be edited to fit.

The print process was an area that I didn’t know too much about. This exercise gave me the chance to find out more in regards to what a printer requires from me as the designer and things to bear in mind when designing layouts, such as crossovers(where images or type cross over facing pages on a spread). Having direct contact with the printer and having this explained clearly was invalid.

References

Images

Johannes Gutenberg – Wikipedia.com
William Caxton – Britannica.com
Claude Garamond – WordPress.com
John Baskerville – WordPress.com
Firmin Didot – Pinterest.com
Giambattista Bodoni – Museobodoniano.com
Robert Besley – Pinterest.com
Herman Berthold – Bahoe.de
Morris Fuller-Benton – morrisbenton.com
Paul Renner – Pinterest.com
Eric Gill – alchetron.com
Stanley Morrison – Twitter.com
Howard Kettler – comarts.com
Max Miedinger – Pinterest.com
Jan Tschichold – WordPress.com
Eric Spiekermann – edenspikermann.com
Carol Twombley – Pinterest.com
Tobias Frere-Jones – frerejones.com

Books

A Visual History of Type by Paul McNeil
Production for Graphic Designers by Alan Pipes

Websites

famousgraphicdesigners.com
typewolf.com
Pinterest.com

Printing

Craig Roberts DesignLeave a comment

In this exercise you can use any images created elsewhere in the course, to print onto the paper samples you collected earlier.

You are encouraged to be experimental in these exercises; it doesn’t matter if you make a mess or get things wrong in the images you make. It is important to reinforce this message at this point in the creative process, as often people tighten up when they think they are embarking on the final piece, and lose some of the fluidity and spontaneity of their original ideas. We want to keep the visual outcome of this exercise fresh and not stultified by perceived conventions of what is ‘right’.

When you’re exploring visual ideas and processes, the outcomes may not always be what you thought they would be at the outset. You won’t always get it right the first time, and this is how it should be. By repeatedly trying out and experimenting with the materials and ideas at hand, you’ll discover new ways of working. Occasionally ‘mistakes’ turn into happy accidents and prompt a way of working, or technique, that you might choose to deliberately recreate and integrate into your next project. For example, one colour may bleed into another, or your coffee cup might leave a stain on your working paper. Instead of throwing these elements away, you could integrate them into your design process.

When you’ve created a set of images, scan or photograph these to create digital files – JPEGS or TIFFs on your computer. Make sure the resolution is set at 300dpi. Having gathered all the images together in one folder, consider how you’re going to print them. What order will the images appear in? At what size? How will the image appear on the page? Which paper will you use for which image? Do you have a particular image in mind for a particular piece of paper? Will you try printing the same image on different sheets of paper?

Draw a simple flatplan as a guide to working out how and where the image will be placed on the page, whether you will include any text, and to explore how the idea of ‘narrative’ might work. You might set up your page layout in DTP software, and work with your images digitally in this way, or you may simply print direct from your photo editing software onto the paper samples.

You may choose to use a desktop printer to output your images, or you may research other print methods such as screen-printing or etching. Print at least 16 pages using the images you’ve created on the paper samples you have collected.

Ideas

For this exercise I thought that the best images to use would be the ones from the ‘Tango with Cows’ exercise as this had produced some really nice imagery. But which ones to use? The only one that was immediately ruled out was the one with type already on it and was already made up of several layers of imagery.

As the exercise calls for 16 pages I thought that this could be divisible by the 4 ‘cow’ pictures from the exercise. I already had these saved on my computer as high resolution jpegs but I felt that this exercise would suit better if they were monochrome, so I desaturated them in Photoshop and upped the contrast.

These could now be printed onto any type of paper and have type or colour overlays as long as my inkjet printer could handle it!

I set my document in Illustrator with 16 art-boards of 1080px square. I then had a play around with my images and lated them over the flatplan to spread the image over all 16 art-boards, similar to an Instagram carousel.

Then, referring back to the exercise, I laid out the images over the flatplan at different scales and formed one large image that spilled over all the pages. I then, in keeping with the original poem, overlaid this with Soviet symbols and also some pages of the Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx.

I then tried printing some of the ‘pages’ on different types of papers that I had lying around. I had a couple of suitably sized pieces left from my G.F. Smith samples that would run through my printer and I had a role of brown paper for Christmas wrapping.

Colorplan Vermillion. The red, corrugated paper from G.F. Smith that I used to line my book in the exercise.
Brown Kraft paper
G.F. Smith Chromatico translucent paper
G.F. Smith Heaven 42 pure white

Reflection on the papers

G.F. Smith Colorplan Vermillion Colonade

This paper went through the printer easily and absorbed the ink really well. It didn’t smudge when it came out of the printer and had a matt finish. Whether it was because of the absorbency of the paper, but image seems to be a little mottled and some of the paper showed through. Also, the paper being red, it didn’t show much in the way of the red areas of the image.

Brown Kraft Paper

I was worried about running the kraft paper through the printer as it had come from a roll and was holding its rolled-shape pretty well. However, it went though without a hitch. The paper absorbed the ink well with no smudging. I liked the effect it gave to the image, as the brown paper gave it the look of the everyday which led back to the origins of the poem. The red also showed better on this paper with a matt finish and good opacity.

G.F. Smith Chromatico

Cromatico Digital is a pure white translucent paper designed specifically for all HP Indigo digital presses and dry toner technologies. Each sheet incorporates a silver strip at each end that activates the photoelectric cells when the paper is fed onto press.
I don’t have an HP Indigo digital press, but I gave it a go through the inkjet. It when through with no problems. This paper didn’t absorb the ink very well initially, it smudged when I removed it from the printer. Once the ink had dried the colours held well and had a slight sheen to them.

G.F. Smith Heaven 42

This paper is whiter than white. It feels so smooth to touch and very high end. It went through the printer without a hitch. The ink was still a little wet when it came out of the printer, but I was careful not to smudge it. The colour on this paper was a lot more vibrant than the other papers and had a glossy appearance.

Reflection

I was interesting how different papers reacted to being printed on. How it affected the colours and their opacity was interesting that the same ink and imagery can be affected by the type of paper and finish. Obviously this was only on an inkjet printer and not on a commercial press and result would differ depending on the printing process.
This exercise has given me more of an insight into how the type of paper used can affect the end result. This will be useful when choosing the papers and finishes for my final assignment.

Sources

www.gfsmith.com

Reflective practice

Craig Roberts DesignLeave a comment

Begin by reflecting upon the sorts of projects, exercises and assignments you have enjoyed most:

  1. Do you enjoy the creative freedom of working with your own text and images from scratch, or do you prefer working with text and images that are provided to you?
  2. Do you prefer working in a ‘hands-on’ way, physically manipulating paper and materials, or do you prefer working digitally, laying out the pages and page elements on-screen? Which of the subjects covered in this unit have interested and engaged you?Below are some pointers of what has been covered in this unit, as a reminder. They are very broad areas, so as you’re reading through the list, reflect upon the more extensive content of each. Consider what aspects you enjoyed the most (and the least!) and make notes in your learning log.
  • Contextualisation:​ Researching designs and designers 
  • Typography:​ Principles and experimentation
  • Colour:​ Colour management and working with images 
  • Paper:​ Properties and qualities
  • Printing and bookbinding: ​Processes – traditional, digital

Try to identify a specific topic within one of these subject areas that you are interested in and can look into with more detail. You might know immediately and instinctively what you want to pursue. You may want to know more about traditional methods of bookbinding, for example, or hand-making paper. You may be interested in the mathematical principles underpinning the Golden Mean and Fibonacci series, and how these principles apply to page layout. You may want to design your own typeface. You may want to extend and adapt one of the projects and exercises you’ve already undertaken on the course. The focus of your interest may be quite specific. Identify it through this exercise by exploring each of your interests in turn and taking note of your resulting thoughts in your learning log.

Reflection

Looking back on previous parts of the unit I found that I am definitely more accustomed to to working digitally than physically. I struggled a lot with the parts of the unit that required producing something physical especially the altered book unit. I did enjoy the physical research into paper types as this gave me more of an insight into paper processes, the types of products available and print production.

Specific parts of the course I have enjoyed are:

Part 1: The Future Book. This was one of the early exercises that I liked. I played to my strengths in this exercise but produced the final design in a different way, which was well received by my tutor and my peers.

Part 2: Book Designers. This research-heavy exercise was quite daunting in the number of designers to research. However, I enjoyed learning more around the approaches that different designers have and how these influenced the final product.

Part 2: Designing a cover & Form and Function. These were probably up there as some of my favourite parts of the course. I thoroughly enjoyed the process of creating alternative covers for The Handmaid’s Tale and then taking this forward for Robinson Crusoe and producing different variants before deciding on the final design.

All of Part 3: As with my previous module, GDCC1, I feel drawn to the world of typography. This is where my strength lies and the part of design that interests me the most. I think the most difficult part of this part was designing the ‘bad’ typography book for the assignment, which went against everything I know about typography and this stifled my response a little.

Part 4: Concrete Poetry. It took a while to get my head around this exercise, but once I did I enjoyed myself. The exercise lent itself to typography and, as mentioned before, this was my strength. However, generating images for the second part of the exercise gave me the chance to play in Photoshop a little(I predominantly work in Illustrator) and create some fun and intriguing imagery.

The parts I didn’t like I have mentioned above. They were the ones that forced me to work in a more physical way, which I didn’t enjoy and I feel that these parts of the module I struggled with the most and found it hard to motivate myself to start them.

This module has helped me to build on my knowledge of layout and print design which I have already found very useful. It has made me think a lot more about colour management, page layout and print finishes which will hopefully go towards my final assignment. I now have a fascination with paper types and the processes they are used for and have amassed a large number of sample books!

On press

Craig Roberts DesignLeave a comment

Adrian Pipes’ ​On Press​ chapter, from his 2009 P​roduction for Graphic Designers manual, provides a thorough overview of the print process, both historically and practically. Exploring paper, the raw materials that make it, recycled, handmade and manufactured paper, and other stocks; various qualities of inks; various printing processes, including emerging technologies; print finishing and binding; and interviews with a number of book designers.

Chapter Six – On Press (p.165 – 219) in Pipes, A. (2009) ​Production for Graphic Designers​, 5th Edition, London: Laurence King Publishing, is available to you as a resource on the OCA student site.

“There is a long-standing misconception to to learn the craft part of any profession can be a chore. The temptation is to jump right in there and get on with the creative stuff. Print production, in particular, with its many different stages and processes, can seem dull… [however] Graphic designers are both artists and craftspeople… And when you have learnt all about print production, the creativity will be able to come shining through.”

Alan Pipes, P​roduction for Graphic Designers​ (5th Edition), 2009. London: Laurence King Publishing. Page 11

Consider which aspects of the print process might feed into your creative decision making process. Where do the connections between artist and craftsperson sit within your work? Use your learning log to reflect on this.

Identify your nearest local printer. If possible, introduce yourself with the aim of arranging a short tour of their production process, from computer through to finished article. Seeing the printers at work helps to put the theory into context and can clarify certain parts of the process you may be unsure of. If the printer you find does print books then so much the better, but any medium-sized printers will no doubt print flyers, brochures and similar material. They will certainly have machines for reproduction, printing, folding and binding, which would be relevant to your research into printing books. Don’t be shy about getting in touch. When you explain you’re a student, printers often enjoy taking time out of their regular schedule to show people ‘round the works’ – but be aware that they do have busy schedules, so take advantage of any time they offer you! Take your camera and ask permission to photograph the machinery and production line, as an aide-memoire. Similarly, take your notebook and document the visit – you can incorporate this research later into your learning log.

Alternatively, you may want to concentrate on online options, such as PDFs or print on demand. Investigate these through internet research, documenting your key findings in your learning log.

Any visit may provide valuable research material for you, and of course the printer may prove a good contact for you in the future.

Print Process

These are the elements of the print process that I need to consider when designing my book for assignment 5.

  • Size and format of book (portrait, landscape or square): A4, A5, Square?
  • Colour printing or B&W: Full colour, limited palette, B&W
  • How the book is printed?: Probably be digitally online or at the printers due to it being a short run
  • How the book is bound?: Depends on the form of the book in the final assignment
  • Paper stock: Cover will be thicker than the block. Endpapers? Dust Jacket? Cloth Bound? Types of paper? Recycled? Gloss? Silk?
  • Finishing: Gloss, silk or uncoated? Foiling or spot colours/UV.
  • Production: Making sure all files etc. are ready and in the correct format.

Printers

Newton Print

My visit to Newton Print proved a great insight during GD Core Concepts and I took a lot from the visit with regards to preparing the artwork ready for print, and the best format for the printer to work from.

This time around I wasn’t able to visit them again due to COVID. I did manage to get on a few of their webinars and found the one below very useful and informative when it comes to their printing processes and what they offer and how they could help with the design/print process.

Source: Newton Print

Newton Print also have some helpful guides on their website which are helpful in setting up your artwork…

How to add foiling to your design…

How to prepare your document for die-cutting…

I found these resources really useful and can see why Newton Print have such a good reputation.

Mixam.co.uk

Mixam is an online printing company that was recommended by a fellow student.

They offer a variety of print solutions and have a great system for uploading and editing your final design before it being checked by their in-house staff before being printed.

Source: Mixam.co.uk

Mixam offer a lot of information on their website that sets out how your artwork needs to be prepared including CMYK imagery, pdf files for upload, how much bleed and how to embed elements into your design.

Mixam, like Newton Print, has lots of useful guides on adding special elements to your design(spot UV, foiling etc..) in all of the 3 main Adobe products. These guides aren’t as interactive as Newton’s but do contain a lot of detail:

Spot UV Guide

Spot Colour Guide

Foil Guide

Variant Covers Guide

End Papers Guide

Dust Jacket Guide

Cloth Cover Guide

I knew Newton Print were very good thanks to my previous visit and their reputation. However, I didn’t know too much about Mixam and was surprised at their offering and how much information and help they offered to make sure your product was produced with minimum fuss and error.

I am waiting for my copy of Alan Pipes, P​roduction for Graphic Designers​ to arrive as I ordered it a few days before starting this exercise.

Image Credit: inkworldmagazine.com

Planning your workflow

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However you plan to work in the production of your book, spend some time now planning your workflow, using the notes above as a guide.

Think about how much flexibility you can allow yourself – don’t put yourself under too much pressure. At the same time, be aware of time constraints that may be outside your control. If you’re using a local printer, for example, make contact as soon as possible. Your printer may have a limited timeframe for doing your job and you’ll need to factor this into your workflow.

Scoping – 1-2 weeks

Contacting printers for costings and timescales is a major unknown for this assignment. Whether to use online or physical printers? Size and cost implications? Before or after Christmas?!

Research and content creation – 2 weeks

This will consist of online research as well as physical research, COVID restrictions allowing. There will be the need to select a subject matter, mind-map and create mood boards. This would then need to be streamlined into some semblance of order. Sourcing and creating imagery for my book and generating copy will need to be done and finalised.

Design – 2 weeks

This will involve deciding how the content will be displayed. This will be done by designing page layouts, covers and flat-plans and critiquing them to further hone the design. Other considerations will have to be decided on such as how the book is intended to be read(will it be a coffee-table read to thumb through or will it be held in hand for a long while?), what papers to use and what finishes it will have.

Pre-production – 2-3 days

Proofing and sure everything is correct. I’ll then prepare files for print, making sure that all images are 300dpi and CMYK and sufficient bleed is added. Make sure all files are backed-up and saved in the preferred format and quality that the printer prefers or recommends.

Printing – 1 week?

Liaising with the printer from the off is key to getting this stage right, whether that is online or in person. Can the printer do the binding on site or is that something else to consider? How will Christmas affect the timings? Can the printer provide the required finishes?

All this will need to be carefully considered as this is a complex process with some aspects that are out of my control which could cause problems with the timeline, Christmas being one and COVID the other. These could both impact on my ability to get my book printed. Physical printing may have to come later, perhaps just a digital copy submitted initially with printing to follow. However, the aspects of the process that are going to take up the most time are the research and design stages which will be needed to produce a good quality end result.

Image credit: BIS Publisher’s Wim Crouwel Alphabets written by Kees Broos with the forward by David Quay who also designed the book along with Rick Sellars.

What is your role?

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Working with the outlined publishing models, identify the various roles you (and potentially others) will be undertaking for assignment five. For example, you’re likely to be writing your own content, designing your book, editing and reviewing it. You may also be involved in the production, printing and distribution process. Consider each aspect of the book assignment and briefly list what roles you think you’ll be doing, and what these roles entail. Also make notes of the roles of others who might be involved in your assignment and what their contribution is.

Roles

The traditional model for publishing is:

Writer – Publisher – Editor – Designer – Production – Printer – Distribution – Retail

However there are other models depending on the type of book to be produced; the scale at which it is produced; the cost; and who commissioned it etc.. Below are some more non-traditional publishing models:

Publisher – Writer – Editor – Designer – Production – Printer – Distribution – Retail

Editor – Publisher – Writer – Designer – Production – Printer – Distribution – Retail

Illustrator/Designer/Photographer – Writer – Publisher – Editor – Production – Printer – Distribution – Retail

Responsibilities

Assignment 5 would be most suited to a hybrid approach of the first and last examples where writer/illustrator/designer/photographer would be the starting point as it would be me creating most of the content for the book.

I again looked at Andrew Haslam’s Book design, where I knew there was a list of the different roles that could be involved in publishing a book. I wanted to see which were pertinent to what I was going to create for Assignment 5.

  • Author/Writer: This would be me and would consist of writing the brief for the chosen subject; researching and writing the content.
  • Agents: Not needed at this stage.
  • Publisher: As the book isn’t being sold, I won’t need a publisher.
  • Book Packager: This is mostly my role again as I will be the one creating the overall book except for production. Marketing would also be part of a book packager’s role.
  • Commissioning Editor: This role would not be needed as such, but I would be choosing which book to produce for the final design.
  • Editor: I would be responsible for editing the book with some input from my peers.
  • Proofreader: I would also be proofreader for the book, but may enlist someone else to double check my checking!
  • Consultant: This role is not needed. However, the book is supposed to be about something I know, so you could say I will be my own consultant.
  • Reader: This role would need to be someone impartial with a knowledge of the chosen subject. I suppose this would be my tutor of fellow designers.
  • Art Director: This role would be filled by myself with input from my peers.
  • Designer: As above.
  • Picture Researcher: This again would be myself and I would have to source suitable imagery for the book and check on any licensing that may be needed.
  • Permissions Manager: This role would be for me to sort out if any text or imagery used needs any specific permissions or fees paid.
  • Image-makers: Illustrator/photographer/cartographer: This again would be down to me in the case of this assignment. But external contractors could be used.
  • Rights Manager: Not needed for this assignment but would be needed if contracts etc. were required between different members of the publishing process.
  • Print Buyer/Production Manager: This role would be done by myself in this case, especially when it comes to production of a physical book with costings and liaising with printers etc..
  • Printer: The printer would most likely be an external company which would need to be researched and a relationship cultivated with to achieve the best results when producing the book.
  • Print Finisher: This would also be done in-house at the printers as this is a specialist role, unless the book is to be hand-finished.
  • Binder: As above
  • Distribution Manager: This role will not be needed for a job of this type unless it went into full production.
  • Sales Representative: As above.
  • Retailer: As above. However there is scope for a small run being sold independently.

Image credit: The Graphic, June 30, 1877, p617. Retrieved from old-print.com, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4829359

Book Fairs

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The list below is showing a range of art book fairs, both independent publishers and independent designers and artists. Research the book fairs online and explore the wide range of books by independent publishers, to gain a better understanding of the variety of books and publishing possibilities. You might want to visit one of the fairs in the future and explore the books.

Offprint London

Offprint runs alongside Photo London and began in 2015 as a one-off commission for Yannick Bouillis of Offprint Paris from then director of Tate Modern, Chris Dercon and his curator of photography Simon Baker. Now in its fifth year, Offprint goes from strength to strength under the stewardship of Bouillis who invites guest curators and publishers to handle aspects of its programming each year.

Although Offprint trades in books, zines, magazines, CDs, posters, prints and more, Bouillis has always been keen to distance his event from the wider revival of the book form. Instead, he sees it as an opportunity for artists to reclaim their independence by controlling the dissemination of their work.

As a result, Offprint trades in works of highbrow conceptual content, not the twee or cute to which many self-publishing fares often subscribe.

Offprint London in the Turbine Hall of the Tate. Source: represent.uk.com

Art book Fair London

For four exciting days, creative and cutting-edge publishers, big and small, transform the Whitechapel Gallery into the London Art Book Fair. Discover a vibrant mix of art books and magazines from around the world.

Convened by associate curator Amy Budd this year’s public programme for the London Art Book Fair brings together some of the most innovative art publishers into dialogue around key questions in the industry today, alongside presentations by London-based artists, curators and poets working with text, publishing and performance.

Poster Workshop from Four Corners Books at the Art book Fair London. Source: Four Corners Books

Small Publishers’ Fair

Small Publishers Fair is an annual celebration of books by contemporary artists, writers, composers, book designers, and their publishers. It was set up by Martin Rogers of RGAP (Research Group for Artists Publications) and first took place in 2002, the Royal Festival Hall. The year after it moved to Conway Hall where it has taken place ever since.

Since 2012 Small Publishers Fair has been curated, organised and developed by Helen Mitchell. The Fair is independent, self-funding and not-for-profit. In 2019 a StartEast grant supported design of a typographic identity and programme, and the creation of a this new website.

BinBagBooks by Mette-Sofie D. Ambeck (Nov. 2019). Source: Ambeck Design

 International Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair

Held at The Tetley since 2014 and co-curated with PAGES, the Book Fair coincides with The Hepworth Wakefield’s Print Fair on the same weekend. It is the longest-running artists’ book fair outside of London.

Zines by Izzy Kroese at the International Contemporary Artists’ Book Fair. Source: Izzy Kroese

The Sheffield International Artists’ Book Prize

The Sheffield International Artist’s Book Prize is as much about finding an interesting format in which to show, view and celebrate artists’ books as it is about creating a prize. The inaugural Prize was held in 2008 in an attempt to find an interesting, engaging and innovative way to show artists’ books: one that would allow them to be handled and encourage visitors to invest time with the books and see the breadth of work on offer in this field. As a result, the Prize is free to enter and takes the stance of showing all books submitted.

Books by Artovert who were first prize winners in the 2nd Sheffield International Artist’s Book Prize. Source: Artists Book Prize

Dublin Art Book Fair

Temple Bar Gallery + Studios is a thriving artists’ community in the centre of Dublin. Many of Ireland’s leading artists have worked in the studios and have exhibited in the gallery. Over its life-span, more than five hundred Irish and international artists have contributed to making the organisation a beacon in the story of visual arts into 21st century Ireland.

BABE Bristol Artists’ Book Event

Since 2007, BABE has established a great reputation as a relaxed and friendly event to meet and talk to book artists about their work and buy works of art.

Read This Out Loud Letterpress and inkjet 5 x 3″ 2020 designed by Big Jump Press(Exhibitors at BABE) in June 2020 in response to the murders of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor. Source: Big Jump Press
Encyclopaedia is sections of the original Encyclopaedia Brittanica from 1771 printed on fabric by Big Jump Press. Source: Big Jump Press

Altered Book

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“All books are visual. Even books which rely exclusively on type, or on unusual materials, or chose which contain only blank sheets have a visual presence and character. All books are tactile and spatial as well – their physicality is fundamental to their meaning.”

Johanna Drucker, ​The Century of Artists’ Books​, 2004. Granary Books Inc. Page 197.

Using a found book, significantly alter the appearance of the pages to create a new volume that is personal to you. This can be any kind of book that is of interest to you. For example, a fiction book, a non-fiction book, a picture book or a photo book.

Approach the found book in a very physical way, manipulating the pages and paper inventively. If you need to, stitch or glue a number of pages together to reduce the ground you need to cover. Decide what to remove from the book, and what to add. Use the found book as a source of ideas and inspiration – the existing text may inspire illustrative, conceptual images, collages or typography as image. Embed, overlay and integrate your work into the existing pages using whatever materials, media and processes you feel necessary. This may be digital, hand-rendered, photographic, textile, or a combination of all these and more.

Think about the relationship between the content and the form, the design (text and images), the materials you use, such as papers. Perhaps you are creating a new sequence within the book?

Change the book from its original form into a different form, altering the appearance and/or meaning. Apply an inventive, intuitive response to materials and how these can be exploited within the context of the altered book.

Refer to your contextual research into artists and designers in the unit so far. Use elements of your research as inspiration and to inform your book-altering practice.

Reflection

Write a paragraph reflecting on the assignment and reflect on your process and decision making. Are you looking in a different way to meaning, materials, design and the form of the book?

Now is the time to take a good look at the assessment criteria in the introduction and make sure that your work meets the standards set. Ask your tutor whether they think you will be ready for assessment at the end of the course and what you need to improve upon.

My book

My chosen book for this assignment was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. This book is a classic and was the first book I thought of when I read the brief.

We have a copy of the book in our collection, but I felt that my wife wouldn’t be too happy with ‘altering’ it! So I ordered a copy from eBay.

Our copy of the book

The copy I bought from eBay was also of sentimental value to someone else too.

My eBay purchase

Research

I started by mind mapping some ideas from the book.

I also made some notes in my sketchbook.

This gave me a lot of details to work from. But what direction could I take these in? I went back to my research from the previous exercise and took a deeper look at altered books. I scoured Pinterest for some examples of altered books and found an amazing amount of images of a variety of styles and approaches to altering a book. There were also a large number relating to the book I had chosen, and it appeared that Alice’s adventures were a popular subject for altered books. Prior to looking online for examples, I hadn’t considered that I had picked such popular subject matter. I even found a website dedicated to altered versions of the text: The Altered Alice.

Some of the Pinterest images I had found.

Finding all these images was a little disheartening in that I had no idea that I had picked such a popular subject, and the examples that I had found we all so good!

I was finding it hard to find a starting point for my book that had some element of originality. I had no clear idea and so many starting points. I needed to hone my ideas down.

My initial idea from my research was to split the book into its chapters and alter each one to relate to that chapter. This didn’t include the cover, which would be another element. This would be a hefty undertaking and I didn’t think I had the time or skill to complete such an elaborate plan.

Again, I simplified the premise even further. Rather than using all the characters in the book to create the imagery, why not focus on one particular character. This seem a much more manageable idea…now which character?

During my research I had found an image of a rabbit that I particularly liked.

Source: Pinterest

The use of the rabbit and the watches really caught my eye and answered the question of which character I was going to use. How to use it was the next question.

I had come across several books during my research that used real-world objects to embellish altered books.

Images from Pinterest

This gave me the idea of using an actual pocket watch in or on the book somewhere. I managed to find and order one from eBay. Also while perusing eBay I came across some Alice in Wonderland playing cards. I thought these might come in useful, but I wasn’t sure how. I bought them anyway!

I still wasn’t sure of what to do for the interior of my book. I liked the idea of cutting a design into the pages of the book but wasn’t sure whether to go down the rabbit or pocket watch route. I had found a great article about Japanese artist Tomoko Takeda on My Modern Met showing what could be achieved by doing this, but on a whole other level.

Two Years’ Vacation by Jules Verne – Tomoko Takeda

While looking at pocket watches, I had come across lots of horological images and these gave me the idea to use the interior of the watch in the design.

Horology is the study of the measurement of time.

I found some watch-part vectors and resized them to fit the pages of the book to form some sort of stencils for cutting out the pages of the book.

My stencils

Initially I had decided to use four different designs and use each one to cut out a quarter of the text block. But first I needed a hole for my watch. This was going to be the focal point for the cover, so I dove straight in and started cutting the hole in the cover. It felt very wrong and a bit weird cutting into a treasured book, but too late now!

My first cuts

Once I had the hole for my watch I started on the interior. I started with my first stencil and began cutting into the text block of the book. I started slowly, and using a piece of board to protect the pages below, cut out the first few pages.

This was harder than I thought and cost me several scalpel blades. This was going to be long and arduous. I decided to cut more pages next time which made the job even harder and cost me the rest of my blades(*picks up phone to order more from Amazon!). What I also hadn’t accounted for with my second round of cutting was to allow for the curvature of the book. This meant that the second lot of cut outs weren’t in line with the first. It was at this point I decided to simplify the design for the cutting and only remove certain parts of the stencil, which I regret doing as I think if I’d persevered with using just the one design the end result would have been better. My design was nowhere near as dramatic as I thought it would be, but once the pages are cut there is no going back. I was very disheartened by this, but I had no choice but to carry on.

I went back to the watch. For me to attach it to the book and disguise the gaping hole in which it was sat I needed to back the cover. This is where the playing cards came in. The thought had occurred to me that the inside cover could be the back of the cards and the cover the front. In order to do this I needed to do the front cover first and then cut the hole for the watch to sit in before doing the inside to attach the watch to.

Cards stuck to the cover and a broken scalpel blade

Attaching the cards to the covers was straight forward apart from the ones around the spine which took a lot of gluing and clamping. Once the cards were trimmed I attached the watch. I wasn’t sure whether to use the chain but the embellishments seen earlier made me want to include it. So I glued the end of the chain between the spine and the text block.

It was at this point I had another wobble and wasn’t at all happy with the book. I had to take some time away and come back to it with fresh eyes.

Coming back to the original story of the rabbit leading Alice deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole gave me the idea of following the rabbit’s footprints. I googled what rabbit footprints look like.

Rabbit tracks…who knew?

Desperate times called for desperate measures and out came the watercolours!!!

The kids’ poster paint came out too as the playing cards had a gloss surface that watercolours wouldn’t work on.

I painted a trail of footprints(paw prints) throughout the book and across the cover. It still needed something else…

Back again to the original text and to where the rabbit took Alice. The room with the cake and the potion that shrink and grow Alice was a good place for the tracks to lead. However, I didn’t want to use the cake and potion as these were obvious. I decided on a painting a tiny door on one of the back pages and cut some of the previous pages in defending size towards the door. Watercolours twice!!! This was better. A little disjointed, but better.

I was calling it done when I decided to add some type. Just some snippets from the rabbit, just to tie it all together. I added it to the front and back cover and on the final page with the door.

Now it’s done!

Reflection

I didn’t enjoy this assignment. It didn’t appeal to me and I think it shows(It made me get paints out!!!!). I think if I’d had more interest in the subject I’d have been a lot more motivated and not found it so hard to develop my ideas further. I found it difficult to know where to start and how to produce something physical that portrayed my ideas. This was so far out of my comfort zone that my comfort zone was a dot on the horizon. If I had the time again, I’m not sure if I would be able to produce something of a higher standard but would definitely try to motivate myself more and use the lessons learned from this assignment to produce a more all-rounded piece. I much prefer to work digitally and may possibly go down that route.

For the design itself, I didn’t realise how hard it would be to cut out all those pages and get them all to line up. I imagine that this would be die-cut in real life when using the same cut-out throughout. I have a new found respect for artists who produce these books and have learned some valuable lessons into how these works of art are produced and the creativity used in making them.

I have also found getting back into studying after returning to work after being furloughed due to COVID very hard. It has affected my workflow a lot and managing my time around work and family has been tough. Hopefully going into a second lockdown won’t have the same effect.

Collating and binding

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Reflect, evaluate and rework

Having printed your images from the previous exercise, take the opportunity to view all of the pages, reflect on them and evaluate before moving on to the next step of collating and binding the pages together. Which pages are successful? Which pages have not turned out as well as you had hoped? Are there any visual surprises, or happy accidents? Given the experimental and open-ended nature of this exercise, the answers may be quite subjective, but it is important you reflect on these and other questions, to sharpen your self-critical awareness and assessment of your own progress.

You may want to re-work some of the images, and the printing process, and this is your opportunity to do that. You may end up with more and more pieces of printed paper.

Select and collate

Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses in your work and then begin a process of selecting up to 16 pages that work well together as a whole. Do these pages have images on each side of the page, or will the images appear on facing pages only? If you want to create back-to-back images you can work manually to cut and paste images and pages, using spray mount or similar. Equally, you can collage elements of printed ephemera onto and into the pages. Again, the brief is to be experimental, so work inventively with the process, cutting, gluing, pasting and arranging as you see fit. Collate these pages, putting them into a running order from beginning to end.

Binding

Drawing on your understanding of bookbinding so far, bind your 16 pages into a small book format. How will the pages be held together? Consider how the pages might be bound and experiment with solutions. Will you create a cover? Will the pages be stitched, sewn, glued, stapled or will you use another inventive approach?

There are many ways to bind a book, either by hand or by machine. A few examples of bookbinding are saddle stitch, Japanese binding, coptic binding or perfect binding. Consider which binding is most appropriate for your book. There are some good tutorials online of bookbinding and this might be useful for you to have a look at. Try to use one of the bookbinding techniques mentioned above for your own book.

Document the whole process, photograph the book and incorporate them into your learning log, accompanied by supporting work, including pages and images you chose not to include into the final book form.

Reflection on my images

I was happy with my final imagery for the last exercise. If I could say that I had a least favourite it would be the image of the woman and the bridge. This was one of the first images I did and it seems very simplistic compared to the others, however it did convey it’s message very well.

My personal favourite was the cows and oranges which is a slightly surreal nod to the poem and also adds some humour to the overall design. How that would be viewed at the time the poem was written is a different matter. To me the poem seems very serious and solemn with little room for humour.

The idea of using the bird’s squeal and writing it in the Cyrillic alphabet worked well and gave an essence of authenticity to the piece as well as a nod to the propaganda of the communist state.

I had somehow jumped ahead in the last exercise and displayed my images as a concertina-fold publication with the images on both sides in a non-linear format. I had also had them printed out to scale by a company called Printspace but they could only do them single sided. I thought that maybe I could stick the 2 sides together to form the booklet but wasn’t sure whether it would work. I decided to give it more thought.

My prints from Printspace

Binding

As I’d already imagined my design as a concertina-fold publication I wanted to replicate this as ‘proper’ book.

I began researching how hardback books were made and watched several YouTube videos on how to make a book cover. One in particular was very useful:

This was purely about making the cover for a pre-made text block and was very easy to follow and I felt I could replicate something similar.

I began by cutting out the board which would make the book’s cover.

For the cover of the book IO used some of the GF Smith paper that I had collected. I wanted to give the effect of a concrete texture on the paper(as this was a Concrete Poem) and picked a be-speckled paper called Gmund Bier that is made using the waste material from the brewing process which gives it its texture and feel. On this paper I printed my piece from the Concrete Poetry exercise to use as my cover.

I then lined this with more GF Smith paper, this time a scarlet colonnade paper from their Colorplan range. I was pretty chuffed at the result at this stage, not bad for a first attempt!

I then concertina-folded my printed images to stick into the cover. I had decided to keep them separate and attach on to each side of the cover and then they could fold out when the book was opened.

I was relatively happy with the result, but if I were to do this again I would think about lining the reverse side of the pages, maybe with the scarlet paper in a lighter weight, and possibly some form of band or fastener for the two sets of pages as they didn’t open easily as two separate sets of pages.

I thought that this style of book wasn’t really bound. I decided to try something else. I divided my images into individuals and thought about stitching them together, but the images didn’t have enough of a border on which to stitch them. This then led me to have a go a perfect binding as this wouldn’t impede on the imagery. I went back to Youtube and found a tutorial on DIY prefect binding:

I thought I’d give it a go and began by gluing my images together.

I applied 3 coats of glue in all to bind the edges of my images together. Once dry I added some of the scarlet paper which I would then use to attach the pages to the inside of the cover. I made another cover, smaller this time to fit the contents better, which I finished in the same way as the previous version and stuck the perfect bound images into it by attaching the red papers to the insides of the cover.

This was more of a traditional way of displaying the images but it had worked better than I’d anticipated. It was an interesting process which on the whole was a success. On reflection the cover for this could’ve been a little larger as there wasn’t much room top and bottom inside the book.

Reflection

This was an interesting exercise that made me think more about how books are constructed and the things to bear in mind when putting books together such as margins, what type of binding to use and how the book would be read. This exercise has given me a lot more to think about when continuing to design books in the future and I hope to use some of the lessons I’ve learned here going forward.

Sequencing Images

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In this exercise you’re going to create images which you’ll then print onto the papers you collected in the first exercise. You have been working with the poem Tango With Cows​ in the exercise ‘Concrete Poetry’, to create an experimental text. Using your interpretation of the poem as a starting point, develop a set of images that you can sequence into a narrative. You can choose to create these images yourself or use existing images.

Idea generation

Create a series of images which will build a narrative sequence over about 16 pages.

Use keywords from the poem as a starting point. Work with images you have created before, developing and changing their contents, or use fresh new ideas and imagery related to the poem. Remind yourself of the creative design process.

Explore the sequential narrative over the folds. Produce a folding document (2 sided) with the images you have created. Try one of the folding systems discussed in part two of the course, Form and Function: Paper folding.

Research and development

A visual narrative is a way of communicating some form of ‘story’. It may be that you interpret ‘narrative’ in a conventional way, using chronological images of how your identity has changed over time, with a beginning, middle and an end. Or perhaps you’ll work in a less obvious way, exploring how your images can be exploited through abstraction and print processes, using the term ‘narrative’ as a vehicle on which to hang your concept of the poem.

The purpose is to interpret the brief to create images that are meaningful to you, plus extend your understanding of image qualities. These images may be paintings, photographs, drawings, film stills – they can be at any scale, in any media and about whatever you want them to be, in the context of exploring the concept of the poem. This is your opportunity to explore some of the features of digital imaging software, such as Photoshop, to layer images, cut out images, experiment with opacity, filters, hue, brightness, contrast and halftone screens, among other things.

For example, can we approach text as image? What happens if you ‘rasterize’ text, then begin to manipulate it, in the same way as you would montage image material. Be creative! Explore!

Remember you have access to Bridgeman and Oxford art libraries online also, if you want to download images and work in this way, but originating your own images will make the project more personal to you.

Design

For this exercise I started by picking out a few of the key phrases from the poem.

I ended up with picking out 10 hey phrases that stood out. I had some ideas for some of the phrases but others needed some work.

The first phrase that I had an idea for was “Or better still – we’ll get a record player. Well, to hell with you!”. The idea was to have a vinyl record being engulfed in the flames of Hell.

This was achieved by layering different sized images of flames in front and behind the record which colour was altered to reflect the colours of the flames. I also desaturated some of the flames to give the impression of smoke. I was happy with the resulting image and thought it was a good starting point. Upon returning to the poem and re-reading it, it occurred to me that the punctuation of the poem meant that it the part about the record player and the flames of Hell were two separate parts and didn’t relate to one another directly. So I went back to the drawing board.

I moved on to the phrase “Perhaps we’ll drink a glass of wine to the health of comets”. I couldn’t quite get my initial idea of a comet in a glass of wine right. I decided to simplify the idea and used an image of a raised glass desaturated and cut out placed on top of a saturated image of a comet streaking across the sky. I also tried multiple raised glasses of different scales and angles but this didn’t work as well as the single glass. I liked the way the cutout glass sat on the colour image, there was something Terry Gilliam about the image.

I was happy with this and moved on to my next image. “kings of orange groves
and cattle” was an image I toyed with for a while. Which was the dominant word in the phrase? What needed emphasising the most? I couldn’t decide, but I knew that orange would be the dominant colour in this particular image. I tried looking for images of orange groves that would inspire me but couldn’t find anything. I then came across an image of just some oranges…

I had the comedic idea a to insert cows in between the oranges wearing crowns, a little surreal I know!

This made me and my peers laugh, so that decided it…it was in.

The next phrase was “…and to build bridges from the tears of bovine jealousy to the tears of crimson girls”. I decided to split this phrase into 2, the crimson girls and the bovine tears. I started with the ‘crimson girls’ half of the phrase and used an image of a tearful woman which I desaturated and overlaid a crimson red filter. I then used an image of a bridge which I laid over the top and used a gradient to mask some of the image so that the crimson woman showed through.

The next phrase was the easiest to put into pictures. “With tinned mirth…” was an obvious one and just required some type manipulation and the addition of some highlights to make make it look more realistic.

Next was “…conquerors of the air…”. There is a book called Conquerors of the Air by Harry Harper.

Source: Amazon

This made me think of the Communist propaganda posters showing off their supremacy. I started with the type and used a font called DDC Hardware from Aaron Draplin which has a utilitarian look and feel. I replaced the Q of the word conquerors with the hammer and sickle and stacked the type. I set the type on top of a communist propaganda poster displaying air power which I overlaid with a red filter. I still wasn’t happy with the design so I added another layer on top which was the blueprints of the Russian MIG-25 aircraft and added a paper texture to make it look like a poster.

I was really starting to enjoy this form of creating imagery from a piece of text.

The phrase “Well, to hell with you! hornless and ironed!” lead me to rethink my original ‘record player hell’ due to misinterpreting the punctuation. The ‘hornless and ironed’ part of the phrase conjured up the image of a cowhide rug. I found an image of a cowhide being tanned. This coupled with an image of some lava gives a dramatic and interesting result.

Next up was the first line of the poem, “Life is shorter than the squeal of a sparrow”. I had the idea of giving this the look of some of the propaganda posters I had seen, a call to arms. I used a desaturated image of a sparrow and added geometric lines and shapes to make it look as the sparrow was ‘squealing’. Rather than using the actual word squeal, I translated the word into the Cyrillic alphabet to give it more of a Russian feel and a nod to the poem’s origins.

I thought that this would make a very good and powerful cover for the book.

7 down, 3 to go. I decided to return to the record player line, this time without the fires of hell! Again I wanted to give it a propaganda look, but this time a little more modern. Using black and white imagery of a retro record player and a strong geometric background I gave it more of a retro look by changing the whites to a faded cream colour. This gave it a softer look but there was still too much whitespace. I then added one of the cows from the ‘oranges’ image which gave it a more quirky look but worked very well. There was still too much space around the image so I added the description of a record player from Google Dictionary in the DDC font I used earlier.

Onto the other half of the phrase “…and to build bridges from the tears of bovine jealousy”. For this image I didn’t want it to be in the same style of the other half of the phrase. I started with the colour green as this was associated with jealousy. I used an image of a bridge with the water underneath substituted with a green overlay. I then needed a crying cow which I gave green overlaid tears. this somehow didn’t look right until I added a green circle in the centre of the image, over the cow’s eyes.

I couldn’t finish the series of images without visualising the tile of the poem which is also used in the line “I want one – to dance one tango with cows…”. I began with an image of some ballroom dancers which I substituted the heads with those of cows. I then placed these into and image of some farmland and a barn. The image of the dancers seemed quite traditional in nature as opposed to the modernist nature of the poem. I decided to embrace the contrast and used a filter to give the image a more classical painted look.

Now I had my images. I wanted to put it on a concertina-fold book with 5 images on each side. I just had to decide the order in which they appeared. Do they need to be in linear order or would a more disjointed approach work?

I drew a flat-plan to help me envisage what order the images needed to be on the book.

This was harder than I thought and took a while to get my head around. I knew which images would be my front and back covers, but getting them in the right sequence needed thinking about to make sure when the book was folded they would be in the correct positions. As for the rest of the images, I decided to randomise the order as I thought that they could be treated as individual images as well as one poem.

All images used are available at https://pixabay.com https://unsplash.com https://www.freepik.com and https://www.pexels.com unless otherwise stated.

Reflection

It took me a while to get into this exercise, it stumped me for a while. But once I had found a starting point the creative juices began to flow. It also gave me a chance to re-familiarise myself with Photoshop which I hadn’t used for a while. I enjoyed manipulating and layering the images and also injecting some humour into the imagery. I feel that I have given the poem a modern twist while using the imagery to nod to its communist/modernist roots.