FMP (BA): Prototype - Accordion Book

The reason why I would want to do this "accordian" book is because it was my original plan when I had only produced 4 pages at the very beginning. I didn't think that I had the time to not only produce more designs but to turn them into double-paged spreads, so I had pushed this thought aside.

However due to my problems with double-sided printing the accordion book does sound promising as it wouldn't require for any of my designs to be printed in such a way, and could actually be printed as joined spreads and not having each side separated. It's a bit too early to make my decision just yet so I thought that the best way to decide is to actually create an accordion prototype.

The tutorial:

My "screenshots":

FMP (BA): Prototype - Saddle Stitching

Saddle Stitching

I laid out all of my test prints from Staples and cut them out with a scalpel one-by-one. As it had that problem with it being slightly off-centre I had to cut it down a bit smaller in order to trim off any white edges.

Once all of the pages were trimmed I folded each one in the middle separately. I then arranged them in the same fashion as I did previously, now that I know that my prototype I had produced much earlier had worked.

I then followed the saddle stitch binding tutorial from Sea Lemon:

My "screenshots":

FMP (BA): Prototypes - Double-Sided Print

My main focus is to now create some prototypes so that I am prepared for when it comes to assembling the final thing.

Test Prints - University Printers

The first stage involved printing out my spreads double-sided. I'm hoping that everything would go smoothly once this has been done and it would also give me a general idea of what my book would look like.

Once everything was printed I put them together in the same order I had referenced from my prototype. I didn't cut them out as I wanted to see if everything was displayed correctly and that each side was with their other halves (so that they formed a complete DPS).

The prototype worked! Everything was in the correct order, however, I noticed that when I had folded them that the designs looked slightly... Odd. It seems that when I printed them double-sided the printer had shifted the design on the other side to the left by at least 1cm!

FMP (BA): Book Spreads - InDesign

Arranging the Spreads

I want to start working on my spreads as soon as possible so that if there were any problems with the printing and binding stage I would know in enough time to make the decision of whether to do it myself or print it off at Blurb. I therefore opened up InDesign, typed in my page dimensions (125 x 154mm) and then started to place my spreads.

I placed all of my designs according to what I had learnt from my prototype (which seems so long ago since I had done it). I kept it beside me to use as reference. I couldn't put in the front and back covers right now as they will be done in different dimensions so I only focused on the "inside" pages.

I first focused on displaying the "copyright" information as well as the names of the original texts. Once I had finished writing them up I played around with layout and in the end reduced the text to 8pt and had it left aligned. I chose a soft grey colour for my type as I think that black is too dominating against the white background.

How I've laid this out is that I shall first design the front pages, then on the next two pages they'll be the 'reverse' sides. In this case, my reverse sides for now are going to be blank. On the other side of the "credits" I'll be displaying the right-hand side of DPS 6.

Now I'm moving onto the next pages which will feature the left-hand side of DPS 1 and the right-hand side of DPS 5. The reverse side of this will be the left-hand side of DPS 6 and then the title, author and FTweekend.

Then it was DPS 2 and 4 and then 5 and 1.

The next pages were "easier" as it will display the full spread of DPS 3, which was one of my strongest designs "The Raven". On the other side I had DPS 4 and 2.

And that was all of the inside pages arranged! I shall just to create the covers (which I did in a different document as the dimensions will be different).

Now that all of the pages and covers are done, I could run some test prints and try out some of the bookbinding techniques I had researched right near the beginning of this project.


Reflective Thinking - Summary

This process was made easy due to the fact I had created a small prototype at a much earlier stage. I was able to use that as reference for this process, and as it worked on the prototype I believe that it would work with these.

However I am really worried that something would go wrong in the printing stage, as I had experience with double-sided prints and it didn't work very well before. If this is the case I shall consider having it printed out in Staples or with Blurb.

FMP (BA): Book Cover - Adjustments

I decided to go back and have a look at my book covers now that I have some spare time on my hands. Even though these adjustments aren't necessary I thought that I might just play around with different effects as I really want to bring out the swirl of feathers/quills.

Out of curiosity, I tried to create a shadow with the swirls but because I didn't draw the swirls separate from the banner it did cause some problems with gaps.

My first try was with the "drop shadow" in "blending options":

I then tried it by simply duplicating it again and lowering the opacity.

The reason I lowered the opacity instead of changing it to black/grey was because the drop shadow effect that I had done previously made the design look slightly "dirty" against the soft grey/cream background. I wanted to build up on this gold and "heavenly" effect so that it softens the overall appearance.

However, that didn't work quite as well as I thought because it made the design look far too busy and confusing:

With those experiments done - and with them not going as planned - I began to think of other ways to improve the swirls. I then came up with the idea to darken some of the places where the feathers "fold", and then do some lighter shading on where the light source would hit. 

To do this I simply duplicated and then locked my swirls layer, took a soft brush tool, and began to paint the darker areas.

This worked really well because the darker and lighter areas have created depth and made the swirls more 3D rather than just lines.


Reflective Thinking - Summary

I am glad that I had taken the time to experiment a little bit more with my front cover because it is one of the most important factors of a book; it has to attract the viewer so that they would pick it up and flick through, so I need to make it stand out from the rest of the leaflets handed out at the Oxford Literary Festival.

The swirls now have more depth and it adds more colour to the design overall, even if it's simply different shades of one of the main colours. This gives me the idea to maybe use gold thread... Well, that'll all depend on whether or not my prototypes turn out as planned.

They also bring out the banner and books because those are so light in comparison, and lifts it up from the background. This design now has three "layers"; foreground, middle-ground (the swirls) and the background.

My next step is to move onto trying out some prototypes. Even though I haven't technically finished my designs nor have I tweaked my existing ones, I really want to get the printing side of things sorted as the tweaking wouldn't take too long to do.

Learning Outcomes:
[9] Developed their ability to work with complex material, analyse problems and identify appropriate solutions.

FMP (BA): Back Book Cover - Design Process

I found it much easier to design the back cover because of the fact that I had completed my first. All that needs to be displayed on this is "designed by Liz J Owen". I was going to do this through hand-lettering but I then realised that I would need to write up the copyright notes and other notes on the inside with an existing font anyway.

Putting that aside, I first focused on positioning my book and quill which I decided to include on the back as a small illustration. This was quite easy to do as I just edited my original file. 

Then it was just a case of adding in my type. I was already set on using Minion Pro as it's a really elegant and easy-to-read typeface as well as a serif one which would connect with what they use on the Oxford Literary Festival website.

That's all I wanted to have for the back... It looks quite plain but that's because I'll be displaying most of the information on the inside pages.

So here's what both of my covers look like as a DPS:

Reflective Thinking - Summary

I'm not quite sure about the logo so I decided to thus go back to concentrating on the front cover and logo arrangement. I would like to add more information such as a blurb to the back, but I think I might do this when I have put everything into InDesign to carry out some test prints.

N.B. Please note that I had produced my front cover design process all at once, so this post may appear to have been posted after I had made my adjustments with the logo even though it was done around the same time.

FMP (BA): Information for the Other Pages

I want to start working on the other pages that would be displayed in the book, and that includes displaying some copyright information and possibly something about the Oxford Literary Festival.

As I wasn't entirely sure what to add I took some photos of my Harry Potter book (the French version) to see what they put in theirs.

For the first page of their book they have left it blank and on the second they had simply displayed the logo of the publisher, so I could possibly do the same but feature the FTweekend and Oxford Literary Festival logo as I don't really have a publisher as such. I have considered Oxford University Press but it seems that this book wouldn't fall into any of their categories... So I'll just use FTweekend for now.

FMP (BA): Critical Thinking - My Designs

With my designs done I wanted to put them all in one document so that I could briefly analyse them. I will also include ones that I didn't choose to print for my final product with reasons why. 

Design One - My Thoughts Are Stars

Critical Thinking

This was the first time where I had used my own handwriting and just 'decorated' it slightly, something I was inspired to do after reading the article on The Fozzy Book called Writing with your handwriting. This really opened my eyes and made me realise that the best tools we have are right in front of us, even if it's a little thing like our own handwriting.

Today's Thoughts

I feel that I am reaching a good stage to reflect on what's been happening with my work. I have not only produced double-paged spreads for all of the quote designs I have done but I have also managed to create a front cover for the book. 

I have just over three weeks to complete my design and have it readily presented for the examiner, so I have been thinking that I might create a new design. All of my quotes have been derived from literature sources... All but one; my Nelson Mandela design.

I feel that maybe I should create another that wasn't from literature so that it didn't seem too out of place but I am worried that I wouldn't have enough time. It took me at least a few weeks to produce good designs for the rest of my quotes and I wouldn't want to rush it. Besides, I still have to complete my book design and make a few tweaks to my existing DPS'.

I had a look back at the Oxford Literary Festival website to see if I could figure out the other topics that they cover just in case I do feel that I have enough time to produce another design. Here's a list of what I have jotted down:

• Philosophy
• Politics and Memoirs
• Fiction
• Music
• Language and Literature
• History
• Fiction
• Exploration, Travel and Travel History
• Children and Young People
• Current Affairs

Luckily, some of my designs might be able to fit into these categories:

• Philosophy - "My fault are stars I cannot fathom into constellations"
• Politics and Memoirs - "It always seems impossible until it's done"
• Exploration, Travel and Travel History - "Not all those who wander are lost"
• Children and Young People - "Today you are You... "

However they don't really "fit" in a sense that neither of these are from those subject areas. For example, "my thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations" isn't actually from a philosophical book. So there's a 50/50 chance that these designs would work.

On the other hand I wouldn't have to worry too much about this as my brief doesn't ask of me to design quotes in order to fit into the above categories as long as they are quotes/words. 

My decision is to therefore try and finish off my book cover and make tweaks to the DPS design before moving onto another quote, just in case.

FMP (BA): Inspiration - Colours and Forms

I was getting a bit stuck on what to do with my "quotes" word; it looked good but the white gaps between each letter was uneven. I had tried to change that in Illustrator (as you can see from my design process) but it still didn't work very well...

So it was back to the gathering-research board for me, and I quickly had a flick through Mary Kate Mcdevitt's Hand Lettering Ledger. I really admire her work and how she manages to create different effects by simply changing the letterforms, and even though I didn't really want to create a fun appearance as such I wanted to figure out what sort of decorations she used.

I mainly focused on the decorations - as mentioned above - and quite liked how she created that 3D effect on some of her letterforms. Her designs leaned more on the "fun" side of things so I wasn't completely sure if I would use bold and bright colours, but I did find the way she drew things really inspirational. 

I also had a flick through "New Vintage Type: Classic Fonts for the Digital Age" by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson for some colour combinations. I really want to use a monotone palette as I had noticed that the Oxford Literary Festival's primary colours were black and white but I just wanted to add one splash of colour to liven it up just a little bit. I feel that the monotone palette really created a professional and elegant appearance. Here are some photos I took of it while looking through: