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":

I didn't think this experiment worked very well because of the fact that I wouldn't be able to use the same method for my designs as they don't all fit on the same page. If I did it like this I would have to find a printing company who could print at a very large scale. Not only is that costly, but it would be a waste of paper as my designs are very thin. I have therefore decided to just draw up my own version.


My Own Prototype

I haven't created a prototype for this previously so I drew up two rough sketches to provide me with an idea on how to assemble it. Each spread would be cut from a different piece of paper and then stuck together with tabs. The first sketch involved having the whole spread folded inward, and the second folded outward. This method would reduce the amount of paper wasted as each design takes up quite a lot of space on a piece of A4 paper.

I tried the first method first:

I then tried the second method. Unfortunately the photo wasn't taken properly so it's at a poor quality!

Thoughts

I am more inclined to do the second method if I do choose to do an accordion book as I feel that because the designs will be facing upwards it would bring them to focus a bit more. This means that the viewer would find it easier to connect them as the whole design would be shown clearly rather than sinking downwards into the shadows of the folds.

Due to my reasons above I decided to try out the second method on the designs I had printed much earlier (one-sided).

Reflective Thinking - Summary

All in all, I think that this process went relatively well and I am glad that I had found an alternative to printing double-sided. However, there are still a few things that I am unsure about which I will explain in my next post where I will compare the two binding processes.

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