Comfort Zone

1.The state of the art. Visual mood board.



2. Cover, soft comfy courdory.



3. Stitching Detail



4. Contents, couch illustration to divide sections.



5. Red spread, some type overlay.



6. Red spread 2



7. Brown spread showing dialogue.


8. Brown spread 2 showing treatment of footnotes / reflective thoughts.



9. Blue couch 1, how fiction typography is treated as evidence



10. Aftermath left in the living room.




1.
The book is about couches. It organized around two forms of content related to couches. The first form deals with ideas of comfort which I will refer to as ‘fact’ and the second form of information tracks discomfort in a relationship between three characters: him, her and and Natalie which I will refer to as ‘fiction’. Throughout the book there is an interplay between the two sections of fact and fiction to play off and build on each other.

The cover itself is comfortable, made of a red courdory material. I felt like the most dominant character in the book should be ‘She’ so the red material is representative of her. Ribbon was used to divide sections. It was stitched in the margins to drive home the idea of fraying and reading between the seams.

This book has 3 different sections focused on a single couch; a red couch, brown couch and blue couch. All of the chapters incorporate the fact and fiction content areas. Each section creates a mood surrounding the particular couch through photography and content. The fact is divided into: frame, support and appearance. The photos act as diagrams which explore and help to tell the story. The type was treated in a diagrammatic manner as well.

The fiction establishes ideas of a relationship through: dialogue, and reflective narrative mainly. It uses footnotes to show different version of a particular scene. It reads somewhat like a movie script.

Both the fact and fiction and the story play off and help to build on each other through all of these devices.


2.

The whole conception of the book has been an evolutionary process. It started off as simply a book on couches, but trying to steer away from a chronological approach. I wanted the book to be a tactile experience, and play with the materials a couch is made of – wood, fabric, metal etc. I achieved this in the actual book by having ‘tactile looking’ photos of the couches which explore the materials a couch is made of. Also, I thought of ideas of comfort and value in a couch. Plus I considered things like location of a couch. When consulting Wikipedia, I read about how contemporary society treats the couch and terms like couch potato and how it is incorporated to our society. At this point I was inspired by Frued and ideas of stream of consciousness. This ties into couches as one use of a couch is in the psychiatrists office. This got me thinking about free association and how my book might not include any couches, rather, be this free associative experience.
Then, I realized I needed some content for my book so I went on couch photo mission. In total I took about 1000 different photos of couches, which I forgot to document in my process, of 7-10 different couches, approximately 100 each. If I actually used the couch in my book I have around 300 shots for each couch. This was also a cool point in my process. When shooting the couches that I actually used in my book I would revisit them to take more photos. Each time I revisited, I came across something new but unzipping a cushion or removing it from the couch all together.

At this point I had done a lot of reading and compiled but not synthesized my ideas of comfort from Witold Rybczynski’s book Home, collected a ton of visual sources (most of which I did not actually use) like couch illustrations, photographs of extravagant couches, and old black and white photos of couches. Then I went through the process of sorting my photos and making connections between them through juxtaposition. This is where the establishment of a mood for each couch came in. I really enjoyed exploring the couches so I wanted the viewer to have a similar experience. The investigation process seemed to work better with recycled couches as they told more of a story. This is where the story part came in. I started to think of the stories which the photos told and where, she, he and Natalie were established. I started to establish the content of the story myself but was finding it extremely difficult. So, I sent a package to my friend in creative writing consisting of: juxtapositions I had made with images, Witold’s ideas of comfort, some extra reading I had done on Freud, (I felt like the male character should be similar to Frued), samples of the writing style I like, and the beginning of the story and basic plot. That is the beginning of the end of the evolution of my concept.

3.

Structuring Information
Structuring the information was quite the challenge. I had two distinctly different (yet related) forms of written content, the fact and the fiction. The way I treated this was dividing the spread, left and right pages, into ‘fact area’ and ‘fiction area.’
The fact page usually contained a highlighted element relating to the fiction area. The fiction page was at times related to the words on the adjacent page. This is consistent for approximately 70% of the book. There are instance where the fiction visually encroaches on the fact page and visa versa. The typographic treatment of the fact is a sans serif, while for elements related to fiction it is serif and some a grungy display type for the dialogue. I added some tertiary levels of information in the form of highlighted dictionary definitions which need to be revisited as currently they don’t read but they will function to play off and build on content in a diagrammatic way.

Imagery.
The imagery used was consistent to show an investigative process. There were medium shots, straight on just showing the couch. There were angled shots showing different perspectives of the couch. There were closeup shot of the couch focusing on a particular element of it. There were also macro shots of the couch, magnifying certain elements of the couch. These types of shots focus on detail, like a cigarette, or fraying portion of fabric. There were also even some abstracted photos of the couch. In each section, there was extreme attention to light and colour. The red couch had warmer tones to represent the she character. The brown couch was tinted slightly grey to create stark imagery because to expose the idea of Natalie. The blue couch was colder to represent the male, ‘he’ character.


4.

Time was a killer during this project. There is lots I want to expand on, hope to expand on for grad show.

I will be adding more diagrammatic information to my book to build on both the ‘factual’ and the story ‘portion.’ Diagrammatic elements for the ‘factual’ will include: how to achieve maximum comfort on a couch, more exploring the process of making and couch, the nuts and bolts of it, activities that are performed on a couch, how to sit ergonomically. I would have liked to include diagrams of how people function in spaces in relation to location of a couch

I would like to make my book appeal more to the senses. I would like some of the pictures to be ‘scratch and sniff,’ to further engage the reader and establish mood. I don’t know if this is possible but I think it would be cool to have element like the pizza smell like pizza etc. Plus I may want to incorporate actual fabric from the couches themselves but that would be extremely difficult because I would have to strip them. I might want to go on a fabric hunting mission to see if I can match fabrics. It would be cool to coat the ‘underside’ of the pages (what is currently white) with the actual material from the couch.

Technically, I would have had someone else physically put together my book. I am happy with the aesthetic I have started to establish but it would have been far better to have had someone else do it. I want to exploit the materials I am using to create the book and play off the idea of reading between the seams or exploring what’s in the seams of couches, hence the stitching in the margins. I want to really try and work the materials into each portion of the book. I want it sewn into 3 different sections using thread corresponding to the sections. This would have made my book not so flimsy.

5.

First, I would say, definitely take book first semester if you have any hopes of putting it in the grad show. Learn everything you possibly can before then class. If possible, I would even suggest taking it in the summer (over the span of atleast three months). There is a lot to keep in mind when taking book so here goes. I would say when taking book you have to have extremely good writing skills, or know someone who does to set the right tone of your book. Plus you have to be able to write really quickly because 3 months is really not a lot of time. It is quite hard to be establishing content, while ‘designing,’ although they sort of go hand in hand. From my personal experience, the content creation has been a collaborative effort. I sent my creative writing friend a 30 page manuscript an which she edited and helped me develop into what I wanted.

There is also the technical side of book. Technically, I am very messy so my books tend to lack in that department. If you are good technically, or enjoy that sort of stuff you can produce really stunning work.

You should have a good working knowledge of classical books and things like structure of a book, contents, proportion for layout., book fundamentals. In contrast to you should also familiarize yourself with experimental books. These books can be an asset consider when making your final book decisions.

I would definitely suggest taking book, first semester with no other practicum’s.

WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE

Images:
a) The cover, simple.
b) 35 packages of thinsation cookies.... yummm.
c) You get what you give.
d) Only two things are sure in life: birth and death.
e) Shocking!
f) When you write with your non-dominant hand, you are more truthful.
g) Music triggers memories.

1. A Character Sketch of the Book:
My book is a collection of responses to the question, "What do you know for sure?" This straight forward question, one my dad used to ask me when I was a kid, has triggered many different types of responses: factual, hopeful, philosophical, funny, common, serious, inspiring, thought-provoking...
With so much variety in style and subject matter, my book is visually very simple; all of the responses have their own spread(s) and the majority are complimented with an illustration. Each of the spreads uses white space in order to create more importance and to separate them from the others. Every response is treated individually while retaining a certain level of consistency with the others. The book does not have to read front to back, rather each response can be read on their own.
It is also important to mention that contributors are listed at the back of the book and not with the responses themselves. Each response has a number, which you can refer to at the back for the contributor.
The book is relatively small (5.5" by 7.5") and is more personal that way. Many of the responses are only one to ten sentences and would get lost in a larger space (as I wanted to keep each separate).

2. The Evolution of the Project:
My idea to design a book that would express people's response to "What do you know for sure?" came to me when I was thinking of a way I could avoid the typical coffee table book. I wanted this project to be personal and meaningful - a collection of thoughts rather than facts (though, I suppose what I asked, ironically, is "What is fact?"). I wanted this book to be one I could read over and over and learn something new or reinterpret every time. This idea remained constant.
Visually, my concept has changed greatly. My plan was to create visually what I have received - a diverse collection of text (and some images) in terms of what they were communicating through subject matter, tone of voice, and complexity. I wanted to create a more eclectic look, using a variety of images (illustration, photography, scans, vector creations, etc.) and text (typefaces and handwriting). The image in my mind was close to a scrapbook of newspaper clippings, notes, ticket stubs, pressed flowers and smudges or stains.
Another idea I had in the beginning was to approach a wider audience with my question. Because my dad was always questioning children about life, I would have loved to get children's responses and to contrast that with responses from older people. I would have been interesting to see the difference between those of a young child, a twenty-something, a middle-aged, and a senior. Time and legalities kept me from taking this road, but I am happy with the group I did survey (ages range from 18 to 31).

3. Making Choices:
An important decision I made refers to the previous section, specifically the imagery. Until very recently, I was collecting and using the various types of images described above. However, the spreads looked disorganized and unrelated. Again referring to the diverse nature of the content, I felt I had to keep the visuals more consistent. Maybe that more ephemeral quality would have worked if I went further than I did. (Perhaps if I had a greater variety and more of it?) In the end I switched over completely to an illustrative approach, which, for the exception of a few, I did myself. While many are done in different styles, I think they work well together and help unify the book.
The second important decision was regarding structure. Another idea that I had before I started was to somehow categorize the responses by topic or tone for more structure. Grouping responses according to who wrote them (ie. their age) also crossed my mind. Though in the final book they were not sorted into sections, the order was still a large consideration. In the case where someone would read it front to back, the responses had to flow, conceptually and visually.

4. Compromises:
If time and money weren't an issue, I really would have liked to include all of the responses that I received and more (I had to cut some and I would have liked to ask more people); everyone had such great responses that deserved more effort than I gave them. Some responses were so hard to illustrate and I feel at times the ones I illustrated may not have quite worked as well as they could. I also would have liked to do a better job on printing and binding. Visually, both inside and out, I am not thrilled how my book turned out.

5. Pleasures and Frustrations:
Although I was am not happy with my final project, I loved this class. I think book design is very challenging and there is a lot of work. Think of how much work goes into a poster, a brochure or letterhead and multiply that by 100 (or how ever long your book is) then add the printing and binding! But I think the experience is worth it and knowing that you can actually make an entire book from scratch is sweet and satisfying.
As far as what kind of book to make, ensuring that it's something you are deeply interested in is very important. Thankfully I chose a topic that I loved, right to the very end, and never got tired of reading the same text or seeing the same images over and over. Doing something personal as opposed to a generic topic is very rewarding.

VER

Mo Can't Upload - here is hers.
































1.

Entitled Ver, the book is a fictional story of a proposed instance of time. It is a story about a place in time of an invented alternate reality. This instance has everything familiar to us; there are land, trees, animal and so forth. Their world functions seemingly parallel to the way our current everyday living works. However, Ver’s reality possesses certain eerie qualities that are unlike our reality.

To juxtapose, yet complement this bizarre aesthetic, my own visual interpretation was applied to the story. The entire book is highly visually eccentric, and colourful. It contains a mix of various illustrations style. Typography is clear and consistent, and carefully complements the intensity of the images.

The book is separated into 5 sections. The introduction begins with an excerpt of a story, which is vague and mysterious. The sections then follow: The Environment, The Inhabitants, The People, The Capital, The Culture, Each section describes each aspect of Ver, while also contextualizing and clarifying the introduction story.

The sections act as markers of time. It begins at 00:00 and progresses accordingly, which serve as the page numbering system. Each section, possesses its own visual aesthetic


2.

My initial concept for my book began with a research-intensive topic regarding the inadequacies of the Canadian elementary school system. This topic, although I feel the issue still needs to be address, was too rigid and did not have the flexibility that I wanted.

Because there was so much freedom in our choice of topic and approach, a completely fictional story was written. The initial concept was to have a story that responded to specific topics within pseudoscience, which included the controversial Intelligent design theory. However, I did not want it to read a journal, instead I wanted to involve the audience more. Therefore, I wrote a story about an alternate reality. I used my previous research on pseudo science, Intelligent Design, and phrenology as the foundation of the content.


3.

Initially, I wanted the aesthetic of the book to be more eerie, dark, and mysterious. I wanted to utilize a darker palette to have a more serious and melancholy mood. Opposite to that is my actual approach, one that is vibrant yet creepy. My intention of this book was to be extremely visually explosive and intense, while being grounded by consistent typography. I decided that I was going to illustrate each page with a different illustration voice than the next. This would have been highly work intensive. Therefore, it was decided that each section would have their own illustration style, which still possessed the varied eccentricity that I wanted to convey.

I also wanted to be experimental in my typographic approach. However, the story is meant to be read as if it was a short novel, therefore needed to maintain a certain consistency. I then decided that the type should always appear on the recto side of the page, and have one treatment. This is so that the audience can rely on having a consistent read. The book is meant to be perused through first by looking at the imagery, then once intrigued, the story can be read.

4.

If money or time wasn’t an issue, I would have extensively written a complete novel. Think Harry Potter series. Ideally I wanted the book to be printed in a lighter weight paper with completely matte printing. I wanted to have two versions, a hard cover version and a soft cover version. The soft cover would have an extremely detailed illustration that wrapped around. It would have been perfect bound, with a vellum wrap around. The hard cover, would be wrapped in printed canvass with the debossed word VER on it. It would have been hand sewed with a fabric slip case. For both books, I wanted to utilize different paper types for each section divider.


5.

This is the first class of which I had the complete freedom to create an ideal project for myself, one of which I was responsible for the content as well as visual approach. This resulted in a completely personal piece of work that I was completely passionate about (that I have grown strangely attached to).

I enjoyed the class highly. And although the mini exercises did distract me from my main book. I really liked doing them, and felt that I learned a lot about books, and binding in general.

I think it would be best if the book class was a full year course, where research for the main project would go on in the first term, while 3 or four mini exercises are being done. The second term is completely devoted to the design of the book, focusing more on how the book is structured; grid, typography, etc.

the essence of Mask

cover

half title

inside spread _1

inside spread _2

back cover

1) A Character Sketch of the Book:

My book “The essence of Mask” is about Korean masks that originated from a place called Hahae in the southern part of Korea. Originally there were 14 masks manufactured around the 12th century but now just 12 types remain. Only two masks were chosen for this book as a main subject. The ‘story’ in this book does not just talk about general information concerning masks but it also magnifies and discovers some hidden meanings of the two masks as seen through my perspective. The book is divided into three chapters. The first chapter is about the origins and general characteristics of masks in order to provide some background knowledge about the subject matter. The rest of chapters are about the masks’ specific features, social values and materials. In these chapters I talked about my personal impressions of how I see the masks and what significances they could be associated with in cultural and social values in Korea.

2) The Evolution of the Project:

After selecting the subject “Mask” for my book, it was hard for me to find the direction I wanted to take. Initially I was going to talk about common knowledge and information about the subject. After having a few discussions with my instructor, Reg, I got a small idea about what I should do for my book. He suggested that this book could be more interesting and act as a personal interpretation book if I voice my thoughts and impressions about the masks. Since I didn’t know about the masks very much, I initiated my research about the objects first. The challenge was to make connections between general information and my impressions about the masks. I had to modify the content and manuscript until I completed the book.

3) Making Choices:

a) FormatThe format of book was determined by the size of actual mask (17cm X 24cm). Since the rectangular shape of mask represents the proportion of human’s face, I thought it would be good to keep the same size and proportion. This format was also effective on playing images in spread.

b) TypefacesThe typeface I chose for the tile and chapter heading is called Albertus MT. This typeface has interesting angles on letters that is very similar with the surface of masks. For the body text, Optima was selected for readability. Even though the font is a sans serif typeface, it conveys very elegant feel of the masks.

4) Compromises:

I wanted to chose an experimental approach to the selection of paper and binding. The paper I wanted was a thin and high quality paper that conveyed the feel of an oriental book and at the same time it could print high quality photographs. I ended up choosing the pager which is okay but not exactly what I wanted. I would like to spend more time for selecting a better paper. One more thing I wished I could have done is that I would have liked to do more elaborate binding and a bookcase. The binding I did was just a basic binding method of Japanese book sewing. There was a sewing method I wanted to try for my book, but it was quite complicated to do in a short amount of time. The bookcase would be good to protect and present the book in sophisticated manner.

5) Pleasures and Frustrations:

I definitely suggest for students to take this course if students want to lean how to manage a big project like how to construct a book. I had really hard time managing the sequence of the whole process and preparation. For example, during the course I was confused as on what to do first between writing a manuscript and collecting images. Without knowing what kinds of visuals I was going to use, it was quite hard to research and write the story. By now I sort of have an idea about how I should approach a big project like this in the future. A pleasuring part of this course was learning how to bind books in various methods. It was very useful experience to know how books are actually structured. It helped me to see the other side of books instead of just reading material.

Postcard Fictions (a portrait as the lens of my own eye saw it)

Book cover front view

Texture of the suede cover

Section 1 (dark portraits and fictional autobiographies)

Section 2 (poetic diary entries)

Section divider (Postcard back, reading: "Ladies, of course, make much prettier pictures")


Section 3 (multiple narratives running together)

Section 3 - (one narrative visually "overtakes" the section)

Section 4 (diary entries continued)

Section 5 (autobiographies continued)

A Character Sketch of the Book: describe your book in general terms (what it looks like, how the information/story is organized) as if talking to someone who has never seen it.

Postcard Fictions was inspired by early to mid-20^th century postcards of women. Women portrayed on these postcards appear evocative, beautiful and idealized, but they also existed at some point as real persons with a personal history. The book meditates on the connection between the photographer (who remains unseen), women depicted on the postcards and fictional author. The book weaves together multiple narratives and photographic postcard images, composing a fictional non-linear account of female lives.

Postcard Fictions has a dark green suede cover with an ambiguous vintage postcard of a woman holding a mirror. The book is divided into 5 sections arranged in a mirroring symmetrical order. The first section is a collection of dark postcard portraits of women juxtaposed with lines from fictional autobiographies. The second section consists of monochromatic photographic postcards of women juxtaposed with poetic diary entries, which were taken from the work of Roxanne M Carter (www.persephassa.com). The middle section continues to have the diary entries but has an additional text that gradually appears and takes over the pages, until it fully covers several full spreads. The text was taken from Helene Cixous’s Firstdays of the Year and is a meditation on the experience of a female author. The fourth section mirrors the second, containing full colour postcard images juxtaposed with diary entries. The last section mirrors the first, containing fictional autobiographies and dark portraits of women. In addition, two articles by and about early 20th century female photographers appear in the book before and after the middle section.

The Evolution of the Project: reflect on how the book has changed over time from its original conception.

My book has gone through several major changes during its conception. At first it was conceived to be a historical picture book containing academic articles on postcards of women from various countries and historical periods. Also, I have done some research on contemporary widely available postcards, and saw that predominantly any women portrayed on them were wearing a bikini (if any), and were rather boring, repetitive and lacking in character and expression. I decided to use images done by contemporary illustrators, photographers and artists as interpretations of postcards portraying contemporary women. Originally the book was intended to be partly a collection of research essays, partly an art project that fit with the theme.

However, I’ve soon discovered that it was too challenging to combine historical photographic postcards and contemporary illustration in a coherent way within the time constraints of the course. I have decided to make my book to be a more personal interpretation of the postcard images.

Making Choices: pick two important choices you have made concerning your book (type, format, layout, images, etc.) and talk about why you made those particular decisions.

Typeface choice:

The main portion of the book is set in Mrs Eaves. The typeface adds another female voice to the book through its distinct character and the fact that it was made by a female designer (Zuzanna Licko). Mrs Eaves sought to capture “the warmth and softness of letterpress printing that often occurs due to the ‘gain’ of impression and ink spread”.

To contrast this typeface, I have chosen to use The Sans - a clean and very legible sans serif – for typesetting Helene Cixous’s narrative.

Format choice:

The size of the book is 6.5” x 8.5”. Combined with the softness of suede cover the book fits comfortably into one’s hand and is reminiscent of a journal.

Compromises: describe some of the things (if time or money wasn’t an issue) you might have done differently and what they would have added to your book.

If time was not an issue, I would have extended the book to be around 250 pages and would have tracked down the postcard images I’ve used to provide them in higher resolution. I would have worked in collaboration with one or two authors to compose the text for this book, instead of borrowing it from already existing literary works. Also I would've worked to further resolve the visual look and feel of the book and improve my typesetting and layout choices.

Pleasures and Frustrations: talking about book design in general – if you were with other students thinking about enrolling in a book design course (not necessarily this course) what would you tell them to expect and what to consider before they make their decision.

Book design is a very important course to take for any student and especially for those interested in print. This course makes the student draw on a variety of skills developed in and outside of the design program and apply them to an extensive project. Book design allows the student to create stories, which is one of the most fascinating and complex aspects of design practice. It also allows the student to experiment with materials and learn traditional skills of bookmaking, such as sawing and binding. For people interested in reading books it is also an enriching experience, because it makes you consider the history of books and the logic behind their structure.

The course is very challenging because it focuses on a single extensive project. Some of the challenges are maintaining a fresh perspective on the project and dividing one’s focus between the conception of the book and its design. The latter is a delicate balance that needs to be maintained in order to create a successful piece. Generally, many frustrations and challenges present in any design project appear when working on a book and are increased two- or threefold, since it’s an extensive project. These include both creative and technical issues. However, the rewards present in any design project are also there when making a book, and are increased due to the scope of the project.

Since books are a form of art, many challenges present in an art project appear when making a book. These include its open-ended nature and multiple possible ways of telling the same story (not mentioning that one needs to choose which story to tell in the first place).

Whether deemed successful or unsuccessful upon completion, making a book is a journey which is definitely worth embarking on.

Tough Love: Memoirs of a Gymnast

Okay. So I went home and was about to upload some pictures from my book when I realized my batteries were dead and my cord was in the labs. So here are my spreads from inDesign. But I'll be uploading images of my final book (bound) later on.


Cover (front and back)


This spread talks about my love for gymnastics stickers. When I was scanning one of my sketchbooks, this sticker fell off and so I scanned the back as well.


We used to decorate our hairclips with nail polish.


My massive gymnastics magazine collection.


Grips for bars


Gymnastics story page.


1. My book is about gymnastics, but not the glamorized version of it (competitions, exhibitions, etc) it's the every-day aspect of gymnastics - it's the practices that you have to go to, the commitment, the dedication and the passion for the sport. I wanted to make the book slightly personal, but since everyone's experience of the sport is a bit different I distanced myself away from it a bit. Within my book there are basically 2 types of narrative. The primary narrative is meant to give a really personal in-depth look at the sport from a gymnasts perspective. It talks in a first-person narrative, and is basically just me talking about my experiences as a gymnast - the feeling of flight, the hardship & pain, and the everyday objects that I was surrounded by.The second narrative is coloured in pink pages and basically talks about other gymnasts experiences and different aspects of the sport that I didn't get the chance to go through (i.e. going to the olympics). This narrative gives people a broader feeling of what the sport of means to other gymnasts.

2. This book project has gone through a HUGE overhaul over the course of the term. At first I was going to do a book about prisoners and the prison system, but then I realized I didn't quite like that subject as much as I would need to make the book. Then I changed to gymnastics thinking it would be a lot less research and more just concentration on the book, but because of my long life experiences, it made it very easy for me to conceive of a book structure and then suddenly think of another, and another, and another. The first structure I was going to use was by level (recreational, pre-competitive & competitive), then I decided to structure the book by season (pre-season, pre-competition, & competition). Then I was going to have 3 narratives - the technical narrative, personal narrative, and the psychological narrative. Then I started writing it and realized this was going to be quite the challenge and very much not what the gymnastics experience is about at all. So finally, after collecting over a thousand images for my book I went for a simple approach - simply just talking about the objects, experiences, and feelings. By doing this, the narrative came much easier and it felt much more like a casual conversation rather than a concise organized academic document.

3a) Type:
Because the layout of the images needed to be the main focus of the page, the type needed to be fairly recessive on the page. Also, because of the non-linear format of the book, I wanted to separate the two narratives and the sections so that they could be read and understood as being different things that the reader can 'dip' into. I decided for the first-person narrative to use a sans serif font - Auto 2 - in grey. Auto 2 is very dynamic typeface because it has a large family and can be set in all sorts of different ways.
The second typeface - Dolly - was used for the second narrative (the gymnastics stories). In this part of the book the image is recessed and the words are dominant. Because I wanted to give a more humanist feeling to the stories, I picked a serif font.
Another thing about the two typefaces is that they were both designed by a company called Underware Fonts in the netherlands, so they have a very unique quirky feeling. Also, because they were both designed by the same place they work really well together.

3b) Images:
When I first started the project I went home and brought back some objects, and then went to my old gymnastics club to take pictures. When I went home I found that my collection of gymnastics things were everywhere and so I found it hard to find things I wanted, but very easy to find things I didn't expect. The pictures I got back also ended up being a very 'interesting' surprise. Because the lighting in the gym was so lo, a lot of the images I took turned out to be very grainy (which was not the style if imagery I was looking for at the beginning). So in talking to Reg we decided that I should just give the book less of a 'commercial' feel, but a more personal touch to it (ref: Terry). This would allow me to use the bad photographs to my advantage (along with the photos I have from my own childhood). It also turns out that all of the ephemera I had taken worked quite well with the grainy photographs. The only pictures I used that looked a bit more professional were the photos of the objects and that was because they needed that detail and realistic feeling to them (my friend Umar also took them, and apparently he owns a much more expensive camera :P ).

4. If time and money weren't an issue, I would have probably made the book longer and written more about the objects in the book. Since a lot of my time was spent digging through all of my old things, taking photos of the objects, and editing the photographs (stylistically and retouching) to suit the book I didn't leave myself a lot of time to work on the actual writing of the book. Another thing I would change is the covers of the book along with the front and end matter. The cover was put together under a time constraint and so I don't think I really had much time to conceptualize a proper cover that would suit the book and so the figurine gymnast seemed to be the most convenient and obvious cover. I would also add things that I left because of time issues - a glossary of terms (which were supposed to be the end pages), Bibliography, Acknowledgments, etc. The binding I used to create the book was also rushed, so I think had I had more time I would have sewn the book using signatures so the book could open more easily. Other small things I would have done were typesetting the book, and finalizing the layouts within each page.

5. Pleasures and Frustrations: talking about book design in general – if you were with other students thinking about enrolling in a book design course (not necessarily this course) what would you tell them to expect and what to consider before they make their decision.
The one thing I loved the most in each project was sitting down with all of my prints and putting them together in a book. I really liked taking paper and turning them into something you could put on your bookshelf - something 'real'. I really liked designing the book, but I feel like that is something that I would enjoy doing the second time around because now I sort of know what goes into the design of the book and so my planning for the book (or any substantially large design document) would probably be much better.
If someone I knew was thinking about taking the class I would recommend it because it's a very good learning experience in terms of organizing large amounts of information and images into one concise document. Another thing about our class (specifically) is that it allowed us to be very experimental with the book and try new things. The binding demonstrations I also really liked because it helped learn about ways of improving my mock-up techniques as well as making books, boxes, etc. So basically out of all of the sections I would definitely say our section was the best in terms of what I learned and wanted to learn throughout the class (technically and through experience).

Play that Beat

1. Cover - foam pads representing the modern-day sampler aesthetic
2. Contents - Get your read on
3. Chapter marker for section three
4. A spread
5. Bound with 'Chicago pins' (screws that screw into each other)
6. Another peak inside
7. Cover shot - a few people thought I had screened it on.


1) My book is entitled “Play that Beat: The History & Culture of the Drum Machine.” The book basically informs its readers about the history and development of these instruments, where they came from and where they went. The book is divided into three sections, ‘In the beginning…’, ‘The Golden Age’, and ‘Culture’. The first section is about the origins and the early climate which led to the development of the early ‘rhythm machines’. From here it follows as pretty chronological look at the progression of things, highlighting key companies, and makes and models, as well as some musicians who have made them popular over the year. The ‘Golden Age’ chronicles the drum machines heyday in the late 70s to early 90s. This was a very prolific time for the development and advancement of the technology, as well as broadening its acceptance worldwide. The final section surrounds a few various cultural impacts that have resulting from their existence. The book is meant to appear to those who are interested in drum machines, sampling, Hip-Hop culture, and all forms of musical expression. The book was intended to not target any one particular audience, because I wanted to keep it relatively open and have a broader appeal. The book is rich with information and visuals and should be an interesting read for anyone who’s interested.

2) The overall plan for this book did not change considerably over time. It was always my intention to make it a pretty straightforward coffee table book. A lot of little things came and went throughout both the planning and execution phase, but nothing major (except for one thing, see #4!). I stuck to my original plan pretty well. The only thing that changed considerably was the ‘culture’ section of book. I had originally planned for this section to be much more in-depth. Time constraints were somewhat of a factor, but more so it was the fact that the manuscript had already ballooned to well over ten thousand words before even getting to section three! I figured for all intents and purposes at this point it was just as well to leave it as it appears in the final book, much more concise and to the point. Hopefully I can expand this section in the future to include more commentary on things like the debate over whether the sampler is a musical instrument, because I find this to be a fascinating topic.

The only other thing that changed really was that I was always planning on doing a graphical time line showing the development over the last 50 years or so. This just proved a little to time-consuming and complicated and in the end just got cut. But again, something that can definitely be revamped for book V2.0.

3) Format: I chose this particular format (~9x12) because this type of elongated proportion is traditionally how the early rhythm and drum machines were proportioned. It is basically an homage to classic machines such as the TR-808 and others who helped redefine entire musical landscapes. This proportion also worked very well with the binding style I chose, as well as giving me generous amounts of space to work with the design.

Type: I chose Adobe Caslon as the body copy for my book because of its excellent readability. I have originally not wanted to go with something so traditional and classical as far as book typefaces are concerned, but I had to reason with myself because there ended up being a much more epic manuscript than I had originally envisioned. Working through this book would probably not have been as enjoyable with a sans serif face in the end, although I had not originally intended it to be this way.

I chose a typeface called Apex new from the Village Foundry as the compliment to Caslon. They have a lot of really nice typefaces that are very hip, yet very versatile. I’ve received a lot of good feedback about Apex in this book, I felt it helped give it a kind of mechanical-yet-somewhat organic feel that the book needed.

4) A couple people knew that the original plan for my book was to have a sort of operational drum machine actually be part of the cover. I.e the sampler pads that are on the cover could actually produce a sound electronically when pressed. I really wanted to do this and spent quite a lot of time in the early phases trying to plan this out. I looked into the various ways I could produce the sound, where I could place a small speaker and where the battery would be. I had planned on adapting the sort of mechanisms that are used in recordable greeting cards, and hooking them up to the pads to trigger sounds I would record onto them. This would more than likely would have worked, however it was proving to be fairly expensive as that kind of technology was around $5 per sound module, and then you had to add the rest of the things like the speaker, wiring, battery, etc. In the end I just decided that it would be too time-consuming to produce, because it would have taken probably just as long to execute this as it did the book itself, so I made the choice to abandon it for now. The comprise was that I plan on making a case for it next semester, similar to the one Reg demo-ed in class, that when opened will trigger a small audio clip. This will be much less difficult to pull of as it requires simply rigging up the recordable greeting card mechanism to the hinge of the box and wiring in a new speaker. Plus I think it will be a really great addition to my table at grad show. If people appreciate the clever, gimmicky kind of things as much as I do it should turn out ok.

5) The advice I would offer to prospective students would be to plan and get to work as soon as possible. It really seems to sneak up on you, and it is such an involved process that it’s difficult to do in a short period of time, thus planning ahead and starting early. I would also advise ensuring that they pick a topic that they feel passionately about, something that will keep them going on it for weeks and months. I feel it was also very important to envision your finished book as often as possible, so that you know what you are working towards. Start pulling examples and influences together, and just keep them on hand for those times you are feeling uninspired to continue working on it. Plus, I feel the longer you spend envisioning your book and not actually putting it together, when the time does come to produce the book, you are more inclined to know exactly what needs to get done so that you are working towards something. Most of all though this class was about having fun, and a lot of freedom to choose exactly what you wanted to do! It was a great experience and I would definitely recommend it to other students.