Week 2: Make Make Make
This past week for Pecha Kucha’s I focused on exploring mainly type and color. I liked that making the presentation helped push me back into creation mode. I explored type pairings and color palettes but I spent a good portion of my slides on hand written type on arms. I liked the idea of incorporating hands back into the imagery of the book so I found this to be an interesting place to start.
The hand explorations surprised me in a lot of ways. I had a clear image in my mind of what I assumed would work best and after trying a bunch of things I was proved wrong. After comparing the colors I chose on the hand explorations to the color palettes I made separately, it was clear I needed more life in the colors I choose. The addition of gold paint in the hand drawings was a last minute decision but it became an element I was really drawn to by the end. Toward’s the end of our discussion DJ suggested I use the hand explorations as a color study and I think that could be really help me develop the final palette I use in the book.
Millcraft
This past week I also took a lil field trip to Millcraft Paper Company with Rachel. I didn’t have any decisions made for how I wanted my book to be bound or exactly what type of paper I wanted to use so this info session was of much help. Mark was the binding and paper expert who helped us and he really got ideas rolling in my head. After telling him I was making a cookbook and that my main concern was that the sturdiness of the pages, he got out a selection of synthetic papers to show me. This type of paper is made of plastic so it’s water resistant and rip proof which would be perfect for my book. The catch with this paper though is the cost, but it’s definitely a nice option to consider.
We also had a conversation about the function of a cookbook and how that can begin to inform the way I decide to bind the book. He pointed out that perfect bound books are almost never going to want to lay flat which would work against the function of a cookbook. He suggested looking into spiral bound books since there’s ease and flexibility with page viewing when bound this way. I want to look more into this route before deciding to bind this way since right now the aesthetics of a spiral binding is the main wall I keep bumping up against.
