CDF Project 5: Grids, Style & Format
Overview
For our final project, we were asked to create a bound book based on content of our own. The point of this project was to put together all the skills that we had learned throughout the semester from layout to typography to being able to communicate our point of view. We were exposed to a new software — InDesign to put together our books and print them.
Research
Content
It wasn’t hard to think of what I wanted to base my book on. My content is a poem that I wrote a while ago. It’s called “You and I”.
Inspiration
Rupi Kaur — Milk and Honey: These are some sketches from her book that I really like, I want to aim for the vast amount of white space with an intricate drawing that opposes the writing on the page.
Yulia Moschinetskaya — Illustrator: I like the way she uses spot color to highlight some parts of the girl.
Sketches and concept
I made a list of what I wanted to focus on and what the point of my book was. I also wanted to identify what colors and layout I was aiming for throughout the spreads.
Some of my worries were that the concept would be taken lightly with the way I designed them, or that the drawings wouldn’t be as detailed or cover the spread as much. I considered doing the drawings online but after trying one as a quick test, I realized how un detailed and childish look the online drawing was giving it, so I decided to switch to keeping it pencil drawings.
Project Process
Drawings
My main part of this project before I could really get into creating the InDesign file was to get the drawings done and scanned to the highest resolution. I initially started off with taking pictures of the drawings and then editing them in Lightroom. However, as seen below this didn’t provide the most high quality photos and when printed for the mid crit it was even worse with pixelation and blurriness. Furthermore, in my individual session, I got feedback that the page was a little too empty which I agreed with as the drawings took up less than half the page. Hence, I decided to develop the drawing further and make it more detailed.
I decided to add more background to the images, and more shading. I also edited the photos more in Lightroom to get a wider contrast between the black and the white aspects of the spreads. In my individual session with the teacher, she suggested using image capture, at a resolution of 600 dpi which ended up working a lot better. I then edited them in Lightroom, increased the exposure, contrast and black color. My final drawings scanned are shown below.
Sewing
I wanted to use sewing to illustrate a key part of my concept. I decided to use color to show that whilst on the surface things may seem dull and uninteresting, it is up to a person to be able to pull out the good or the bright that you can find. I used 4 different colors to represent the variety of experiences one can have in life. The 4 colors I chose have been my favorite colors or in the case of yellow, a color that I am often nervous to wear and as this poem revolves around my experiences, I thought it fitting. The 4 colors are as follows: yellow, green, blue and purple.
I tried the uneven basting sewing technique initially as seen below, this results in torn apart strings or not as clean sewing.
I then tried the back stitching technique which ended up working a lot better, it had a more sturdy feel to it and the thread wasn’t fraying anywhere. I also think that people would be able to run their fingers over the thread a lot more easily with this technique as there are fewer gaps between each hole. I pre made the holes and then just sewed the thread through.
Typography
Next, I had my InDesign file ready so I put the images in and started to place where I wanted the words. I wanted a stanza per spread. I wanted to keep the font size to as small as I could but still keep it large enough for the reader to read. I didn’t want the font size too big because it could come across as childish to the person reading it. I also wanted to use a serif font because I think it can come across as more serious.
Spacing was really important in this as there is a lot of white space on every spread and if the stanza was awkwardly placed the whole spread would look bad. Hence, I created a theme where the stanza would be placed somewhere where the girl could see it. So if you follow her eyes, then you can find the stanza as well and this idea is consistent throughout the book. Below are all the spreads:
Binding
Last thing to do was the binding of the 8 spreads, I first folded them in half and then aligned the top and the spines and used double-sided tape. However, this created uneven edges which I had to fix.
Front and Back
I was going to keep the front black and white too but I didn’t want to leave the reader with no hope, my aim was to give them some hope about themselves. So, I pulled out yellow as this color has the greatest significance in my book and used it as the cover and back. I kept it really simple as I didn’t want to distract the reader with too many details. Initially, I did the title in print but the sewing within the book seemed random so I decided to reflect the sewing on the front cover too by sewing in the title.
Finishing Touches
In my individual session, my instructor suggested adding some details such as dedicated to or my name at the back. However, after much thought, I didn’t want to dedicate the book to anyone because it is for everyone. I didn’t want to put my name on it because the You and I could be anyone and I truly wanted readers to think about it that way.
By not putting a description of the book, I was worried about if readers would just be very confused, but I truly wanted them to read the book and interpret it in any way they wanted and take whatever they wanted out of it without me influencing it. In our final crit, no one commented that I should have had a description, my name or any other details, so I think it was a good decision.
Finally, I just had to trim all the edges, and I had to cut into the book by about a 10 mm just to make the top even.
Final Book
Evaluation
Some things I would do better next time: making the sewing neater, some of the text could have been moved up or down slightly to make the flow better, the cutting of the sides was a little uneven so I would fix that, vary my sewing direction.
However, overall I am really happy with the project and I think I achieved my goal. It has a very personal meaning to me and I am happy that it turned out the way it did.
