P5 Textile Book Documentation

My book began with the idea of highlighting fabrics we wear everyday. I wanted to dig a little deeper into why they are popular for commercial use with history and scientific properties. I did not want to create a fabric reference for styling or fabric treatment, but something for the average consumer to read the book, and say “oh! I didn’t know that about my clothes.” I was inspired by my background and interests, as I am planning to go to graduate school for textile engineering.

There are 4 main categories of textiles: plant, animal, mineral, and synthetic. To go into enough detail on each, I decided to choose one common textile from each category to feature and ended up with cotton, silk, fiberglass, and nylon respectively.

Initially, I wanted to compared each fabric properties directly with icon scales or slider bars, comparing features such as strength, flexibility, cost etc. Since was the book was casual and information fun, I thought I might do it in an infographic style, that was easy to understand. I was planning to photograph the materials zoomed in on the weave or texture to fill the spreads. I wanted the reader to enjoy the textural depths and see the differences in the construction so make the photograph a prominent and in-your-face.

I felt limited by the infographic style of communication since each fabric was so unique. I explored changing the content of the book to a more lyrical prose style. This allowed more freedom for more interesting and story-like and more complex content such as chemical structure.

Some challenges I had with this layout are I have very little experience photographing materials, especially at a very zoomed in angle. I struggled to figure out how to fill the page, and obtain material with the textures to capture in the images. The spreads turned into a more poster like construction, rather than a flip page book, with important content at the fold seam of the book.

Another element of the book was missing was a tactile experience. Especially since the book was for an audience not familiar with fabrics, I thought it would be fun for the reader to be able to touch and feel the textile as they read about it. I brainstormed ways the fabric could be incorporated into the book, such as a transparent overlay, as overlapping fabrics like in a layered swatch, as the cover of the book, as the paper or the page medium of the book, or a cut out inset that might reveal only the subtitle of the page (the fabric name).

I was inspired by rings of fabric swatches, and wanted to explore “binding” the book with book rings. I decided to move to a square shaped book to mimic square fabric swatches, and found that a 6x6 inch size book was the appropriate weight and size to balance fabrics in the pages, while maintaining integrity.

I went to LOOM, a fabric store in the strip district, and played with fabrics. I explored 100% silk, cotton, and nylon, and chosen neutral fabrics because they that most showed off the textures.

I chose to make the background black to contrast the fabrics, and create a glossy finish that almost reflects the fabric and lets the textures shine. Most of the fabrics were opaque and I planned to place the fabric swatch between the 2 pages of the spread, so when opening the spread, only 1 page could be seen at a time. I considered this as I designed the spreads. When opened, I thought the most important and striking information would be to see the title of fabric on the left and the fabric swatch on the right. Then, the bulk of the information would be on the right page when the fabric is flipped. The audience has the time to study the fabric, uninterrupted, before focusing on the words.

The design on the subtitle page was left sparse, and I experimented with adding the structure of the material as the detail to the page. It added visual interest and weight to balance the title, but also informs the reader about the scientific structure of the material, that they have to turn the page to learn more about. The design leads the eye right and encourages the audience to keep flipping.

I played with the weights and placement of the structure detail, balancing the weights and size of the title font with the detail. I changed the font to dejavu sans mono to add a more angular and structural feel. The consistent width and transition from sharp right angles to curved loops mimics fibers and weave patterns. I like the wide kerning, as makes the title read in an unrushed way that helps the reader linger on the fabric, and makes each letter important in its own right. I increased the margins on the text to .75 inches because the content was too close to the edges, I decreased the font size to 10pt and increased the leading to 16pt of the main body text. The smaller scale of the font balances the larger size of the graphics, and the larger font, and appears at a scale that gives it more serious legitimacy that larger font sometimes feels a “younger” content. The subtext explaining the chemical or physical structure is set apart visually at size 8 font in italics.

I then constructed the book, printing on 30lb gloss black and white card stock. The 6 back to back printed sheets to balance the weight of the 4 fabrics and maintain integrity of the book without curving or flopping. I tested 1 ring in the corner and 3 rings along the binding edge. The 3 rings make the framing on each flip consistent that allow the structure detailing that bleeds left to right to line up. 3 rings also positions the fabric swatches in parallel with the page edges, that maintains the crisp, vertical framing I was trying to achieve with the black pages around the neutral fabrics. But, the rings still allow flexibility and the playfulness of the flip books.

When cut raw, the fabrics quickly want to fray. So, one downside of the book in its current construction is that it is fragile. I maintained the integrity of the binding edge with tape, as a quick but clean fix. I chose the neutral tape, not harsh black or white, that would distract from the warm creams and roses of the fabrics. Ideally, the swatches would be sewed with hems to prevent fraying. For the display purposes, I enjoyed the splaying hems as a wispy end that lays nicely over the textile name, or to show off the weave pattern.

With more time, I would like to explore the use of an accent color, I would like to adjust the margin on the right hand content (with the hole punches moving the left margin in by 1/2 inch the text is close to the rings, I would like to explore more organic shapes from the text.