17 Jan 2017 —Part 2 — The (most recent) development

From The New Publishing to everyone!

Dear our readers

Taking on from the previous post about our goal and intentions, here we are going to summarize what we have decided (up till now) for each of the publishing steps.

Content (finalized)

We are going to publish public domain literatures

With the opportunity made possible by internet and the digital world: we are able to access to the archive of public domain books. And since the goal is to print and sell our first book by the end of the thesis and we have four months to do so — using existing contents that are available right now is the best option.

Doing so would also emphasize and point out the current digital and online layer — something non-physical floating in the air — that is transforming our way of reading and owning a book (which we don’t have to physically own them anymore).

Our publishing house could provide a physical ground at which these public domain literature could exist in the physical world.

For our first title, we are going to publishing Alice in Wonderland. The reason are that it is a well known public domain literature, which also has illustrations that we can use.

Edit (finalized)

For now…no editing required.

Due to the goal and constraints that we defined at first — to print and sell the book in 4 months — choosing public domain titles is the best option because the contents are already edited.

Design (up till now)

We have finished printed our first series of fully-binded (test) book.

For us…it is a great achievement, and we are very proud of it. However, the graphics and layout of the book has still yet to be improved.

The format of the book is A6, because it is easier for the binding process. Deciding so, we can’t contain the whole content in one single book. Therefore, we have to divide the book into 12 small books (because Alice in Wonderland have 12 chapters). Then, we have to find ways to package them and make them nice/function later on.

The colors we choose to develop our book — fluor orange, shocking pink, blue — are based on the production technique we decided upon : the Risograph (those are the colors available at the production location we choose).

The papers are still to be decided at the our production location — Print Club Torino

The two binding techniques that we have came down upon—Punto Metallico (top) and Folio Singer (bottom)

The binding technique we are able to achieve now is punto metallico and folio singer. Here, we still have to finalize. However, folio singer seems to be a better option in terms of aesthetics (yet, it is sure to be a bit more expensive and time consuming in terms of production)

Production (finalized)

Risograph (with some digital print) is the printing technique

Risograph printing technique available at Print Club Torino

There are various reasons why we choose Risograph:

1. It’s a fast printing technique
2. Provide us with design constraints to start working upon (eg. overlaying, print one color at a time, visual identity, etc.)
3. We also get to learn new things about the publication process from size/file preparation/binding (because if we just send the file to some print shop and print the book, it’s easier but we would not learn anything new)

Print Club Torino — our (current) producer and our production advisor

Print Club Torino membership cards — photos courtesy of facebook.com/printclubtorino

Thanks to our thesis advisor, Stefano Mirti, we get a chance to meet and learn about Print Club Torino.

Print club could be considered as a place of community than a print shop. Their goal is to establish a place where designers, artists, illustrators, enthusiasts can come and produce their (physical works) with the help of people around. They also have countless of printing/binding/finishing facilities, where we can make printing experiments on site (so we see the whole process from start to finish). :-)

Here, it is the best place for our thesis because we’re learning something new from the true professional working in the field. We went there (to Torino) one or two times a week every week. Deciding so also give us deadlines to finish our design every week before we went there.

Distribution (up till now)

Social Media and the internet — the new ways to reach audience

Since people are now spending most of their time swimming in the pool of social media, it is indeed a great idea to place our products where the people are — the social media. After our preliminary research, we also find this idea very promising because brands and product (nowadays) are using this channel to reach audiences (and of course, with little or no costs).

Here, we are working hard on the analysis and execution of this idea. Once again, another experiment that we have to see where it takes us. But we are super excited!

The next post is the topic we are excited to talk about the most.. our identity and the visuals! :-)

N. + S.