Book Idea Quick Crit

Today, I talked  to Ben and Pat about my idea of doing short stories for my book ideas. I told Pat about the three books that I was thinking of doing but I was also concerned if my theme may be too broad. Pat suggested that maybe I could find a specific link e.g. an object used in each book, but I was thinking may be it might be a bit hard as the books have different genres and mood to them. I also talked to  Ben, and he suggested that maybe the link to my book theme could be the length of the stories in the book as they are around the theme  of 'short stories'. He told me I could do 3 books which range from short, shorter to shortest and ranges to about 10-50 pages.

I quite like this idea, as it can give me an opportunity to play with length visually, in terms of type and scale of images or objects, or how I could shot objects and photograph them in such a way in which the books could relate to each other. However, I do think this theme may be quite a challenge to do, but it may give me interesting outcomes.

Book Binding

Perfect Binding : PVA Glue/ very sketchbooky

Buckrum:

How to Perfect Book Bind:

• get the spine very flat to get a straight edge
• put it around 1cm around the edge of the table to glue it
• pinch down the spine 
• weight the paper down with heavy books
• use a paintbrush to coat the paper (x5 times

Book Cover Publishing

-maybe research the book author? (Jez Burrows)
-maybe select specific links in each of the books?
-write a list of tarting points to start processing the concepts of the book; type, image?
-photographs that illustrates a small element of the books?
-find antonym of the links? juxtaposition?
-look at a very popular book thats been illustrated a lot of time and compare how the designs are done over different times?
-find blogspots of different books shops
-go to big shops and look at the different visual styles of each genre: how you can severt it?

Blogs and Instagram:

• Draw Down Books (insta)
• analogue-books (tumblr)
• Actual Source (actual_source) (insta)
• Printed Matter (insta)
• Nieves (nievesbooks) 
• Offprint (Tate)

Chip Kidd: Offset 2009 Ted Talk

Chip Kidd TedTalk:

• Worked with various authors such as Augusten Burroughs, James Ellroy, Bret Eastin
• Theres a strict hierarchy with approving book covers.
• Takes inspiration for books from everyday life and things that happen to him. Coming up with ideas which relate to the author 9what the author might do if he's the one making the book cover.
• Reading got manuscript to get ideas for book covers; looking for materials, moments, scenes and objects that are in the book.
• Worked on a range of genre and was able to make books covers which are completely different to each other. 
• Prefers not to have a style but a sensibility 
• Surprising covers but not misleading
• All the design choices always have a meaning and are interpreted from the book/manuscript.
• Extracting the idea from the author; illustrating and designing ideas from the book itself.
• 'American Tabloid' - dissecting the tabloid used
• He's done a range of typographic covers with an idea, basing covers on his own experiences as well which shows a link to the audience 
• Use of objects and adapting objects and photographing them in a way that they create their own narrative. 

Books:

• James Ellroy - American Tabloid
• Paul Rudnick 

Leeds Record and Book Fair

09/11/2017

Leeds Record and Book Fair:

Yesterday, I went to the Leeds Record and Book Fair, in order to get some inspiration and do some research to see if the books I wanted to do for my project where there or if there are something similar. When I was there I saw some Penguin books which may be helpful with my research on the book 'Matilda' as it is also a penguin book and I may compare the difference in how the books were illustrated as I know that the Penguin  books are design with the 'Marber Grid'.

Book Theme Idea

For our second studio brief, I thought of 'short stories' as a theme for the books that I wanted to look at. I chose short stories as I thought the stories well be quite detailed but also concise. It will also be fast-paced and the stories themselves will have a very thorough story to it, which I can study upon and do research as part of my task during the Christmas break. It may also give me a lot of things to play with such as the plot, and the objects or subject matter which I can incorporate on my design ideas. I don't really read books very often but, I wanted to use books that I've read before as I already have a grasp of what they are about before researching further into them rather than just picking books from the theme that I chose.

For the first book, I'm thinking of using the book 'The One Who Walks Away From Omelas' by Ursula K. Le Guin. It's very descriptive and a philosophical fiction story from written in 1973. 

https://www.utilitarianism.com/nu/omelas.pdf 

The second book I'm thinking of using is 'The Little Prince' by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. The book is technically not a short story as it is a novella but it is shorter than a novel. It was published in 1943 as is a poetic philosophical tale .

http://yoanaj.co.il/uploadimages/The_Little_Prince.pdf 

The third book I'm also thinking of using is a Penguin Classic book 'Matilda' or 'Mathilda' by Mary Shelley in 1820. It is also a novella and has themes of romance, incest and suicide and is also classed as a gothic narrative. 

Studio Brief 2: How do we read?

Today we were brief on the new studio brief we are to continue doing during the Christmas Break. We are to curate and design 3 book covers for 3 books which are going to be simultaneously published as a set.  We are to select them from a theme or idea in . order to link them all together.
We are to develop 5 minimum initial layouts for each of our set of books where each ideas should a have a different grid system, limited colour palette, limited range of typefaces and imagery which can demonstrate a consistent visual language across the 3 covers.

During the Christmas break we are to do 6 projects which we are going to develop further when we come back in January.

1) Research about the history of the books, where it came form, date, era, links to popular culture and its social and cultural references

2) Make 9 set of images (3 for each book) which is done purely by a text editing program e.g. word or text edit. Relate it conceptually to the books creating references to images, moments in the books.

3) Make 9 set of images using a spreadsheet program. Relate it conceptually to the books creating references to images, moments in the books.

4) Find a piece of music which relates to the book in some way (e.. film soundtrack, era etc) and draw the piece of music in Illustrator (5 times)

5) Collect objects which has relation to the books.

• Take photographs of the objects which relates to a theme or moment in the book (90 photos)
• Have a rule for each photo e.g. constraints in line, tone, colour, shape, form ratio, viewpoint, perspective, symmetry, focus.
• Print contact sheet and print the 3 most successful images in 5 size. 

6) Use own choice of media or process we've done this year (could be combined) to illustrate the covers. Make sure process is consistent throughout all three books and have a good link to the research done.