In Conclusion

Here is a list of my finished posts:

Character Sketch of the Book
Evolution of the Project
Making Choices
Compromises
Pleasures and Frustrations

All in all, I had a lot of fun with the course and can't wait to get my book perfectly printed and bound.

Now that the course is over, my blog will most probably go back to a place for me to ramble on about design I like, design I don't, companies, studios and other design-related stuff.

(Also, I can finally stop changing the color scheme of my blog to match the current color scheme of my project!)

This may be my favorite picture yet...

I really have nothing much to write- I just love this image and therefore wanted to post it. Other than that I am done with all my images and the book is laid out. All that is left to do is my prelims and end matter, finish my cover, and some last minute tweaking. Of course I need to bind the book as well, but I am not worrying about that this minute.

TOC

I am thinking of putting some German quotes from the original story in the table of contents. This would be to:
a) provide contrast to the titles of the stories which will be in English in the TOC,
b) a way to infuse some of the original text into the book and,
c) an excuse to use text-sized blackletter.

I also plan on having the title of the story in the same color I use on that stories spread. Maybe with a black background and the quotes in the brown...

Color

After class today I began experimenting with color like every suggested. I decided to go bold rather than subtle. I quite like the results but and not sure if I am 100% so I figured I would upload a few spreads to see what people think.

Comments? Criticism?









If I do end up going this route I would use only those four colors and I would incorporate them into the table of contents and the rest of the prelims and end matter. I am still unsure about the cover.

Another debate I am having is what to do about page numbers. I think I would like to have them on the text pages but I am not sure... Another idea is to print them on the border of the picture pages. I could leave them out all together but then I am not sure what I would do with my table of contents. I am also not positive about the borders. I think they are needed though for separation between pages.

I also have one specific question. In the final spread the two hands are arranged as a mirror image. Should I flip the second hand, or do we like the mirror image?

(I will be updating the answers to the five questions I just wanted to get some ideas out there right away.)

Pleasures and Frustrations

I am a book junkie and I come from a family of book junkies. Our house is literally covered in books. That being said there is no way I could have not loved a course in book design. On the other hand, I do think one can enjoy this course even if they don't have a passion for books.

First and foremost book design provides one with an amazing finished product. A whole book! Made just by you!

Additionally designing a book takes a lot more long-term thinking than simply designing a poster. On a similar note, it gives you practice doing creative direction. When you have let's say 50 pages that need to be cohesive yet remain interesting all the way through, that is a challenge.
If you have no focus I wouldn't necessarily recommend book design to you. It takes a lot more stick-to-it-ness than designing a logo.

Another element of book design is the actual building on the book. If you have a fear of working off of the computer you may enjoy designing the book, but I would say look for a course that does not involve building your own book. For those of you who do like to get hands-on book design is a great place you can combine graphic design with 3D design. In addition to simply building the book, you can have a lot of fun exploring different book binding materials. Plus you can even get a little messy with all the paste and glue involved!

Compromises

If time or money was not an issue I really would have changed very little.

I would probably want to produce a second larger copy of the book. Maybe a foot and a half by a foot and a half. While I knew I wanted a small square book from the very beginning, now that I see the project taking shape I think it would be interesting to see it in large as well. Unfortunately I am not sure how the photos would look at that size and printing cost would be insane.

As well I would have loved to have it professionally bound and have the cloth embossed or foil-stamped. Although, the more I think about it the more I like the idea of binding it myself. It is such a deeply personal project it almost seems like a cop out to get someone else to bind it.

I guess the last thing I had to compromise on was the blackletter font I used. I would have loved to find the exact font in the copy of the original book I have at home.

I have been working on this project since September, 6 months, and am still really happy with how it is taking shape. That really says a lot for the project. Normally I get bored with projects really fast.

Making Choices

Font Choices
Immediately when I decided on my project direction I knew I had to use blackletter. I completely adore it and would love to use it all day everyday, it just isn't practical. While this is my big opportunity to finally take advantage of this beautiful form of writing I had to choose the perfect typeface. After looking at almost every version of blackletter under the sun and still not coming up with a decision, I decided to stay true to the original book and use the font from the cover. The problem was, even after looking through about 350 different versions of blackletter I couldn't find that exact one! The closest I found was Lichte Weiss-Fraktur. Truthfully it was almost an exact match. The issue with that was while I saw the font printed in a book (Fraktur Mon Amour) I couldn't find anywhere I could download it (for free or money). The closest I found was Weiss-Fraktur. The letter shapes are the same, the difference is the Lichte version is one of the two-toned fonts.

I knew right away that for readability sake I would have to throw in some non-blackletter as well. Even the original only uses blackletter on the cover. I decided I would make all German in blackletter and all English in a sans-serif. I figured that once I was using the same blackletter font the original used, I would use the same sans serif as well. Hence, my decision to use Futura. As Futura was designed in the 1920's I am pretty sure my book is not a first edition...

Photography Choices
I always knew my photographs needed to have a really creepy but still modern feel. This wasn't to hard to achieve with the macabre content and modern props and scenery. The hard part was choosing a color scheme that married modernity with old school fear. I think the sepia manages to do that quite well.

Another choice I had to make was how to go about producing these photos. Originally I had intended on shooting other people but I really didn't want to bother with a model release. I could have other people photograph me, but I wanted the photos to be mine. In the end I got out my tripod and photographed myself! What started off as simply a convenience ended up as a new direction for my whole project. I am really happy with the results. As this project was very personal to begin with I liked how I was able to take that aspect to the max. It is also just really cool to have a piece that you were involved in in such a complete way.


This spread is characteristic of my typography and photography choices throughout the book: