Introduction
From the outset
of the project I intended to produce a photo book as part of my submission for
assessment. As the project moved forwards it gradually became clear that the
book would be the primary submission document. This post describes my thought
processes regarding the design of the book.
Book Evolution
Some aspects of
the book design have remained in place from the outset. I wanted to document my
relationship with my mother in her final years in both words and images, with
each passage of text relating to a single image. I could see no simple
alternative to placing each passage of text on the left hand page, with the
corresponding image on the right hand page, separated by the centrefold. Most
photo books contain little or no text, but for me the text was an essential
part of the project. Other examples of photo books where the text and images
occupy roughly equal space were hard to come by, but I did find a template in
“Gary’s Friends”, by Adrian Clarke (Adrian Clarke), and this book has proved
to be very useful in developing the design.
In the early
stages of the project I produced a mixture of A4-shaped ‘landscape’ and
‘portrait’ images. Half way through the project I thought about whether to (a)
retain the shapes of the images and place them horizontally (for landscape
images) or vertically on square pages, with white surrounds, (b) convert all
the images to ‘landscape’ format and incorporate them either ‘full bleed’ or
with a white surround onto the appropriate A4 landscape-shaped pages or (c)
convert all the images to a square format for square pages, with or without
‘full bleed’. Adrian Clarke used choice (a). However, both my tutor and I
preferred to use a ‘full bleed’, so option (a) was eliminated. It would have
been almost impossible for me to convert some of the (minority of) portrait
format images into landscape format, so in the end I chose option (c), with
full bleed, and converted all the images that had already been given the
‘thumbs up’ by my tutor into square format. All future images were also
produced in square format.
For stylistic
reasons I chose to produce 50% desaturated images having a ‘matt’ finish (very
few glossy images appear in published photo books and a matt finish seemed
entirely appropriate for partially desaturated images). I chose the images to
be caption-less, since they already related to the text on the opposite page
and the caption would have had to have been placed either over the image or
below the text on the opposite page. From the start my square images were all
produced at 300dpi and 2500 pixels length, for printing. I intended to use my
favourite ‘Calibri’ font for the text, but eventually had to settle for ‘Times
New Roman’, because the software that I used to create the book would not
accept ‘Calibri’. A typical double page from the finished photo book, illustrating
the design decisions that had been made by this stage, is shown below (Image
1).
Image 1: A Typical Page from my finished (Hard Cover) Photo Book
Book Production
Serious design
considerations came to the fore after I had produced my first draft photo book,
a softback version using the ‘print on demand’ publisher Blurb. The front and back
covers from this book are illustrated below (Image 2). Feedback from my tutor
included the advice that I should get my hands on every photo book that I
could, not just to consider design issues but also to examine how the look and
feel of the book could influence both the creator and the observer. I tried to
carry out his advice as best I could. “The Photobook: a History Volume III”
(Badger and Parr) was also consulted extensively. Some of the more important
design issues that were discussed with my tutor, together with how they were
resolved, are discussed below.
Image 2: Back and Front Covers of the first (Soft Cover) Draft of my Photo Book
My tutor was
happy with the use of a soft cover for the book, but not with the gloss cover
and bold text. For future drafts of the book and for the final version I used a
matt cover and made modifications to the nature of the cover text (see Image 3).
However, having subsequently produced a book with a hardback cover (Image 3) I
preferred the feel and texture of the hard back, so this was retained for further
drafts and the final version of the book.
I was a little
concerned that the book, with pages approximately 17cm square, was a little
smaller than I would have liked. However, my tutor was happy with the size so
it was left unaltered. I chose not to number the pages of the book – this
didn’t seem necessary and is not common practice for published photo books.
Image 3: Front Cover of the first Draft of the Hard Cover Photo Book, showing Text Design Changes
There was a
serious problem with the ‘graph’. This ‘one off’ image was designed to be (2:1)
‘letterbox’ size, to fit across two pages. However, the centre of the graph
predictably disappeared into the centrefold of the book (hard and soft cover).
I considered a number of options. My tutor was keen for me to investigate
self-publishing the book and attaching the graph either as a ‘fold-out’ or
glued/printed/pasted across the centre pages of a book whose pages had been
stapled together, so that there would be no centrefold. I looked at
self-publishing, both by reading books and by visiting a photo book fair in
London, where the ‘Self Publish Be Happy’ representative confirmed that a
stapled book with blank central pages would be my best option. The graph could
be printed on or attached across the central pages. Following this advice I carefully
considered what to do. I thought about how many copies of this very personal
document I was likely to produce – probably no more than six to eight for the
assessors, my tutor, close family and me. In the end I decided to produce a
‘print on demand’ book with two blank pages. I then separately produced the
graph with exactly the same dimensions as the book. I will permanently attach the
graph as a ‘foldout’ onto the right hand of the two blank pages that have been
left in each copy of the book. This will add a ‘personal touch’ to the book,
whilst ensuring that I do not have to do too much work in order to produce the
few copies needed.
The design of
the photo book is now complete and I have produced a single copy that
incorporates the graph, as well as all the other changes mentioned above. An
image of the fold-out graph, attached to the book, is below (Image 4). I am
happy with the overall result: all that remains for me to do at this point is
to produce further copies of the book and attach a copy of the graph to each
copy of the book. One copy of the book will then, together with other project
material, be sent for assessment.
Image 4: Fold-out Graph attached to a Hard Cover Version of the Photo Book
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