Creative Book Design- Part Five: Production -Exercise 2: Planning your workflow
However you plan to work in the production of your book, spend some time now planning your workflow, using the notes above as a guide. Think about how much flexibility you can allow yourself – don’t put yourself under too much pressure. At the same time, be aware of time constraints that may be outside your control. If you’re using a local printer, for example, make contact as soon as possible. Your printer may have a limited timeframe for doing your job and you’ll need to factor this into your workflow.
After continuing further into E3 and E4 I have decided to move forwards with the word/subject ‘mundane’. I aim to use this word to explore the symbolism and alternative meanings of objects and imagery. One image or object can evoke many feelings and have multiple meanings, especially when taken out of context. This idea was inspired initially from Taisuke’s photography then further by Ian Sinclair/Alan Moore’s conversation and Malcolm Garret’s Instagram I came across during previous/following tasks.
I have also decided that I would like to screen-print the book myself and potentially make the book inner/book cover. I feel that this adds to the narrative of giving images a new meaning by taking them out of context and adding texture/changing colours. This would be a single colour screen-print as I may not have time for 2 or further colours as screen-printing is labour intensive, especially at home. I may also have a book professionally made, in multiple colours but will initially focus on my screen-printing idea and perhaps look into this further in the future or towards the end of the task.
I began to create a flow chart of initial ideas including a few very quick thumbnail sketches. I will continue with this planning process during exercise 4.
I began this task by noting the key points; subject, size, print, appearance.
I began by looking through my folders of different artists work for inspiration, I feel that this always helps me think of the concept and visual as a whole. I focused on work from James Ronkko, Taisuke Koyama, Mike Mcquade, Alberto Giacometti, Eelkeren Schkebekkenute and Hayden Rearick. The works as a whole are quite expressive and a mixture of physical and digital which I aim to create a synergy between.
When considering a subject/concept I began with a spider diagram and linked my thoughts together beginning with the word question itself. As I continue with the next few tasks I will refer back to this diagram and add/come closer to a concept.
I would like to have a book printed professionally and I feel that this should be the opportunity to do so, but I would like the design of the book itself to tie in with the concept. Currently I think that a physical book may be the way forwards as it is easily manipulated to how I would like it to look, but I may have a printed version created by a professional printers as well to become more familiar with that process. I will explore the idea of a professional printer in the next exercise and refer back to/update my ‘workflow’ plan.
