Publication Design
Programs Used: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign
Objective
Redesign a controversial book and highlight that reason through design aspects of my choice.
Description/Research
I was tasked with picking a book from the banned book list, taking the text and formatting it. Designing the jacket and making an actual book by hand in our interpretation of the novel. I started by looking at the banned book list and picked three I liked. I eventually narrowed it down to The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I then downloaded the text of the book from Project Gutenberg.
Strategy/Solution
Washington’s Irving 19th century story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is controversial, and some places banned because of its use of supernatural/ghostly story telling. The on-going theme of what’s real and what’s not real is used on the front and back cover of the book as well as using darker colors to help with the ghost story of this timely novel. This book is sized to easily fit in the reader’s hand and uses a typeface reminiscent of the style used during the 19th century to bring the reader to that era.
Concept Development
I printed out my text, folded my signatures and sewed them together. I then glued the mull on and put it in a press overnight. I cut my book cloth and glued it onto my book boards and then glued my signatures to the boards. Once the glue dried out I then glued on my end papers and later cut them to align with the pages.
Refinements
I had to do this process twice, so on the second book it turned out better than the first because I messed up on glueing the signatures to the boards and the second time around I got it near perfect.
Lessons Learned
My big takeaways from this project were to never rush things, but to also not procrastinate because a project of this scale takes a lot of time. I also learned to be very careful with my measurements to get everything precise. Another big takeaway from this process is to always make test prints, I learned that from printing my jacket too small.