Kismet Arts Tangent

Book Making: PrintBookSignatures– Jill created this instructive guide to printing book signatures in InDesign (change printing range to the size of your signature, that way, when something goes wrong it’s not the whole book kind of wrong)

I saw this record with embossed lettering and I thought they had used a photographic manipulation where you offset a silhouette of the type to create depth artificially. I really liked that idea, so I thumbnailed a version of my book cover.

I tried this out in Photoshop, but the text didn’t pop out like I thought it would. It was too subtle and after Jill showed the class how E-PUB covers become so tiny on the digital display of a “bookshelf” on the iPad, I knew I had to take a bolder typographic approach, which led to a bold cover design with sans-serif all caps italic which didn’t have the intimate charm I was going for. And the image I put in the background was a library of congress photo which is available for anyone to use because of their commons-license, but it wasn’t big enough, therefore blurry.

The interior of my book has handwritten script for the chapter heads. So, I went to this idea of ornate typography. This was really fun to do. With handwritten things, it’s a matter of fluidity, so I had so many versions where the J’s curls did twist just right or the ink flowed to strongly. When I looked at them, even in their imperfection, they still were interesting, so I collaged them in my photoshop document along. I really like ink-splatter. You can’t fake it. This is real ink, folks. My favorite layer effect in photoshop is setting the transparency mode to “multiply.”

Update 11-3-12: I realized that grasuc (my conscientious commenter, see below) had a point. Something was lost from one to the other. Boxes are a little modern, but they help make the cover look a little more intentioned. And I think I was a bit extreme in my coloring, so I scaled it back and structured the soft splotches a little and I am feeling good about my design. (The final has the former image of Charlotte Bronte, I don’tknow why it inversed itself in the pdf forming, but I thought it looked kind of cool to keep it like that here.)

U pdate 4-11-13: I made this mock-up using this GraphicsFuel.com | Smart objects 3D book mockup (PSD).

I submitted this comp today for critique in Advertising Class. What is a comp? That was a question I was asking myself this week. It is something where you push it as far as you can go. It has to be proportional to your intended substrate (thing you are putting it on) and in this case, flush-mounted on foamcore– I’m sure each boss will have their own ideas of what a comp is when it comes to presentation, but something considered and fairly polished. Using your own amateur photography, or excellent photorealistic illustrative skills or as a last resort filching from the Google Images bin, which never turns out to be exactly what you want. A comp is not about submitting less than your intended vision.

Looking at just the copy, Tom Lenon said that I should say “Seattle Central” and not “education” lest the audience gets confused about the message. I don’t want them to persue just any education, but specifically my client’s establishment.

Tom Lenon said that “Helvetica” is on his list of “Never Use.” I realized and affirmed that I probably shouldn’t use the name “Steve Holt” (even though I know how much fun it is to see it and read it with that voice in your head saying it “STEVE HOLT!” like they do in my favorite television show, Arrested Development. Tom Lenon said that it needs to be more. This picture isn’t the picture of someone that would really buy into this “genie wish” stuff. What I need is a total doofus. I’ll work on making that visual so I can communicate better to my photographer that I am meeting on tuesday.

(Earlier Post Relating to This Project)