Category Archives: Book Making

23/03/2013 · 9:11 pm

Mind your language!

WARNING: This post contains swearing!

It seems like a long time ago now, but before Christmas I started working on the ISTD Sound Bites brief. After listening to several of the clips, I found swearing was a common theme and an interesting one at that. I’m not really much of a swearer, but I definitely learnt a few words during this project!

I packaged my work up on Tuesday and this weekend it is auditioning at the judges houses – has it got the ISTD factor? Let’s hope so – keep your fingers crossed for me!

Mind your language! is my dictionary of swear words and taboos from around the UK. It’s A3 in size for a big impact, like the swear words contained inside!

I used a selection of woodblock type to create the titles, quotes and end paper pattern of exclamation marks.

I divided the UK into sections to make it easy for the reader to navigate the dictionary: Scotland, The North, The Midlands, The East, The South, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The left hand page contains the definitions and the right, the experimental visual of the word:

Barstarrd

Raining (Pisssin it daaaaan)

Muva fucka

It was good fun listening to people discuss swearing and then transcribing how the words are spoken. I’d never really thought about it before, but found it  interesting to hear about the changing attitudes to swearing – generations and regions all have different opinions. One word could be considered very offensive in one area but be part of everyday language in another.

Arrrsss

Shittt

Cockney rhyming slang – Brahms & List (Pissed)

Flippin’ eck

Nack Kerred

My tutors, Philippa and Barrie, said that when they were marking it for assessment, they were sounding out the words – which I can just imagine and makes me smile. I hope everyone reading this had been doing the same too, even if it’s just in your head.

As part of the definitions, I wrote some examples of how the words would be used in conversation – that was interesting! Ha

This tastes like shit (adj.)
Can you stop talking shit? (adj.)
When he had me by the throat I was absolutely shit scared. (v.)
Oh shit, I’ve missed the bus! (interj.)

All good fun! So what’s the conclusion? Whether you think swearing is inappropriate and show a lack of vocabulary or is a healthy way to emphasise your feelings…

… everyone’s got an opinion on swearing!

To finish, I japanese stab bound my dictionary:

This project was stressful, but fun. They’re just words, but they have so much power! I originally had more planned, but figured 83 pages was enough of a challenge. Swearing is interesting and I think I’d like to look into it again in the future – another thing to add to the long list!

Fingers crossed, the judges won’t be offended and will see the fun side (and brilliant typography :P ). Fingers crossed for good news!

Until then… What do you think? If you want to see more, there’s a few more photos on my website.

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31/05/2012 · 12:27 pm

‘I call them baps to amuse my southern wife’ – D&AD 2012

…A quote from Anthony Burrill, who I contacted with questions for my D&AD Typographic Circle supplement project. Any ideas what I asked him for that response? Comment!

So, now that it is past the submission deadline I’m safe to share this because no one can steal it. I had a William Shakespeare moment about entering; to enter or not to enter, that is the question? But decided not to in the end because there was quite a lot I would have liked to change before submitting and also I want to focus on getting YCN right.

I did briefly mention which brief I was doing but didn’t go into that much detail so just to recap, I tackled the Typographic Circle brief set by Domenic Lippa of Pentagram. This required that we produce a supplement to accompany the Typographic Circle’s annual Circular magazine, with a strong focus on typography. We had to chose 3 designer/typographers who had spoken for the Typographic Circle and theme the supplement around them.

I chose Jonathan Barnbrook, Anthony Burrill and Angus Hyland. All have very different styles, attitudes and experiences so I thought this would make my content interesting to compare and help to give a strong character. I decided I wanted to produce 3 separate booklets so I needed to make sure the style of each was consistent but showed the different personality of each designer. I also wanted to make sure that my booklets didn’t have the same content available if you googled the designer, so I sent an email containing just over 20 questions to each and crossed my fingers.

First to reply was Anthony Burrill, who I had seen at Leeds Print Festival. Jonathan Barnbrook replied whilst eating his breakfast, which I thought was really nice of him – not sure I would reply to students during my breakfast! Unfortunately I received an email from Donna from Pentagram (on behalf of Angus Hyland) explaining that they have a policy in place that the designers can’t reply to students personally as they are too busy. I totally understood – I wasn’t sure if any of the designers would reply as I knew there would be a lot of students trying to contact them for the D&AD brief. Despite not being able to answer my questions, Pentagram sent me some mini books of their work and a lovely handwritten note – thanks Donna!

Undeterred, I selected another designer; Morag Myerscough. She replied even though she was away in Sweden – I have to say, I am really impressed by the designers who are obviously busy and have made time to reply to my questions. It really helped my idea work.

I have just realised that is a lot of writing and there has been no imagery yet! Sorry, you know how I love to waffle! Anyway… I won’t go through the whole design process in one post so here are images of the final supplements:

As you can see, my approach was purely typographic. I wanted to use an interesting format to compliment the simplistic style so I decided to use tip-ins to make the questions and answers visually interesting, trying to steer away from using imagery to ‘fill the space’. I chose to design everything in black, white and grey and team it with coloured stock to create contrast and different tones. I There are quite a few pages so I have done some quick ‘flick through’ stop motions:

Morag Myerscough:


Anthony Burrill:


Jonathan Barnbrook:

This project was completed WAY back in February so looking at it now is interesting and a bit cringey. There is a lot that I would change now and I am looking into re-fining them this summer. Minimalism is definitely the way forward with these as I sometimes went just a bit too far. Lesson learnt!

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08/03/2012 · 6:51 pm

Stamping with Stephen

On Tuesday I attended a rubber stamp workshop ran by the lovely Stephen Fowler. I blogged about it earlier for the course blog but I still have plenty to show you here!

I had heard of rubber stamping before as Lucy had one made professionally for her Limited Edition project, however I hadn’t really thought about using one. You’d be surprised what you can produce from cutting a rubber though…

Stephen showed us some of his work and the different possibilities achievable  from using rubber stamps. There was some really playful results from combining different stamps, different colours and over printing different shapes. A lot of the work reminded me of print making as it has the same kind of effect – it’s essentially the same process as linocut but you don’t need the big Albion press.

Stephen is such a character! He started to get really passionate about rubbers (WHSmith own brand are Stephen’s top tip!) which reminded me of us Graphics geeks and our discussions about typography. Who knows what outsiders think when they listen to our conversations!?  I don’t care though :)

After watching Stephen demonstrate the process, we were all keen to give it a go ourselves:

Sunjay with his Sun and Lucy with her moustache looking excited!

Amy’s feather came out really well due to the lovely detail…

… and I really liked Tom’s illuminati inspired pattern (It’s triangles, of course I liked it!)

For my stamp, I cut a triangular pattern into the edges of the rubber and chose a bright orange ink  called Tangelo! The inks had some great names with my favourite being a light green called Pear Tart – as Philippa said, it sounds good enough to eat!

I had planned to try and form some letterforms from my triangles but it didn’t really work as well as I had hoped.

Meanwhile, Jack was creating accessories for his smiley face and Heather was planning an alien invasion…

After a little play around with our stamps and the combination of inks, we all made little booklets and collected each others stamps(such a sweet idea!). I chose to make a concertina style book…

Amy stamping her feather in my book.

I decided that I would create a pattern using my stamp to create a cover for my little booklet…

… and topped off with a matching belly band:

Talveer Uppal & Jack Kingham

Amy Sellers & Heather Scott

Lucy Perkins & Aaron Remedios

Sam Dowse & Sunjay Morar

I love my little book. A lovely reminder of the day and something that will hopefully be worth a lot in a few years to come when we’re all famous Graphic Designers! ;)

Thanks for sharing your skill with us Stephen! You can see more of Stephen’s work on his blog. He taught 4 groups over 2 days, so for more work from the other groups have a look at Emma and Dave’s blogs!
Get your rubbers out and get stamping away!

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05/02/2012 · 10:48 am

The art of Book Binding : How to…

Want to know how to make a small, pamphlet stitch, hand-made book?

Well thanks to my one of Visual Expression tutors, I can show you how to in 16 easy steps (Sounds like a lot but I’ve really broken it down)! Last Monday I was one of a few students who had a book binding workshop courtesy of Philippa.

You will need:
5 A5 sheets of white paper (so 2 and a half sheets of A4)
2 A5 sheets of coloured paper (so an A4 sheet split into 2)
1 A4 sheet of patterned paper/photo/wallpaper – for the cover of your book
2 pieces of grey board slightly bigger than A6 each (so roughly 115mm x 160mm)
Sheets of scrap paper/ newspaper for gluing
1 big needle
30cm of white linen thread
PVA glue
A stiff bristled brush
30cm ruler
Pencil
Scissors

1. Fold all of your A5 sheets in half – so 5 white & 2 coloured

2. Put them inside one another, with the 2 coloured on the outside and the 5 white in the middle.

3. Divide the length edge into an even number (so 6 will have 5 marks, 4 will have 3 etc) and mark onto on the spine of your paper.


4. Fold your pages out flat and using a needle, pierce holes into the fold where you’ve made the odd number of marks.

5. Number your holes, with 1 always in the centre. So here, 3-2-1-4-5 but if you are doing 3 holes then 2-1-3-1.

6. Spread your pages flat again. Starting from the top, middle hole (1), sew into the pages. Leave a bit of thread out loose so that you don’t lose the end. Then use this code to complete the stitching:

1-2-3-2–4-5-4-1

1 down, up to 2, down to 3, back up to 2, over 1 and down to 4, up to 5, down to 4 and back up to 1.

Make sure you pull your thread as you go along so it is nice and tight.

7. At hole 1, separate the two ends of your thread so one is one side and the other of the stitch going from hole 2 to 4. Tie into a knot and trim the ends. So that’s your pages done… Now for the messy part!

8. This is where you make the hardback cover. Lay your chosen A4 piece of cover paper/photo/wallpaper landscape design down, with your two pieces of grey board placed roughly in the centre.

Put one of your grey boards on top of a piece of scrap paper and use the stiff bristled brush to apply the PVA glue. ‘Stab’ the glue onto the board so that the glue is absorbed slightly.

Place your grey board glue side down, roughly into the middle of your cover paper.

9. From your glued grey board measure 8mm and make a small pencil mark at the top and bottom.

Repeat the gluing process (using fresh scrap paper) and align it with the marks you just made…. like:

10. Measure 5mm diagonally from each corner of the grey boards and then trim the cover paper into curves…

11. Another messy part!

Place some scrap paper underneath your cover. Using the brush, apply PVA glue to the bottom flap. Then move your cover up, away from the glue and fold the scrap paper over on its self so the glue is hidden. Next use the folded part of the scrap paper to pull the flap up and over, onto the grey board. Smooth the flap down and repeat for the top flap….

… like so:

12. Using your nail, press down on the corners to crease the over hang….

… so it looks like this:

13. Repeat the same gluing process with the left and right side flaps, ensuring that the corners are folded in. This will make sure you get crisp, square corners.

14. To attach the pages to your cover, align your pages so that you have an equal amount of cover at the top and bottom. Also make sure that you are 4mm (half way) into the gap that you have created for the spine. Place a piece of scrap paper in between your 2 coloured pages….

… and using the brush, apply PVA glue. Spread the glue from the centre of the page, outwards but make sure you glue up to the edges!

15. Fold the page over, remove the scrap paper and smooth out any creases.

16. Repeat for the other side…

Prep

Glue

Smooth out

And voila…

…a handmade pamphlet book! You can, of course, make books with more pages (multiple signatures) if you are feeling really booky.

I hope that wasn’t too confusing? If you make a book, take a photo and show me – I’d love to see what you create :)

I made 3 books this week as some students and I volunteered to teach others some book binding skills:

You can read more in my post on Discourse, our course blog.

I had great fun getting booky again- I have missed it. The last time I made a book was back in College when I made a matching collection of books – Hardback pamphlet, Japanese stab bound and Hardback Japanese stab bound. I also made a book about Royal Mail using recycled post items, with a jiffy bag as the cover and envelopes as the pages.

Going to be putting these book binding skills to practice in the D&AD and istd projects – watch this space!

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14/05/2011 · 8:24 pm

End of Year One!

I can’t believe it’s the end of my first year at University already! Thank god for being a design student – NO EXAMS! Eeek :)

I have had such an amazing year, I don’t know how I can top it… oh wait, yeah I do – Year two! ;)

I had my feedback review yesterday with T-Fab and Glen. I was a nervous wreck! Trust me to have my review on Friday the 13th! Without trying to sound big headed, I knew I was going to get onto next year as I hadn’t failed any projects. I just wanted good grades soooooo badly! All of us had been working our bums off all year in the hope of reaching that golden grade, a 1st! Throughout the week I was hearing all these amazing grades people had achieved – the pressure was on!

For our review we had to produce a reflective log and 3 posters which illustrated our experience of the year.

When I saw I had Glen, I wanted to make a good impression. I even told Tim and Glen in the review, eek! We will have Glen as a tutor at some point in the future so it doesn’t hurt to make a good impression does it? ;)

For my log I decided to have a theme. When looking around my room I spotted an old school sweet shop jar and a lightbulb popped above my head – DING!

I chose to produce it in a booklet form, with 8 sides – 2 A3 pages folded into A5 size:

I went for candy stripes, mint greens, chocolate browns and some brown paper bag texture.

I decided to finish it off by actually  making brown paper bags for the logs to stay in as I wasn’t binding the booklet together:

I cut out all of the little triangles to give it a proper paper bag feel!! In my review, Glen said I should have used pinking shears – HAHA! Yeah that would have been easier!

Jack thought I was a bit weird for wanting to do my photos in the grass, but I think it gives it quite an organic feel (with some strands of grass and a few shadows – I think it makes it more real?), something a bit different to the usual black or white background and also it was a lovely day so I took advantage :)

Above is the first double page spread, showing my before and after reflections.

Next (above) is the centrefold, which was a bit surplus to requirements so I decided to do a bit of shameless promo of the ol’ blog! Both tutors said they had visited my blog and Glen encouraged me to keep it up! (Of course I was going to anyway… I love blogging)

The last double page spread, I talk about my inspirations and how I think I can improve in the future…

…and the last page, the little birdy has left the bunting and is flying away with my sign ‘To be continued…’

I was really pleased with how my log turned out and you may have noticed the little birdy and owl perched on the bunting which I added for a bit of personality (and because I do liken myself to an owl due to my nocturnal behaviour)! The tutors said they liked the quirkiness, so I will try and incorporate some quirkiness into my work in the future!

For my posters I used 3 statements which I had learnt/thought were appropriate this year:

Don’t throw ideas away*                        * They might help you later

I added printed the poster out and then added the yellow lines around IDEAS to give it a bit of a crafty feel.

Make Your Mark – In pencil, I typographically illustrated all the different ways you could make your mark/ be successful

Inspiration is in everything – You just need to see it!

I prefer my log to my posters, but I prefer my grades to both :)

On Tuesday, I had completed the last part of CVP (Contextualising Visual Practice – basically the theory part of the course) by giving a group presentation with Lucy and Amber aka The Dream Team. We chose to analyse the semiotics behind David Beckham’s 2008 iconic Armani briefs advert.

I’m not sure how our audience felt about spending 10 mins looking at/listening to us analyse Beckham’s pants but the tutors seemed to like it – We got 74 which is a 1st! Eeeeek! Combine this with my essay mark (69) and overall I got a 1st for the CVP unit!

I was still waiting for feedback from two other projects which were handed in just before easter – The Beauty of Books (Book Cover) and Sonic Soundscapes (Which I haven’t posted about yet…). I have been desperate to get a 1st all year, so I was SO happy when I got a first for my Book Cover project! Eeeeeek! The other project, Sonic Soundscapes, I had felt a bit out of my comfort zone so was just going to be happy passing really but I got 64 (2:1) so really pleased with that!

The year is broken down into 3 units: Graphic Design, Visual Expression and CVP. Totalling up my module scores (GD=63, VE=63, CVP=72) my grade for Year 1 is… 66(unless it changes during moderation)! So a mid 2:1 – I’m really happy with that! First year doesn’t count towards our final degree, but I would be pretty happy if it did. I just have to try and maintain the same level and improve a bit for 2nd year and I am up for the challenge! I already miss the workload and I only finished yesterday… what am I going to do with 4 months off?

Just as a last note to this post… I hope everyone else on my course got the grades they wanted and that I will see you all back in Lincoln September time :)

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