Finished Book

Today I received a call from Modern Book Binders informing me that they had finished my book, which was a day earlier than expected. I was super excited, so drove out to Petone after I finished class at 12pm.

When I picked up the book, I opened it to have a look at it, and was extremely happy with the outcome of it. It's amazing to see how the perfect binding makes it look so much more sophisticated and professional. I was definitely over the moon with the final piece.

This afternoon, I fitted the final brown card sleeve to the book as well, making sure to line up the dotted text that was laser cut on the front of the page.

I'm really looking forward to the final presentation on Thursday, not only to show the others my final book, but to see how everyone else's books have developed and turned out.

Week Five: Session One

Today's class was just for final critiquings for those that hadn't already gone to print or get their book bound. However, I was wary of how long it could take the binders, and took it out to Modern Book Binders in Petone this morning. That way it's guaranteed to be ready by our final presentation next Thursday, and it also gives me a bit of time in case something goes wrong at the binders and they require another laser cut cover or something like that.

I'm super excited to go pick up my book from Petone next week, and have a feeling that it's going to look super sophisticated and clean, and I feel that it's come a long way since my initial concepts. If you compare the final back to my initial few concepts for my book cover and even the inside of the book, it's definitely developed an extremely long way and now finally reflects the qualities I had originally written down on my concepting checklist.

Planning the Production Process

This morning I decided to plan and lay out exactly what I needed to do during the Production Process, and plan out a timeline to make sure it was all finished on time.

In order to produce my book, I need to:
- Print "Studio Pacific Architecture" in black ink onto black SRA3 Card
- Laser Cut the pattern onto the black SRA3 card
- Laser Cut a matching sleeve onto brown card
- Take the PDF of my book for printing
- Take my book to Modern Book Binders.
- Fold the sleeve to the book once picked up

I then called Modern Book Binders, and asked how long a single book would take to be perfect bound, and they suggested bringing it in at least 4-5 working days in advance, especially if there is going to be a whole heap of students bringing them in for binding, as they will do "first in first served", and there is the chance of some people missing out.

With this in mind, I would want to collect my book Wednesday at the latest. That way, I have time to fit the brown card sleeve to the book. They're not open on weekends, so I need to take it in Thursday to be make sure it's ready for hand-in. I then need to allow a full day for the printing of the booklet, as well as day for laser cutting and printing onto the black card.

My production timeline is below:

Sunday 15th May: Print black text onto black card
Monday 16th May: Laser cut the black card, as well as the brown card sleeve
Tuesday 17th May: Take PDF of book to Ink Digital for printing
Wednesday 18th May: Pick up printing from Ink Digital
Thursday 19th May: Take my cover and printed book our to Modern Book Binders
Wednesday 25th May: Pick up book and fit the brown card sleeve
Thursday 26th May: Final Presentation

Week Four: Session One

For today's class, we had our interim presentation of our book cover designs. At the beginning, we laid them all out on a bunch of tables, with some paper next to each concept for some feedback. I put down three concepts, which can be seen in my physical workbook, although the laser cut one with the dotted font was definitely my favourite.

I had also prepared some section/chapter openers in a similar style (using the dotted font) so that they could get a fair idea of how I was going to change the inside of my book in relation to the cover.

I was super stoked with how the laser cutting had turned out, and I got a lot of really good feedback on my concepts. The words on my feedback list were really reflecting the words I put on my concepting checklist back in term one, which was a huge positive. I was getting words such as "sophisticated", "clean", and "natural" as some of the feedback.

One suggestion that Fay had, was to go through and round all of the 'dotted' pieces, as a lot of them have random sharp pieces sticking out.

I feel like I'm close to my final book cover, and once I've rounded these dots, and altered the inside of the book, I'm going to begin my final production process.

Week Three: Session One

Over the past few days, I had been experimenting with a few different ideas. I had gone out and bought some card and other materials to have a play around with. The main one which I experimented with (and can be seen in my physical workbook) is the idea of embossing into the cover. I played around with embossing it into the page, or having it coming out of the page.

I also had a go at doing some Japanese binding with some black thread. It was good to get a test one done, as I realised that if I am to use this method, I will either need to use some thicker thread, or go through multiple times. I also noticed that it's quite difficult to make the thread real tight which could be an issue. If I choose this binding method, I will either need to have a few more test runs, or get it bound at Modern Book Binders or some other book binding store.

By next week, we have been asked to have one typographic cover and one material cover. I'm going to get onto the Laser Cutter and give that a go, so that I can begin playing with the idea of creating Facades as my book cover design. I'm also going to head into Big Picture and print out a typographic book cover with some clear ink, white on white.

Week Two: Session One

During today's class, we presented our developed Fuse cover designs. I presented a couple, which had potential, although a few of them weren't exactly conveying "architecture" as such.

For the rest of the class, we were looking at different methods of binding, and researching different materials etc that we could create our book from. There are a few methods which I want to try out, such as embossing, printing with clear ink, and also laser cutting.

By next week we have been asked to have a few concepts for the book cover, this time having them as material covers rather than just using a digital typeface.