What is book design? documenting my learning process

I began by thinking about different types of book form and planning how I would creatively record my progress as a book designer. These ideas then evolved during the course into a series of ‘sketchlogs’ to complement this blog for my final submission.

My Learning Log and Blog

Influential books

Mindmap of Book Design History

Little Black Fish by Iranian political author Sadek Chubak Influen

Feminist zines

Mindmap of my influential books

Then I considered the types of books that I like or have influenced me in the context of the history of book design.

See Influential books

See History of Book Design

Fanzines

Creative design process

Diversity – women and men all look like different individuals (though women and men are still stereotypes in the isotopic symbols.

Diversity within the same colour

Groups are distinguished, but also people in groups can be different.

Duplicate multiply. This has the most of my mother’s expression, but my earrings.

Linear burn and adjust brightness and contrast. This is the most mixed of the images.

Linear dodge. My mothers hair and mouth with my eyes. Looks dreamlike.

Hard mix. My eyes and my mother’s mouth. Looks young and interesting.

The creative design process, and my first project on identity. At this point the model was a linear one – this was subsequently revised as my creative process evolved.

Creative Design Process: workflow

My Creative Design process: Identity

Publishing models

Assignment 1: Introducing yourself – zine

My Fanzine Title

My Fanzine P1

My Fanzine P3

My Fanzine P4

My Fanzine P5

My Fanzine P6

My Fanzine P7

Selected best works

And the things I enjoyed doing most:

Course assignments and project : all links

1: Beginning

Assignment 1: My Zine

Project 1.1 Identity

Then a woman who can feel more like a man.

2 : Form and Function

Assignment 2: Jacket Design On the Road

3 : Principles

Assignment 3: My Little Book of Good Photography, Bad Photography

Project 3.1b Experimental Typography

Project 3.2 Illustrating Text

Jabberwocky

Venice

4 : Materials and processes

Assignment 4: Altered Book The Greed Game

Projects: Experimental Book Anon

Part 5: Production

Assignment 5: Self-published book:
A to Z from Armageddon

Selected pages only for copyright reasons please see physical book.

Letter J image

Letter N image

Sunset

Letter C image

Letter E image

Oman childbirth

Oman Title Page woodcut composite

tissue drawing – UAE Shkha Sanaa

alternative crop of page 8

Iran pp 19-20 SAVAK Secret Police

Let

Zemni Design Blog is written by Linda Mayoux .

It is part of my work for a BA degree in Visual Communication with Open College of the Arts. It brings together my work and thoughts for:

Book Design 1: Principles and Process
Zemni artist’s statement
About Zemni
About this Blog

Part 1: Beginning (to be uploaded)

Projects:

My Fanzine Title

My Fanzine P1

My Fanzine P3

My Fanzine P4

My Fanzine P5

My Fanzine P6

My Fanzine P7

1.1 What is Book Design?
1.2 Printing and Publishing
1.3 Creative Design Process

Assignment 1: Introducing Yourself – ‘zine’

Part 2: Form and Function (to be uploaded)

The sketch from the text

Images of hobos

Relationships

Original sketch looking out over San Francisco

2.1 Anatomy of a book
2.2 Book genres
2.3 Front cover
2.4 Approaches to design

Assignment 2 Jacket Design – On the Road

Part 3: Principles and Process

Tahoma

Experimental Type Marinetti

Layout Mockup

Good Typography Back Cover

Good Typography Page 5 Readability

Good Typography Page 7 Impact

Assignment 3 My Little Book of…

Part 4: Materials and processes

Anon concertina book

Title Page

2/3 Wake Up (splurge needs sorting in Photoshop)

4/5 Xmas – background on right needs to be dimmed down

6/7 Vortex. In the left image I need to use Photoshop to blend in the insect top left.

8/9 Dark Place

10/11 Prayer

12/13 Crazy – is the diving figure top left prominent enough?

14/15 Calming

16 You’re Worth It

4.1 Paper

Project 4.1: Paper and Ephemera

4.2 Managing colour

Project 4.2 Creating images

4.3 Printing process

Project 4.3 Printing your images

4.4 Collating and Binding: alternative approaches

Project 4.4 Collating and binding your images

Assignment 4 Altered book: The Greed Game

Outside Cover

Title Page

Iran pp 19-20 SAVAK Secret Police

Pages 17 and 18 2500 Anniversary Extravaganza

UAE

Mushroom with texture

Oman history

Oman women – acrylic ink and condensed watercolour drip painting

Oman Sultan in his lair – acriylic and watercolour drip image

Part 5: Production

5.1 Reflective Exercise

Self-publishing

5.2 Project Workflow

Assignment 5: Book – A is for …

Logbook and Sketchbooks

This blog gives overviews, pdfs and links to other Internet materials for my coursework. It helps me to keep track of all the video and other materials available on the web. It provides a way of helping me to think through interconnections and look at progressive development of my ideas through the course. It complements rather than duplicates:

Logbook for the course where the ideas discussed here are presented in physical form as A2 collaged narratives of the development of my ideas through the course (see sample photos forthcoming)

Sketchbook 1: On the Road (pdf forthcoming) for assignment 2.

Sketchbook 2: Design Experiments (pdf forthcoming) for parts 2 and 3.

Sketchbook 3: Typeface samples (pdf forthcoming) for part 3.

Sketchbook 4: Islamic identities (pdf forthcoming) for part 4.

Sketchbook 5: Type experiments (pdf forthcoming) for part 5.

Companion websites and blogs

Zemni Illustration complements my blogs for other OCA courses.

Zemniimages home page that links my various blogs

List of other OCA courses

Zemniimages.com professional site to order or download images.

Review of achievements

I started this course with very little knowledge of Book Design or Graphic Design, and studied in parallel to courses on illustration and printmaking. All these courses have complemented each other and fed into each other as a very stimulating learning curve in which my tutor has been very instrumental in encouraging my experimentation. I have enjoyed a wide range of topics in the course, particularly:

creating my own images and text and experimenting with different design and layout options. I enjoyed making the sketchbook for On the Road drawing while listening to the text. I also enjoy drawing, painting and photography as both illustration and fine art. I do not so much enjoy working with the images and text of others as a purely layout exercise. Though I did enjoy interpreting Jabberwocky in Project 2: Illustrating Text and my initial experiments on layout in grid types.

exploration of different letterforms and calligraphy as in: Islamic Typography and my initial work on Western Typography in Project 3.1a Type Samples Sketchbook
exploration of expressive type Project 3.1b Experimental Typography and some of the work of other typographers in Experimental Typography and Concrete Poetry
physical manipulation and exploration of different types of paper and materials in Assignment 4 (forthcoming), including collage
exploration of different types of drawing and painting tools and printmaking processes and how these interact with different types of paper as I have done in other courses: Illustration 2: Draw, draw and draw again and Hybrids: Mixing and Matching Tools, and experiments with Pencil drawing, Glue drawing, Mesh drawing and Charcoal drawing – some of which I use also in Assignment 4: The Greed Game.
working digitally to either combine analogue images, or produce purely digital output as in my work for Illustration 2: Hybrids: mixing and matching tools. I have enjoyed going in depth and pushing the creative boundaries of InDesign and Illustrator in Project 3.1b Experimental Typography, Assignment 3 on Good and Bad Typography, Project 4.1 Anonymous , Assignment 4: The Greed Game and Assignment 5: A to Z from Armageddon
Self-publishing as in Assignment 5: A to Z from Armageddon. I hope to do a lot more of this in future.

As a support to my own exploration I have enjoyed:

- - looking at the work of Modernist and experimental designers and typographers in the Western tradition, including designers like: Dan Eldon, Muller Brockman, Marinetti and the different uses of visual dynamics of line, shape and colour.
  - looking at design in different cultures and the different uses of line, shape and colour as for example Islamic Design in Assignment 4: Saudi Art, Iranian Art: Geometric, Iranian Art: Miniatures, Iranian Art: Modern, Islamic Geometric Design. In other OCA courses I have also looked in detail at Japanese and African traditions, and this is something that is very much part of my scope of interest as I move forward to Visual Communications Level 2 courses.

Things I would like to explore further going forward

visual dynamics of design
calligraphy and expressive type and visual dynamics of letterforms – following on from my work in Assignments 3 and 4
using different papers and materials for printing and then seeing how to enhance the effects through further digital manipulation in Photoshop – drawing also on work for OCA Printmaking 1 and Illustration 2.
commercial self-publishing options and process, including further work on Layout and Narrative.

See also my artist statement for my design work:

https://design.zemniimages.info/overview/artist-statement-design/

Part 1: Beginning

History of Book Design: printing and publishing
The Creative Design Process
Assignment: my Books Zine

Part 2 : Form and Function

The Anatomy of a Book
Book Genres
Front Cover
Approaches to Design
Assignment: Jacket Design