PICTURE BOOK: FINAL
I H A T E C O N C E R T I N A S
This is not an exaggeration, concertinas are impossible to stick together and no matter how many tests I do they all end up as uneven as the last. After four tries I finally have the final book, although it is still not as neat as I had hoped it would be.
The book consists of sixteen printed sheets of A4 paper, giving the concertina thirty two pages when folded, though it is double sided. The exterior of the book, shown with the title page, creates a singular portrait when fully opened, measuring at 233cm when laid flat. The interior, shown on the reverse, contains a commentary with no imagery, the vague nature of the text allows the audience to be able to view either side of the book first without being confused by the content.
Overall I think I am happy with the outcome of this picture book, by choosing a subject that meant a lot to me personally and had a different attitude to creating the work. I considered the audiences perspective a lot more and the impact of including or excluding certain things from the narrative in the book. I found using a simple approach and not overcomplicating one idea gave me the space to create an honest piece of work that really reflected my own feelings without being too unbearable for the audience to view.
I'm not sure why I had such a hard time putting together the picture book, I think the double sided concertina was maybe too ambitious for a first attempt, though it was important to the concept of my picture book.
I chose to put the book together in stages, so as to not confuse myself. I had calculated the size of each of the designs before hand in photoshop to ensure they would be all be correct for when it came to putting the book together.
I began with the exterior, glueing the plain paper to the individual sheets, I took my time compared to previous tests, and was able to finish the first half of the process with the book looking accurate in all areas. As the glue reacted with the thin paper I noticed the sheets had begun to wrinkle, this didn't negatively impact the outcome of my picture book too severely as I had the theme of water throughout and the wrinkles could be considered ripples of sorts. However it was the dog-earing that was beginning to happen that worried me, the thin paper on the front and back page was pulling up and creasing in areas so I had to find a solution.
I cut small pieces of A5 card to fit in to the front and back of the book, this way the exposed areas wouldn't get dog-eared, and when stood up the book would have more strength.
One thing that I noticed as I was putting together the interior of the picture book is that some areas of the text was in line with the folds and so I would have a crease going through some sentences. I should have considered this when aligning the text in photoshop however at the time it was too late for me to redesign and print out a new version, so I'm just stuck with it.
Once I stuck the interior sides down I noticed the alignment of the folds had begun to move, I don't know how it happened but it moved the spacing of all the pages in the book. It will no longer sit perfectly flat, and the edges are misaligned.
After all the hassle the concertina had taken before this I honestly wasn't surprised. I'm not entirely disappointed with the result, if I had the chance to do this project again I would not chose a concertina design. I would like to have spent more time on the digital redrawing of the photos as I did rush them thinking they wouldn't be the focus of the book. Although I would also like to have used more traditional media, given the end product of the project had to be scanned and printed digitally I didn't want the extra work and so chose to work directly with digital, I think the photos could have looked quite effective if they had been drawn perhaps with charcoal or a bulky pencil.
