My Book

A Character of a Book—

ABCWine is a beginners guidebook to Wine. It teaches the reader every immediate thing they need to know about wine. The book is aimed to a younger drinking audience (20-26) the type of people that love to drink, but are educated in school and culture, and want to learn how to saver wine and be able to describe the aroma's while they are getting drunk. The book is going to be a mix of sophistication and roughness.

The book will be small in size 5.17 in x 8 in, so it can fit in the readers hand, fit on a cluttered desk/coffee table, and so it's easy to carry around. It will be a hard cover, with a ribbon/cloth bookmark that is built into the spin. The fabric that I'm gonna use for the cover will be burgundy to reflect red wine. The paper will be a light stock and a cream colour. The edges of the pages will be rounded off, and along the outside pages they will have a half circle die cut that will have the number of the chapter (resembling an old dictionary). The dominate typeface that I am using will be Didot. Didot (Hoefler) is elegant, sharp, and sophisticated typeface. It is also french, and some of the best wine come from france hence why it is a perfect fit for my book.


The Evolution of The Project—

Over the course of the semester (and strike) I changed my book idea many times. My first idea was a experimental book that would house my memories, thoughts and photos from my trip to europe in the summer. The Europe theme would be just the base for me to explore visually my ideas and concept of what is book is. But after talking to a couple people, I found out that a lot of them were also doing books that related to where they were in the summer. So I chose to scrap that idea and was looking for something else to do.

After completing my experimental book (the Bruce Lee, karate chop book) I wanted expand it into an actual book. The concept of having two books side by side to create the experience was really interesting to me. But the subject itself wasn't really doing it for me.

My finale idea really did stem from my first idea. While I was In Europe I saw how wine was really central to everyone's daily life. When I was living with a family in italy I really learned a lot about wine and their love for it. Wine was served with every meal and the appreciation that they had for it was inspiring.

So now that I had my finale idea, I still didn't have my finale concept. I knew that I wanted to do something experimental, if it was possible but didn't know what yet. My first idea was to actually make a book the size of a wine bottle ( around 3.5 x 12) and have it be an accordion fold so if held up and let fall would mimic the motion of wine being spilt in a way. But it wasn't efficient because I wanted the reader to still learn something about wine and the culture while reading my book. So if i was gonna go experimental I would have to drop the book as a wine guide book and make it more about the experience. So I attempted to do a book where I would illustrate with wine and actually drink a whole bottle and write about the wine and what i was feeling and what was going on in my head. So each "chapter" would be the name of the wine that i was drinking. But I wasn't satisfied with how the wine was acting on the water colour paper. It was taking so long to dry and i wasn't seeing a good result. That dissatisfaction wasn't letting me enjoy the wine, It was a catastrophe so I let that idea go as well.

So I decided to do a typographic book with words that describe wine. Each word would be illustrated to it's deffinition. I wrote out wine 4 winos, it took me a while for me to figure out how i wanted it to look, and again i wasn't satisfied. I rethough this concept and i was like what was I thinking.

So back to the wine guide. That is how the evolution of my project went. (Not to mention a story about a Peruvian boy that is part of a tribe called the Ukukus, where he wears a balaclava with a mustache on it and that the tribe are the protectors of the glaciers (yeah i don't know why I event attempt these ideas...))


Making Choices —

Making choices is my biggest problem. As you can see by the evolution of my project, I have had so many ideas and haven't been able to make choices till it was to late. But the biggest choices that I have made has been choosing the typeface. Didot Hoefler kinda feel into my lap. I had a plan version of Didot but it didn't have enough variation and the thins weren't thin enough. So i search far and long for the perfect typeface. I wanted a typeface that was elegant but not old looking. After all this was a book targeted to a younger crowd. I tried so many scripted typefaces but never found the right one. The two that I did like were Affair and Burgues script, but I was looking for something that was in between them. Anyways one day I asked someone for Didoni, and they said that they only had Bidoni or Didot Hoefler. So i took Didot Hoefler and it was perfect for my book. The other choice was the size of the book. I finally stuck to a regular book format and a smaller size felt right for the type of book it was going to be.


Compromises —

I haven't really gotten far enough to see the compromises that I will have to make so that my book is ready for the grad show.


Pleasure and Frustration —

The pleasure of a book design class really came from actually hand making books. To think that I can take sheets of paper myself and use a needle and thread to create books still makes me feel happy. The best part (to this point) was creating 3 hand made books. I feel like i will never have to buy a sketch book or note pad again. I can make them myself so cheaply. Also learning all the different ways of sewing the books together was a real pleasure. The biggest frustration was that I felt that this book actually represents the person making it. I had a hard time separating the final book design from myself. It is too personal of an object. I thought that anything that I create will be a judgement of what kind of person/designer that I am. I guess I feel this way just because of the experience of creating books by hand. I felt like it was something intimate and something that shouldn't be taken lightly. I guess that's why it was so hard for me to make a choice in the end.

Coach House Press

I know Chris Beat me to it, but here are more pics of Couch house!

Suzy being shy as usual.

That's Helvetica son!!!

DRAGON

more coming soon...

Books...

So lately I've been trying to find books on swiss design at the library but they have all been taken out. I want my book to have a great structure so I can play freely within it while still being able to make the book look great. Here are some book that i've taken out.

The book that has really helped me out in my absence of a swiss design book is The Typographic Grid.

GOOSEBUMPS over and out.

I NEVER CAME HOME

This book will be a reflection on my trip to europe, a dissected view, or visual memories.

After living for 3 months i europe, this book is intended to reflect on my journey. But it is not a personal memoir, it will be at time true and fictional. meaning some stories in the book will be based on true events while others will be random expressions of my imagination. the book is all about experimentation of photography, typography, and illustrations. The story line of a trip in europe is only the foundation that will allow me to experiment with the fact, fiction, type, photography, and illustrations.

The factual stories will be written by hand and expressed through images that i took. The images themselves sometimes will be altered to express what i was feeling or alter the truth. the illustrations will solely be for fictional part of the story line. 

xpeace