Wednesday 13 November 2013

OUGD504: Design for print - Getting on with the action plan.

Today I started to work on my action plan that I made using the feedback from my second scheduled group crit. My action plan:

- Create a skeleton of my book so I know what pages need to be designed and how many pages need to be designed. 
- Get someone to follow my instructions before I do it to see if I have written enough/ too much/ appropriate information. 
- Take photographs in the print room to create a stock collection of photos ready to in put into the print page layouts. 
- Look at binding: Decide what binding to do, look for binding opportunities that allow a book to lay flat on a desk when open. 
- Look into ink resistant stock? Priyesh had been to a professional printers and came back with an example of static printing, in which people are able to peel away a print and then reapply it to a surface. The static print can be peeled away and stuck onto any surface eg. a wall and then put back. Harrison suggested this could be a good idea for avoiding any ink transfer. The student could peel away the instructions stick them onto a wall next to where they are working, and then re-apply the instructions back into the book once finished. 
I could also look at ways in which you could make paper hydrophobic, once it has been printed on. 

- Create a skeleton of my book so I know what pages need to be designed and how many pages need to be designed. 



I started to work on the first piece of advice I was given, to create a skeleton of my recipe book so I would be able to determine how many pages I would need to design and how dense my book would be etc, as well as working out prices for the production of my book.

Before I started to draw anything out I made a list of all the pages that I needed in my book. Once I had allocated all the pages for the recipes and typographic examples, I thought about if there was anything else that I may need in my book, then it struck me. I talk alot about in the book about the costs that you need to consider when undertaking a print process, things such as the price of flock paper, or price of the screen, however it could be beneficial, if there was some sort of key within the book that tells you all the prices for these such things, therefore people can work how much they are going to pay before they get to the print rooms. 

Below are the drawings of my books skeleton, that show the layout of the pages how they will appear when the book is open. 

From this book skeleton I have determined that I will be creating a book with 20 double sided pages. Not including the front and back cover, which will be printed on a different stock, there will be 18 double pages to print on a constant stock. 

- Get someone to follow my instructions before I do it to see if I have written enough/ too much/ appropriate information. 

I have found one of my peers is going to the print room within the next week to do screen printing. They have not done any screen printing since the first year inductions and so they are my perfect audience. This test will help me to determine if I am supplying enough, too much or the appropriate information, in the appropriate tone of voice. 

- Look into ink resistant stock.

There are a number of different things I have found that could improve/aid the durability of my book when it is used in the print rooms. These ideas were:

- Using static paper so that certain pages of the book could be peeled away/removed and then put onto the walls of the print room etc. This would make sure that the rest of the book would stay in good condition in a students bag etc, whilst the useable information would be still visible within the print room but out of the way of any ink transfer etc. 




The downfalls of decisions such as static paper is that the static in most cases is only temporary, once a the paper has been pealed apart a number of times the static begins to wear off and is no longer effective. Static paper also has a glossy/ plastic like finish and so could greatly effect the attitude of your piece, is it appropriate? 


- Flooding the full recipe pages with varnish. I had learnt from some secondary research I had done that varnish  or aqueous coatings are often used to improve the durability and protection of a design. I thought that if I could flood my full recipe pages with varnish that this could help to protect the pages, but due to their glossy finish also enhance the ability to be able to wipe away accidents such as ink transfers from the pages. 




- Varnish flood is not used for things so extensive as protecting work with the ability to clean it off. Its uses are for minor flaws such as fingerprints and smudges, and therefore would not be particularly appropriate for the project. 

- Printing onto acetate. This was my final consideration of how to solve the problem of protection. As acetate has a plastic like quality it is easily wipeable. I could print my recipes onto acetate then lay them over the colour printed photography etc. 

I went to Phil with my ideas of how to make my work more durable and protected in the print rooms and he gave me some advice. He told me that I should not try to worry too much about external factors, eg. worrying how each individual will look after your work. That sometimes editing these issues by changing your design, such as choosing to use static paper could hinder your work more than it could help it. Using static paper would not only be something I would have to propose, because its unavailable in such short amounts for me to only produce one book, but it could change the whole attitude of my book, therefore I will focus more on what stock works best collectively for all the print processes I am going to include.  




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