Homestyle

Look there's no doubt that it would be easy to get our materials, create a series of spreads based on the 9" x 7" output page size and send it off in a PDF file along with cover and back cover art to LuLu and be done with it. And I know that if the course this semester had been established from the outset with this pod system, our group, it's mission and more time to devote to all aspects of it; going with LuLu might seem like more of a cop out. But we don't have much time and we're all trying to find a balance between how deep we delve into the visual culture subject and how snazzy our method is for displaying our results. 

I can say this much, if the two aspects of this project our not on equal ground, then one or the other had better be pretty damn impressive. Otherwise the project as a whole will seem like a joke. So with that, let's consider some of the points surrounding the home made approach to this project.

When we think about doing this on our own at a reasonable rate, there are a few things that would have to understand as parameters. Some might define them as limitations, let's just say they are the specs available to us. 

• Maximum printing size of 11" x 17"
• No possibility of duplex without glueing or french folds
• Spiral, saddle, hand sewn and fold bindings (no perfect bind)

Not everyone has a large format printer for doing tabloid size printouts at home, but the graphic design lab at Pollak has a reasonable rate on color prints after the first print.

Let's jump right to the page size options if printing from home and taking into account half inch margins. If you were able to print out on tabloid size paper then you would have the option of doing two 5" x 8" pages per print out. If you decided to print on 8.5" x 11" paper then you would yield two pages of 5" x 7.5" per print or one 6" x 9" page per print.

Personally I'm not in favour of having any books that are blank on either the left or right hand page of a spread—not every spread at least. There are viable ways of doing left and right printed spreads, as I'm sure some of you have done in the past. French folding and glue by means of a tab or extended edge work really well. If any other suggestions for getting full spreads are out there then post a remark, please. 

In the post discussing the LuLu option, the idea that this option might lack personality was addressed. That any room for special creative features would be eliminated if the book was PDF'd and sent to someone else for a simple machine made print and bind. There's no doubt about this, although just how soul less would depend more on the content. But it can't be argued that we don't have any interesting options available with a LuLu book. With that I want to point out a few things I have spotted that, if made on our own terms might result in a stronger project.

For myself in the past, I've experimented doing some cover design work on a "how to" booklet where my paper choice was a heavy weight Canson color stock. They're called Mi-Tientes. They have a bit of tooth to them, come in a wide array of colours and print extremely well on an ink jet printer. 

Davie board can be used in a couple of ways for covering a set of pages. I have a tutorial that binds together a set of pages into signatures with simple thread and wraps them in an inner paper cover. Then the paper cover is finished off with a piece of davie board for the front and back. Check out the images for more detail. Then davie board can be decorated in a number of ways from collage or single prints, to hand stamping a title. Davie board could also be embossed or printed on in the letterpress studio by myself, Jennifer or Jordy.

Another interesting concept I found was using a slip box cover. A slip box cover could be created to hold all of our volumes or each individual members work if we opted for an unconventional binding method i.e. loose pages. See the images for more detail on this as well. 

The last thing I want to address in this post before we meet again on Wednesday the 19th is uniformity. Whatever method or resource we choose for printing and binding this project, we must have a decision made on a couple of things.

• Type choices for headlines, sub heads, captions and copy
• Minimum and maximum volume size
• An overall project title
• A cover system
• If there is and who is responsible for an "intro" volume

Way I see it, it's go time. I'm pretty sure the consensus is that if this was completed by the first week of December, we'd all be happy with that and could focus on our other classes. I think the toughest part to this project after finalizing our choices on print, is going to be coming up with copy for our volumes. Each of us is going to have to produce a legitimate body of text—regardless of how much—that not only justifies what visuals they are presenting but also connects to our universal idea on the code of visual culture in Shockoe Bottom. 

—sean