I didn’t want to post this until my first year students had completed their hand drawn type project. It’s a pen that writes in the typeface Helvetica – perfect for the serious typoholic! If only…
Archives for the month of: February, 2009
This month I have been mostly browsing…
A fantastic design book publisher – unique titles and really cool books:
http://www.victionary.com/
The wonderful books on lettering by Doyald Young (a birthday present methinks!)
http://www.doyaldyoung.com/index.html
A great blog on book cover design
http://bookdesign.wordpress.com/
Some great graphic design links
http://www.designer-daily.com/
A great source for cheap craft tools
http://www.toolspot.co.uk/
The new season is about to start and I’m excited!
http://www.planetf1.com/
A superb collection of the visually interesting…
http://ffffound.com/
http://spacecollective.org/gallery/
and something that sould appeal to my first year graphics students…
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/02/25/breathtaking-typographic-posters/
(thanks to Chris Bird for these)
A good artist who has created some lovely book sculptures
http://www.sublackwell.co.uk/index.php
(thanks to Hilary for this one)
I’ve been listening online too – Bedouin Soundclash and Chris Murray in particular…
http://www.last.fm/
and checking out the student blogs – keep it up!
http://graphiquefantastique.blogspot.com/
http://creativecowell.blogspot.com/
http://somethingclevergraphics.blogspot.com/
and the ex-students!
http://tobyburkill.wordpress.com/
http://typeandgraphicalplay.wordpress.com/
If you know of any good links that you want to share, just let me know…
The Scottish Hotel sketches were always a favourite of mine on Little Britain, and I’ve never been anywhere that has served any sort of cake (especially carrot cake) without muttering those lines. This usually involved breaking into one of those uncontrollable giggles that draw attention to you for all the wrong reasons, along with the occasional involuntary snort that will cause old ladies to peer over their bifocals reproachingly, hissing “well really!”
I must now point out some important information that the lovely Mrs. Lestaret brought to my attention. After purchasing a sweet snack from Pret-a-Manger in Norwich yesterday she noticed the following information:
Conclusive evidence to the contrary. I believe we may have been somewhat misled by the irresponsible actions of these so-called ‘funnymen’ and I will be writing to the BBC demanding a refund of £1.39 from my licence fee.
I had to attend a day or highly informative and enriching meetings last week. As ever, I make sure that I’ve got some paper and a pen and get down to some serious design personal developmental work – drawing! If you look in the projects section, there are some images of a box I made to house a series of sample books of various binding methods. All of the planning for this – even the dimensions – was completed during the meetings. (I was also fully active during the meetings – I can multi task you know!)
This time though, I took my book book, the book I draw out all my booky type ideas. Hand made of course -I couldn’t use anything else now. I filled about six pages with various elevations, panels, isometrics and varions on the basic design, some of which I will come back to when I’ve had a bit more practice:
Anyway, I was flicking through the book and thought about how my drawings had influenced the practical making of the componant panels and the subsequent coverings. The box too around three hours to make in total from start to finish. As most of the calculations had been done, it was only necessary to check them, which became easier as each panel confirmed the dimensions correctly – all but one, but I was only 2mm out on the front drop down flap, which was easily put right.
That would have added an hour or so onto the production time, but knowing how I work, I would have been making things as I went along, and making mistakes too, having to re-calculate , re-measure and re-cut too. Add the frustration factor to this (you know what I mean – when you know you have messed up, you are so determined to get it right next time that you overlook simple details and make stupid mistakes. I know that you know what I mean!) Double the time then.
The tricky part is the covering. I had no templates or guides to work from, only my very limited experience in box making (only two so far!) and plenty of cover paper. The drawings were constantly referred to throughout, helping me to visualise where the panels would cover and how the trim the overlaps. I messed up twice here, the first time in cutting the triangulr inserts for the inside of the lid. As I was using the patterned side of the paper I should have reversed the measurements, but instead I cutt two pieces at the same time, so one was patterned, the other plain. The second error was in assembly, where I had not pasted in a reinforcing strip of scrim to the drop-down flap , which I only noticed as I was gluing down the cover paper over the joint. A quick and gentle lift, a swift insertion (oo-er!) of the scrim, and replace. No harm done.
The drawings were a guide obviously, but also a goal. They were accurate enough to convice me that this was achievable and allowed me the opportunity to think around the assembly and coverings much more ‘knowingly’ than if I was working on the hoof.
I like drawing. I’ll keep it up and keep you posted…
I’ve been tickling my eardrums with
Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis
You Are The Quarry by Morrissey
Ringleader Of The Tormentors by Morrissey
Twin Peaks OST by Anglelo Badalamenti
The War Of The Worlds by Jeff Wayne
Best of by Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Savanne by Ali Farka Toure
Texas Flood by Stevie Ray Vaughan
Dummy, Portishead and Third by Portishead
Plays Non-Standards by nsi.
Nightsong by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook
The Contino Sessions by Death In Vegas
Maxinquay and Pre-Millenium Tension by Tricky
The Blue Rider by Tom Waits
Quite a bit of Raga
Everything I have by Godspeed You Black Emperor!
Quite a variation methinks!
Well, there it is. I know I said I’d cover the final assembly in this post but it was really boring to look at and spent loads of time under all my heaviest books. I’ll do a proper tutorial sometime, as there is a technique to getting the two halves to line properly.
Even though I knew the measurements were right, it was still a bit nerve-wracking seeing if the bible fitted after all this time and effort. It did though, woohoo! So this is what it looks like…
Reviewing the project, I think I should have doubled up the board thickness; the bible is heavy and would probably protect it from a heavier impact, but more likely, the thicker boards would create a much sturdier container – this feels a little more flimsy than I’d imagined. Like all these projects though, you live and learn…
Did you enjoy this project? Would you like to see more practical work covered here? Are there any other things you’d like to see? Let me know…After the recent changes in the weather (it seems that Winter has made a bit of a late comeback – white is the new black!) we have all started to take notice of snow again. Yes, I know it snows occasionally, but that usually melts overnights these days, and in north Norfolk, snow hasn’t really been a feature of winter these last nine years whilst I have lived here. On Thursday 12th February at just after eleven at night I looked out of my window and was struck by the quality of light on the unexpected snowfall. It was remeniscent of the kind of light you get during late summer preceding a violent thunder storm. Pregnant with elemental forboding, but highlighting everything in a way that made you look again at familiar sights. This time, every dead branch, stalk and stem was straining under its own weight of snow, glowing with an intensity that outweighed its importance.
I went back to my book. I’ve just started reading Cocteau’s ‘Les Enfants Terribles’ and couldn’t help noticing the parallels in my thoughts on the snow outside my window; “The hard muddy ground had already been smashed, churned up, crushed, stamped into slides by children on their way to school. The soiled snow made ruts along the gutter. But the snow had also become the snow on porches, steps, and house-fronts: featherweight packages, mats, cornices, odds and ends of wadding, ethereal yet crystallised, seemed, instead of blurring the edges of the stone, to quicken it, to imbue it with a kind of presage.” It’s not often that you have a literary kick up the arse, but that’s what I had.
Then comes the link to Christo and his wrapping projects of the 1980′s and 90′s. Makes you look again. I’ve recently found myself re-evaluating my opinions on Abram Games and felt kind of spooked by this. I hope to be spooked some more. I’m not sure whether there’s something in the water (or the snow) or whether I’m becoming more succeptible to these coincidences, but I want it to continue.
Time to cover the two halves of the box. I’ve bought some wrinkled gold paper, printed on one side with roses. I intend to use the non-printed side to the outside obviously. The wrinkles ought to hide any minor creases I may make too.
The measuring is crucial here too, and I checked my measurements too this time! I needed to cut a length that was longer than the three main sides and wide enought to cover the inside and outside of the depth.
Following this comes the tricky business of gluing and fold the corners. The glue is a dilution of PVA and is applied directly to the board, rather than the paper as it becomes fragile too quickly. After placing the first side into position leaving a 20mm lip on the bottom, the next side is glued and firmly positioned. Obviously, the third side follows. the bottom lip is then trimmed at the corners and glued down, working it over with a bone folder for maximum adhesion:
Once the bottom lip is glued, the top sections need to be cut at the corners to ensure that they meet snugly in the corners and don’t foul up against each other. There is a technique to this, which I’ll probably go into at another time.
Again, more gluing, folding and working over with the bone folder until all remaining peices are firmly fixed.
The final part of this is to cut a floor liner, again with an overlap to wrap under the floor. Then repeat the lot again for the other half and hey presto!
The case that holds the two halves is made as you would a casebound book; two large panels that extend beyond the length and width by about 4mm each, and a spine strip that is exactly the same width as the depth of the block. Paste down onto the cover paper, add some strips of scrim to strengthen the hinge folds and paste over another strip of cover paper to line the inside of the spine.
All the pieces here are then weighted down with heavy books for the rest of the day. The next instalment will cover the final assembly and the finished box… stay tuned.
Part 1
The effectiveness of this box rests with the measurements; the box neets to fit snugly around the book and both halves fitting snugly together. Getting the basic dimensions was not as easy at it seemed as the book has deteriorated with age. The depth was particularly difficult to gauge as it has been severely compressed at the bottom left. The front cover board is completely detached and a fair bit of the spine is exposed right back to the sewn sections. This is particularly interesting to me as an amateur bookbinder – seeing each layer exposed in stages – there are close-ups and other views on Flickr.
All three dimesions (length, width and depth) were eventually set, but arrived at through much squinting and folding of strips of paper – not entirely scientific or technical, but hey, this is the first one! Every stage from now on depends on these measurements. For those interested they are 338L x 223W x 78D.
The next stage is to measure out on greyboard and carefully cut with a fresh blade (H&S Note: I was wearing a full suit of armour and clean pants when actually cutting – these items were removed for the purposes of clearer photography).
The edges are glued with neat PVA, the length and one of the widths positioned carefully, adding the third without disturbing the first two. I use a few strips of De-Stuk (this is just normal tape that has been stuck to the back of my hand to remove some of the adhesive!) to help keep things in place.
Turn the thing over and add a little weight to set the panels firmly – I find the Taschen 1000 series of books ideal (and reasonably priced). I also packed under the middle to prevent it sagging.
After about three quarters of an hour I decided to slip it over the book to check I’d measured up correctly, and guess what? F**K! I had measured the book out really carefully and then went on to draw out the length of the main panel nearly 20mm shorter.
I measured the book again to make sure – the original measurements were right, but I had just made a pretty big cock-up drawing it out on the greyboard. Can’t work out why. Only one thing for it. Re-draw, cut and glue again. Then off to bed – I’ll check in the morning.
Part 2
Yup. That fits. Now to make another one is slightly bigger and fits directly over the top. A much quicker process this time, with some double checking! Here are the two halves nested over the book.
January 2009
Last month I was listening to (amongst other things…)
Cripple Crow by Devendra Banhart
The Stalker by Robert Rich & B.Lustmord
The Versailles Sessions by Murcof
Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill by Grouper
Nautica by Krill.Minima
Balinese Dancer by Chuck Prophet
Arkology Reel 2: Dub Shepherd compilation
The entire Tindersticks back catalogue!
