Making the physical book

hand made book

After designing the book using only hand drawn aspects, I really wanted to get the feel of a handmade book, I realised mine was a little different as a lot of the aspects were vector but I think putting this into my own handmade book rather than a company printed one will make a huge difference in feel and quality. I have already decided to print on a4 handmade rag paper. To enhance this I want to use a4 sheets double sided and create the book by stitching along the seam as a bind. Using brown thread that complements the colour of the paper will work well. i then wanted a hard cover book so I want to use 2 pieces of grey board front and back with the hand made paper stuck on using an attaching piece of paper to bring the whole book together and hide the edges of the paper that are binded together.

As well as making the book from scratch I wanted to give some special touches that will really give it that personality. So I want to add a seam of stitching to the front cover and also wooden hand made letters spelling out the title of’ what will your future look like? I want to continue to look at handmade books for inspiration and ideas.

Inspiration

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Construction

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Making the book

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I started to make the book from scratch, to give the handmade feel; I printed each page out using A4 paper and cutting down to A5 with an additional spine for the binding space. I used the handmade rag paper, which gave the colors and illustrations a crafted feel. I then scored down that line so the book would bend, sewing down the seam to create a binded book, using brown thread. I then added the photo corners into the slots in the book, which I liked the look of.

I took the two pieces of grey board that were going to be my front and back and covered them in brown paper, originally so the edges of the grey board couldn’t be seen but I liked the brown in contrast to the rag paper and decided to keep that as the cover. I then had some letters that I had painted brown but wanted them back lighter, so I used nail polish remover and this worked well because there were still paint in the cracks, which gave it a more rugged, feel. I added them spelling out what I wanted and looked at adding the same brown thread used in the bind as decoration.

I printed the cards and cut them out, then created a box that would fit them in and printed that, cutting it and scoring the folds before sticking it together.

Then placing all pieces of the book together using glue, I created a brown bound book with inner rag pages, a set of cards with a pack that were inserted into the book as you liked.

#COLLIDE