Publishing Design Task 2 : Content Generation

30.08.2022 - 20.09.2022 (Week 1 - Week 5)

Chung Jia Xuan / 0346630
Publishing Design / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Task 2 / Content Generation

LECTURES

Lecture notes can be found in Publishing Design Task 1 ( Exercises)

INSTRUCTIONS

In this task, we were to generate any content for our book, the content can be written by ourselves or found from the internet and it should at least 3000 words with a minimum of 3 chapters. 

The content must have:

- 3 -5 subtexts 

- 1 pull quote per chapter

Below is the draft for my 3000 words retrieved from a book.

Summary

THIS BOOK IS A JOURNEY not of the outer world, but of an inner world even more amazing and rewarding than you can now imagine. 

Moodboard
 
The book talks about self-love and a guide to love the outer world. I was thinking to create something aesthetic and minimalist for the illustrations. After doing some research on the internet, line art attracts me the most as it has a sense of simplicity yet not losing the feeling of elegance.

Figure 1.1 Mood board

Attempt 1

Sir asked me to play around with the line art by doing more to it such as duplicating the line arts. I tried to create visuals that is supportive to my book contents and tried to add dynamism to them.

Figure 1.3 visuals #1

Figure 1.4 visuals #2

Figure 1.5 Visuals #3

Figure 1.6 Visuals #4

Figure 1.7 Visuals #5

Figure 1.8 Visuals #6

Figure 1.9 Visuals #7

Book Cover

For my book cover design, I actually paid a visit to the large bookstore named Tsutaya Books at Pavilion Bukit Jalil to get some inspiration for the design. Sir asked us to create something that people will notice in one glance and which the design will get attention out of so many different book covers.

In the bookstore, I noticed that there are really huge variety of book covers and only very few of the book cover has a unique design that stands out from the book shelf. I also noticed that books with stronger contrast of colours helps to attract the attention of people. I personally think that the minimalist type of book cover attracts my attention so I decided to go with the minimalist design for my book cover which also matches the illustrations I've created for the content. 

Figure 1.9 Tsutaya Books at Bukit Jalil

Figure 2.0 Book Cover RInspiration 1

Figure 2.1 Book Cover Inspiration 2 

Figure 2.2 Book cover inspiration 3

Figure 2.3 Book cover first attempt

Final mock-up of the book

Figure 2.4 Book Cover

Figure 2.5 Book Design (1)

Figure 2.6 Book Design (2)

Figure 2.7 Book Design (3)

Figure 2.8 Book Design (4)

Figure 2.9 Book Design (5)

Figure 3.0 Book Design (6)

Figure 3.1 Book Design (7)

Figure 3.2 Book Design (8)

Figure 3.3 Book Design (9)

Figure 3.4 Book Design (10)

Figure 3.5 Book Design (11)

Figure 3.6 Book Design (12)

Figure 3.7 Book Design (13)

Figure 3.8 Book Design (14)

Figure 3.9 Book Design (15)

Figure 4.0 Book Design (16)

Figure 4.1 Book Design (17)

Figure 4.2 Book Design (18)

Book Mock-up in PDF

FEEDBACK

Week 5 General Feedback - Create thumbnail to see the overall outcome - Headings need to be in the same size and position Specific Feedback - Visuals are to simple, try to play around with the visuals by duplicating or magnifying them.

REFLECTIONS

Based on my experiences, observations and findings respectively.

Before we start this task, Mr Vinod showed us some great examples of the book publications. I was excited to create the book mockup on my own and see the end result. During the process, I had a hard time thinking how to create illustrations as they have to be relevant to the content and somehow connected to one another. After getting feedbacks for my first attempt, I then have a clearer image of how I want the illustrations to be. I started working on them and finishing up the remaining parts.

I noticed that I have to first determine the grid before starting the task. Task 1 helped to build a foundation for me on this task. The grid and layout exercise helped me in creating a more interesting layout. The form and movement exercise in Task 1 helps a lot in this task to create a better flow from spread to spread

Completing this exercise, I've came to realized that book publishing is a challenging work. It requires detailed formats which we need to pay a lot of attention to, yet it also requires creative thinking to create an interesting layout and illustrations.

FURTHER READING

Indie Publishing - How to Publish and Produce Your Own Book edited by Ellen Lupton

Figure 3.6 Book Cover (Online)

Typography

Choosing typefaces and arranging them on the pages of your book are essential steps in creating an inviting and appropriate atmosphere for a book. Designers today have a wide range of choices, including historic and contemporary fonts.

Historical Book Faces 

Many typefaces were created especially for use in books, including traditional fonts such as Garamond, Caslon and Jenson, which are available today in modern digital versions that have been carefully designer to reflect their historic sources.

Contemporary Book Faces

Graphic designers all around the world are developing new fonts and distributing them online. This book is typeset in two fonts, Dolly and Auto. When choosing a new typeface, look for the same book-oriented features that you would expect from a classic font, such as small capitals and non-lining numerals.