finally final
Dec. 15th, 2006 01:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kirkcudbrightI had the last class of this semester (Advanced Graphic Design) tonight, and turned in the final project. The nominal assignment was to produce a coffee table book - size greater than 7"x7", not equal to 8½"x11", heavier on pictures than text, minimum length 8-12 pages, printed and bound. I chose to make a book of last summer's ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kirkbike bike trip:
This is a photo of the front cover, mostly to show the awesome edge-sewn binding, a traditional Japanese "flax leaf" pattern, from the book I borrowed fromroozle (on the night I crashed the car). NB: Clicking on the pic takes you to the pdf of the full book (28 pages plus covers), rather than to a larger copy of the same pic.
I spent a fairly insane amount of time on this, considering I already had all the pictures and text at the outset. It took a while to do the layout, to massage the pictures and text to fit on a reasonable number of pages. Then I had to edit a bunch of pictures for resolution, color balance, etc. Spent a lot of time fighting over color with printers both at home and work. And I found the last unforgiveable error after I had already bound the book, causing me to re-print the page, and un-bind and re-bind the book.
After we presented our books, the instructor took photos, and collected CDs of our work, but didn't collect the actual books, because she didn't want to be responsible for getting them back to us on an ad-hoc basis (this being the last class). So I have the physical object, and I'll be giving it to my parents for Christmas. I don't expect them to read my LJ, so this will be a nice way to show them what I've been doing, both on the bike and in the classroom.
After the class, the instructor gave me her extra copy of The Packaging Designer's Book of Patterns, a compendious volume of templates for all manner of boxes, cartons, carriers, and all manner of other paper/cardboard packaging. I drooled over this book when we were planning packaging redesign project (which I realize I never posted about - I should do that). Cool, now I have to go and make more 3D stuff out of 2D materials.
Speaking of 3D stuff out of 2D, one of the other students made a pop-up book for this project. It was very cool, and had an even better binding job than mine (padded leather covers). The other 4 students frankly had rather lame bindings, ranging from snap-rings to nylon cord.
And that's the thing, and that's the reason I'm getting an A in this class - if it's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess. Well, yes and no, but mostly yes. I've never made a dime off of design work (in fact, I've spent several thousand dollars in tuition so far), but I have professional pride. I treat everything as a portfolio piece, and I want it to be as good as I can make it, not just good enough for a grade. I'm not entirely satisfied with the photo edting in this book - the printer tended to over-saturate the reds, and over-darken the shadows (esp noticeable in the prints of pp 13, 23, and the back cover) But it 's good enough for the audience - me, the instructor, and my parents.
kirkbike bike trip:This is a photo of the front cover, mostly to show the awesome edge-sewn binding, a traditional Japanese "flax leaf" pattern, from the book I borrowed from
roozle (on the night I crashed the car). NB: Clicking on the pic takes you to the pdf of the full book (28 pages plus covers), rather than to a larger copy of the same pic.I spent a fairly insane amount of time on this, considering I already had all the pictures and text at the outset. It took a while to do the layout, to massage the pictures and text to fit on a reasonable number of pages. Then I had to edit a bunch of pictures for resolution, color balance, etc. Spent a lot of time fighting over color with printers both at home and work. And I found the last unforgiveable error after I had already bound the book, causing me to re-print the page, and un-bind and re-bind the book.
After we presented our books, the instructor took photos, and collected CDs of our work, but didn't collect the actual books, because she didn't want to be responsible for getting them back to us on an ad-hoc basis (this being the last class). So I have the physical object, and I'll be giving it to my parents for Christmas. I don't expect them to read my LJ, so this will be a nice way to show them what I've been doing, both on the bike and in the classroom.
After the class, the instructor gave me her extra copy of The Packaging Designer's Book of Patterns, a compendious volume of templates for all manner of boxes, cartons, carriers, and all manner of other paper/cardboard packaging. I drooled over this book when we were planning packaging redesign project (which I realize I never posted about - I should do that). Cool, now I have to go and make more 3D stuff out of 2D materials.
Speaking of 3D stuff out of 2D, one of the other students made a pop-up book for this project. It was very cool, and had an even better binding job than mine (padded leather covers). The other 4 students frankly had rather lame bindings, ranging from snap-rings to nylon cord.
And that's the thing, and that's the reason I'm getting an A in this class - if it's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess. Well, yes and no, but mostly yes. I've never made a dime off of design work (in fact, I've spent several thousand dollars in tuition so far), but I have professional pride. I treat everything as a portfolio piece, and I want it to be as good as I can make it, not just good enough for a grade. I'm not entirely satisfied with the photo edting in this book - the printer tended to over-saturate the reds, and over-darken the shadows (esp noticeable in the prints of pp 13, 23, and the back cover) But it 's good enough for the audience - me, the instructor, and my parents.
