book in the making

Ive decided for concept, format, paper, font and printer- yeay! So then all thats left to do is design it- or finalize it.

Why Ive made my decisions:

CONCEPT:

A5 book dispalying all the quotes and biblical texts Ive found on the church signs that I have collected. Looking at the information Ive gathered about church signs, Ive decided to use some of the most common aestheitcs in the book. I will use the french binding teqniqe- where you fold a paper, and bind the book with the ends of the papers (where its cut)- so that there is a fold that you can not open. On the front of the folds I will put the texts, but then, on the inside of the folds I will print the signs where the quote has been taken from- but you have to rip the paper open to see it. If everything goes right I will print the book in bible paper- so in that way it goes both with the theme in general, but also gives a nice see though effect for the reader of the book. I want to make it so that the reader wants to rip up the pages.

TEXT HIERACHY:

The church signs I found were all over the place in terms of text hierachies, but one of the elemnts that I saw most frequently was the ranged centered text (sometimes together with ranged left or right text, but mostly by it selves. After looking in bible verse books etc, my conclution is that mid ranged is also the most common used, and I felt that it was the right thing to keep it simple and right and use mid ranged through out in the book instead of changing around. could go for left ranged to, but mid range works best with short poem like texts like the ones im using.


TYPEFACE:

I wanted to use a font that was linked to my content, and to Christianity. Many of the texts are very heavy and preach-full in a way, and some of them are more funny or almost ironic, but I still felt that they should all be treated with a font that shows them respect and treats them as equally important. In the beginning I was also thinking about using one of the most used fonts, such as Gill Sans, DIN, Times New Roman or Helvetica, but after making some layouts and talking with my tutor, I came to the conclusion that even if the church signs I photograph often has bad fonts and so called bad typography- that doesn't mean that I should treat my work in the same way. I can find other ways to show my research in this project than to only think about my my research when I make my own designs.

I ended up looking at ttwo fonts, one called BERTHOLD (used in a few of the signs actually, as well as a couple of broseaures I was sent from some of the church sign makers), and one toher called PERPETUA, wich is almost a bit more gothic looking, and had been used a lot on gravestones etc.

Even though I think Perpetua is a bit more interesting to look at, I felt that Berthold had the qualities that worked best for my book. After looking around on the diferent versions of the font, I found the Berthold deluxe veriosn, wich had big capials in the same size as lover case letters. After experimenting with doferent sizes that was the best version of the font. I tried diferent sized, first big, and then small, and ended up with size 18 letters, and 18 in line spaceing, as the original spacing is very big. The letter spacing staiyed at the seetings. I chose to use black ink. I now feel that it has a bit of a church book/ bible astehic over it.


IMAGES:

I tried to use both balck white, and colour, and came to the comcluton that color was the right choise. In terms of positioning, I wanted them to be treated different then the consistent positioning of the texts, and therefor chose to only follow one grid- and that was the outline grid- so the signs are pretty much on diferent possitions through out the book. I did make sure the photos on each page looked good together when opening the fold s a spead though. Size wise, theyre all realitively small, but not in any exact measurments, as theyre all in diferent sizes and shapes originally.


PAPER:

I wanted to use thin paper, and after looking around in the paper shop, and testing on diferent sorts of paper, I stuck to me taht I should use bible paper. First of all its among the finest thinnest papers, but it also looks really good, and theme wise fits perfect to my project. Bible is something all of the churches has in common.


PRINITNG:

The bible paper needs to be ink yet printed, double sided, and as there are hardly any printers who does this, that seems to be my biggest problem at the moment. hopefully i will find something very soon...


COVER:

I want to make it realitvely simple. Off white, whith black text, maby a small red deail some where (black, white and red are the most traditional bible cover colors). The book will be called WLCOME TO WORSHIP, as it suits the project, as well as containing the most used verbs in church signs (welcome and worship)


BINDING:

I think I will try to learn how to bookbind it myself. Theres a bookbinding space at college, and a teacher there who can help me learn it, so hopefully he has time to see me!