Book Layout without tearing open french fold pages
My choice to include some blank pages into my layouts is an informed and purposefully done one. I wanted my reader to feel a sense of discovery in every aspect of the book design, every opportunity within this book something new and surpising is implemented, from similarly coloured elements on the cover, using large amounts of small letterforms to form an overall silhouette skyline image, to using my end papers ot deliver a message (and a map) of venice, eluding to the fact that each of these cities that Marco Polo describes is indeed, simply different parts of venice, a place he is afraid to lose if he puts into words and so disguessies them by giving them the names of women and stating they are these 55 different cities that are mentioned throughout invisible cities.
the biggest discovery and surpise of the book is within the french fold pages, the need to use the map that is given to the reader proir to each chapter to direct them to the correct place on the large format (500x320mm) atlas style coordinate utilising map found when the french folding pages are fully revealed. Using double folded pages allowed me to hide thhe entire content of each chapter within the pages, not just the map with the five cities per chapter on, this allowed the book to, at first glance, only contain the end papers and the wheel, a tool needed for the reader to progress any fither within the book.
Torn French Fold Spreads
For my French folding, I have some options as to it’s style. I can use traditional french folding, where the end of the page is simply torn or cut open, revealing a hidden spread within (or in my case, one double spread and a double sized map). I also have the perhaps more interesting option of utilising japanese stab binding to hold the hidden spreads together, techniques and examples of this style are in the link below.
More complex stab binding allows for not only the concealment of folded spreads, but also allows me to incorperate small designs or patterns on the actual page ends themselves, this could reflect the types of cities (E.g. cities and desire, thin cities) in the stab bound pattern. Or this could be used to inject a flash of colour to the book, given the rest of the book is in blacks, grays and whites, the binding string could use bright and attrctive colours that reflect the emotion of desire, or of thought as well as functioning to make the book stand out on a shelf more. This binding could be torn with a blade to gain access to the folded pages, or could be untied to preserve the string for aethetic appeal.
As for the content within the concealed pages, I used large 27mm margins in order to echo the looks of the old manuscripts that I have previously analysesd as well as to make the text appear smaller, more concentrated on the page, attempting to reflect the large cities that are bordered by massive, expansive deserts seperating them. I think that the justified text used helps support this by having the text appear more ordered as well as showing more consideration and care, justified text is something that looks simple and create on the surface, when infact the elimination of rivers is often more work than simply using an align left/right setting.
I think I have done a professional job in setting the text, empty space is utilised and I have not felt the need to overfill the page, while I think I could include the “type fall” effect to the empty space within the margins, I think that the empty space surrounding the text actually says more than if i were to fill the space with hardly visible floating letterforms.
Atlas Spread
The entire chapter conent quite easily fits onto one of these large atlas spreads due to it’s large format size of 500x320mm. This meant that careful consideration of space and ration needed to be considered, I think this worked well, the point size is 6pt and so scaling up is being considered, while the titles and pull out quotes are still substantially larger as to attract more attention and direct the heirarchy without taking away too much attention from the overall image and map feel of the large spread.
I have attempted to replicate the small blocks of text with large spaces between effect seen in the utilisation of large margins in the previous spreads by the continued use of full jusitified text, this is once again a timely process to carefully and meticulously build each paragrahp of an approratie size as to ensure rivers are eliminated, but yet the line length remains professiona and engaging, this then had to be balance with the fact that a strong heriarchy had to be input in both each individual city and within the large spread overall, to help direct the heirarchy as well as demonstraight that while these cities exist as seperate entities, there are key elements that link them together by incorperating small japanese dots that draw from several cities, breaking up to paragraphs or linking one paragraph to another.
Creating a spread of this size without much of the needed timeframe for prototyping and print testing was challenging, I had to constantly remind myself of the size of the spread, and as a result I think this spread has a sense of impact and is engaging to look at as a whole, but still has delicate details and layering when each cities typography is looked at individually.
Map Wheel
The map wheel has been ammended massively from my origional thoughts, origionally to be the size 400x400mm it now only contains the names of each city and some small dummy letterforms, it has been reduced to a size of 150x150mm in order to fit into the books natural size of 160x250mm, allowing it to sit on a shelf when folded. I think The map wheel is where my improvements lie, the font needs to be ammended as I think that it is too bold to exist on such a small document, however I only have access to the two weights used, a medium weight would allow a balance of impact and delicacy, the full weights are available for purchase (although they price at $400), for clarity, here is the medium weight font I would choose for the map wheel letterforms if it were availble to me within the free version of Migra Serif.
I think having a medium weight font would help bridge the gap between headings and body copy, possibly using this weight for my pull out quotes as well, as I think this would allow my designs to be more interseting and dynamic with the inclusion of a third weight.
The small coordinates are placed nicely next to the titles, I think the wheel would need to be a larger size for these to be improved as a greater contrast between the size of the coordinates and the city names would make for more of a discovery when they are made sense to the reader, however If the wheel is made any larger, it is then not able to fit within the book itself and would need to exist as an individual entity, I think this would discupt the immersion and inclsusivity that has been created by having everything within one small book and so would require further thought if change is needed.
Overall I think that these spreads show a clear concept, as well as clear potential within the colour scheme and formatting, however they will need further thought and refinment, as well as multiple chapters being created as to allow me to contrast and compare the different visual language as well as more experimentation and prototyping into the binding of the book, there is potential to use a plethora of techniques and this will need to be figured out if my work is to be submitted to ISTD.
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