The grand conclusion to my second Semester was a book project. Winchester School of Art broke out the workshops and we were taught how to bind our own book. This was certainly another favourite in terms of experience and the final outcome. In the end I made two books, one about the adventures of a Stickman and the other about my location and surroundings.

In this post I will focus on the latter.  

At this point my tutors were really pushing me to do something different so I did, I drew a strange really wide stickmen adventure, they liked it. So I took it further and took to pieces an old book and had another adventure among its pages. They liked this too. But at another tutorial (where we show our work and progress) I showed the other work I’d been doing…the sort of work I’d been doing all along. 

And they told me to make this into the book. So after all the time I’d spent doing something different they still chose the more normal style of mine. Of course with this amount of work I’d put in I wasn’t going to scrap the stickmen idea and so made two books.

The book based on my normal work was itself divided into two different styles.

The first style was mostly Photoshop work using world map vectors and Google maps with Photoshop elements put on top. All alterations were made digitally on digtal parts.

The second style was a series of set pieces which were then photographed with no alteration besides colour balance etc. These set pieces were made up of physical elements, for instance the Google Map is printed out, written on and altered using physical non-​​digital means.

I was especially impressed with how the first photo in the second style, something so moody and atmospheric about it all, especially the menacing orange charging light. 

This book was printed on high quality double sided photo paper and wrapped in a black cover with a dust jacket depicting a white outline of the UK. There were also some see-​​through components that were printed on tracing paper. On the inside of the dust jacket I listed the tools I had used in making this book.

This was a particular irritation I have with certain artists book who don’t list what they were printed on when I really like the material and tactile feel.

Only the CD case beats the final outcome when it comes to how pleased I was with this project. There were quite a few good books coming out of my Graphic Arts year so it was very cool.