Publishing Design_Task 1

Week 1 - Week 7 (23/04/2024 - 04/06/2024)

Lee Jia Rou 0363293

Bachelor of Design (Hons) in Creative Media

GCD 61404 / Publishing Design

Task 1 / Exercises

---

✧✧DIRECTORY✧✧

• Instructions
• Lectures
• Task 1-Exercises
• Feedback
• Reflection
• Further Reading
  
• References 

---

✧✧Instructions✧✧ 

---

✧✧Lectures✧✧

Lecture 01 Formats

The Book

• Due to its historical significance book format is the oldest format of publishing and also one of the most important and influential format. 
• The book is used as a medium for the transmission and documentation of concepts, information, records, history, etc.

• An in-depth understanding of typography, a good sense of space, attention to detail, and proficient use of publishing tools (In Design) are necessary while designing a book.
  

Questions: In your view, what factors influence and determine the format of a book ?

the audients ? the themes ?

• The user 
   (Example: Book for child may be fit the size of their hand)
• Age group
  (Example: If is a book for older young child soft cover would be use)
• The content 
  (Example: If the type of content include a lot of word or consists of visuals, maps, diagrams etc. may use a sizable book.)
  > format constitutes the type of paper, binding, size, 

Historical Format
Technology is generally always followed by innovation. Opportunities are created by new technologies.

Fig. 1.1 Regions & Civilization 

Mesopotamian civilization (Iran-Iraq)

• The essay from Denise Schmandt-Besserat (1995) token system " Record Keeping Before Writing ", the first writing system was developed from counting technology. 
•  The transition from basic and complicated tokens to bullae set the basis for the earliest examples of pictographic writing on clay tablets.

Fig.1.2 clay tablets

Indus River Valley civilization (India- Pakistan -Afghanistan)

• The oldest living civilization in the world
• The format of Indus River Valley civilization are not many known record but it is known that they had a complex system.
• Cuneiform, the earliest known writing system, was record about their government, religion and trade.
• Written on soft clay tablets by using sharp pointed tools.

Fig. 1.3 Cuneiform

• Around 800-900CE, the oldest surviving Palm Leaf Manuscript is from Nepal.
  
• It was a medium that was common across South Asia.

Fig. 1.4 Palm Leaf Manuscript 

Ancient Egyptian civilization  (Egypt)

• The oldest civilization in the world
• In ancient Egypt, only scribes could read & write Hieroglyphics.
• The paper wrote on scribes called papyrus( thick type of paper made from the pith of papyrus plant).
• Egyptians also write on tomb walls.

Fig. 1.5 Papyrus & Tomb walls

 Han Chinese civilization   (China)

• Chinese characters are written in vertical columns in early period.
• A thin strip bamboo is ideal for single column, two lines of thread link each bamboo strip to create a longer document

Fig.1.6 Bamboo books

• The earliest printed book in Chinese from the T'ang Dynasty- Diamond Sutra 868CE. 
  
•  Discovered in a Dunhuang cave in 1899.
• The material used was paper and in a scroll format. 
  

Fig. 1.7 Diamond Sutra

• 10th -11th CE Printing from wood blocks is laborious process.
• Confucian classics are published for use of scholar officials with huge numbers of Buddhist and Daoist works and the complete Standard Histories since the time of Sima Qian.
• The task is unavoidable until the introduction of movable type.
• This innovation seems to have been pioneered in China but achieved in Korea.

Fig. 1.8 Movable Type in Korea

European civilization ( Turkey & beyond)

• First invented in Turkey, 197-159BC, which later spread to Europe.
  
• Parchment made from animal hide.

Fig. 1.9 Parchment 

• The use of paper slow journey west from China to Persia-Arab empires and eventually through Turkey visa-a-vis the Ottoman empire to mainland Europe.
• Paper become widely available in Europe during 1400-1500 CE 
• Up until the Boston Weekly Journal is printed using wood pulp for the first time in the 1860s, the ingredients used to make paper vary.
• The folding format took a foot hold in the west and the turn of the century.
• First with wooden blocks with thread sewn to hold them together and then with parchement and later with paper, where paper was sewn, bound and glued together.

Fig. 1.10 paper folding format

---

✧✧Exercise✧✧

Throughout the beginning and middle of the semester, exercises will be prescribed at various stages of the module that will assist and benefit subsequent theoretical and practical knowledge of book design.

In the next task, we will design a book of our own story with 3,000 words. So the first exercise is to plan the name of the book, the book cover name, the publishing name, the code, the story content and other information.

1) Text formatting

2) Mock-up making

With the basic information for the story in hand, we started testing and planning the book size. During the test phase, I used A3 paper for folding and measurement. Because the size of the book is smaller than A4 paper but larger than A5 paper, the basic size of the paper is at least A3 paper.

3) Signature folding systems (8+8=16)

After deciding on the size of the book, we need to understand how the book is handled when printing. So I did this exercise. During practice, we used a piece of A3 paper and folded it in half 4 times. Then the folded part faces to the left, and the right side can be flipped open. Turn the corner of the folded paper to write the page number. When we open the entire paper, we can see that the paper is divided into 8 equal blocks, but the number of pages does not go down this row, and the number of pages at the top and bottom is reversed.

4) Classical Grid structure

After learning the exercises and tests of turning actual paper into books, we moved on to digital typesetting. When formatting book content, we need to leave some space to prevent printing leaks and space for font typesetting, so we can find the most suitable typesetting structure in the classical grid structure.

5) Determining Grids

After the content structure is formed, it can be divided into several parts for layout of the content. It has a great impact on readers and the structure of the book.

6) Form & Movement Exercises (Thumbnail)

After the content structure is formed, it can be divided into several parts for layout of the content. It has a great impact on readers and the structure of the book.

✧✧Feedback✧✧

Week 02 

The ideal of 3 draft stories is good, but think about whether it's possible to find sources for the pictures or stories and whether you can expand on them with more details.

Week 03

Try to extend more details of the story like the details of the character dressing, the settings of Malaysia kampung scenes and the story of how your grandpa work, try to find more picture.

Week 05

The storyline is a bit confusing, so try to draw a timeline first, like how he grew up as a child. As a teenager, he worked wherever he went and so on.

Week 06

The size of this book is too large, please try to find a smaller size. The structure of the color is to try to find more unique colors.

Week 07

Try to sketch some drawing for the book

✧✧Reflection✧✧

 Experience
It was a fantastic experience all around. This provided me with some insight into the design and printing processes of books, something I had always wondered about. Throughout middle school, I was as a librarian and was always curious about the publishing process used by writers. I never realised how many little details would come up when designing a book—such as printing pages on paper, designing a book cover, organising the content of the inside pages, choosing the book's binding, the type of paper to use, and more.

Observations

I observed a lot about publishing through this assignment, and I looked at a lot of references, especially grids and storybook layout, because I wasn't sure how to make an interesting grid at first. I searched for some storybooks that I could find, especially children's storybooks, because the layout of those storybooks is very interesting.

Findings

These tasks gave me a lot of knowledge about the publishing industry. It frequently takes a mix of shape and movement to create a visually appealing layout that grabs the viewer's attention. This insight highlights how crucial dynamic design components are to creating visual harmony in a layout. I also learned the importance of the placement of photos or pictures. Characters should not be placed at the fold of the book in order to prevent characters from being deformed due to mistakes during printing.