Week 7
- jhl848
- Oct 22, 2019
- 3 min read
Research about Making a book
For this week, I wanted to look into a little research about how to make a book by researching how other artists have made their books. So this week was just a collection of things I found while I studied the art of making a photo book.
Andrew T. Kearns:
The first photographer that I researched was Andrew T Kearns. He made a photo book title How Does It Feel? And his whole objective is to make you feel a certain way using his photography!
Just a few bullet points about his work:
There should be a goal in mind
When laying out your photos, each page doesn’t have to contain photos taken at the same time and place, they can be mixed with one another. In his words, “they can mixed and matched like a puzzle”
Although it is a photo book, some writing could really help the reader understand the ideas that you are striving for
YOU NEED TO SPEND A LOT OF TIME CHOOSING PHOTOS. He said he spent around 200 hrs just picking and choosing which photos to put into his book
You can be simple in your layouts, each page doesn’t have to include a lot of photos, it can be like one or 2
Enjoy the process of making the book. There are a lot of lessons that you may learn that could be very personal to you and you remember for the remainder of your life.
Negative Feedback:
Primarily a film photographer, he decided to make a zine based on the concept of being “missing”. He got inspiration from seeing a lot of missing cat posters.
Have other people critique and support your work. You may not have the best ideas at the moment so it is important to have others give you fresh ideas. They can always help you get better
Know when to finish. It is extremely hard to know when that exact timing is. But be ready to tell yourself when you are done.
For the design stuff, he used Indesign. He said using the program helped him with the design process.
Willem Verbeek:
A photographer that goes to Parsons. He made a photo zine about his experience at Coney Island.
It is nice to work physically with putting all the photos up physically and seeing how they look next to each other. He literally printed all his potential photos and taped them to his wall for two weeks.
Font is crucial. You want to choose a font that suits your project really well
Material is important, the paper should match the concept. For my case tho, don’t really have a lot of choices.
What are the features of your book. What makes your book/zine special and not just an ordinary book/zine.
Evan Ranft :
Photos only from Atlanta. He wanted to make Atlanta look special.
Print out all the photos and layout. Pair up the photos and see what is good with each other.
Size of the book really matters, he made a book the size of a field book and so you can carry it around everywhere.
A good title! It should be meaningful and memorable.
Choice of paper is very important
Your book should have impact
Summary:
From the four photographers that I learned from, I think the most valuable piece of information that I gathered was to enjoy the process. Yes, the logistics are extremely important and are needed to even make a photo book, however, I believe I should really enjoy and learn from this experience and not stress too much on the technical stuff.
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