This project is a portfolio book of artist/illustrator Syther's works.
Designed, printed, hand bound and cased by Max Oughton AKA Syther. Photography also by Max.
Final physical outcome. (Photographed by Syther)
Following is the account of the creative process of the final outcome.
Initial mock up of my cover design in Photoshop. After sketches and ideas, this was my chosen initial design to begin experimenting with.
Laser cutting - experimenting with styles and outcomes.
My initial idea was to have the Syther Skull Dude bevelled into the front cover – to accomplish a subtle, but stylish illustration. As you can see, even after 50+kg, and the weight of my self on top of that, upon the laser cut, hard board Skull Dude in to the mount board cover - the experiment was unfortunatly a fail!
Before I went ahead and printed the content, I went through all 40 pages, ensuring I was exactly happy with the layout of image and type within my ruled guidelines.
As an added little detail, and to keep an urban, raw style and feel to the actual book, keeping consistency with its content – I used metal number stamps to bevel the page numbers individually to each page.
Using traditional binding techniques, I hand bound every section of the book together using a needle and waxed thread – ensuring the text block stayed as straight edged and level as possible, to keep a neat, clean looking bind.
I then clamped the text book and glued the edge for extra support. For even further strength I added a small piece of binding material to the bound edge, whilst making sure the pages would still open till flat.
Then deciding on a material that suited the desired style of raw and urban – newspaper effect material. I then further emphasised its rough and rawness, and also synergy of colour with the final laser cut Skull Dude illustration, by burning specific parts of the material. Then measuring up and creating a spine, I clamped and weighted the finished cover/casing!
I had one more experiment with a finishing touch – choosing which backing was best for the fully cut through Syther tag. I decided on a black backing as it was more of a contrasting effect, making the tag more legible and defined, and also keeping synergy with the covers colour scheme.
Lastly, I then fixed the finalized, printed and bound text block, to the completely finished cover/casing!
