Spontaneous Effort is an essay by David Rothenburg discussing the relationship between music and improvisation with creation. From selecting an object at random and then photographing it’s different forms and shapes, both individually and collectively the overall design of the book was developed. I had selected thumbtacks and from there I photographed the object from all angles and uses. The color scheme was selected from the colors of the tacks, which happened to the be primary colors of red, yellow, and blue with the inclusion of green and clear. From the images of the clear tacks, I was inspired by the dark outlines of shadow and chose the typefaces Essonnes Headline Thin as the serif display font and Basic for the body copy for their overall shape and form to mimic the shape the thumbtack. In relation to the primary colors and usage of thumbtacks, the finished size is 8.5”x11” with one inch borders and double spaced text all of which is found in the standardization within early education systems for essay writing. The pattern of overlaying dots is in reference to the holes from cork boards. A screw post bind with french folds was chosen as another visual reference for the use of the tacks.
