Project 4
Alt book
In my Alt-book project, I plan to create a handmade book that fully uses junks collected in my daily life. The purpose is to highlight my theme of ‘Upcycling’ that my chosen driver of change in last project – PachaKucha. This is a continuous study.
Before to start the alt-book design and making, we have a zine practise on class.
LJ's
Zine Practise
I select and pick up the material that we needed from some old and unused magazine to collage a zine, and using this zine to tell a story for the readers. Eventually I found that for a zine’s storytelling, both text and images are important.
Making Process
I learned from the feedback that from my teachers and classmates, for a zine making, the layout of the page design, clear and specific theme, rich content, storytelling and key points are indispensable.
Alt Book Design
At the beginning I thought about several options, such as to use the form of roll film or zoetrope as my Alt-book or make a box that could replaceable cards to display the information or story that I want to expressive, since my chosen design lens is ‘the camera as archive machine’, I think more about how to display pictures.
Sketchbook
Until one day I was on my way to school and picked up a large piece of bark left over from the timberjack’s work, I think if the curled bark could flattened in some way, it will be a very interesting book cover. With this mind, I started to adjust my design thinking and to pay more attention on the content of my alt-book, and in the form I will let it to be special.
Making Process
I used two boxes of unopened mineral water for press the bark nearly 26 hours, And I use tools to polish the rough surface. At the same time, I also selected the material of the inside page – Amazon’s express carton. I cut the express carton according to the shape of the bark to serve as the inner page of my alt-book and I used tools to drill four holes in the book cover (bark) for through iron ring, and I have engraved the title and my name abbreviated, then I applied the glue that could brighten the color to the words that have been Seal carving.
Alt-book Outcome
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