process book

inspirationThe idea for this project arose from my obsession

with Jessica Hische’s work, particularly her daily

drop cap project. In her project, she created

twelve alphabets, with each letter designed

in a different style and color. Before sketching

my ideas for each letter, I went through Jessica

Hische’s alphabets, choosing my favorites out

of all her designs. In addition, I found inspiration

in the style of ancient books and manucripts

and in various patterns, such as the tribal print

shown on the opposite page.

sketchesWith my pencil and sketchbook in hand and

my Pinterest board open, I sketched each letter

out. For some letters, I sketched multiple ideas

and later chose the best one. For others, the

ideas were set from the very beginning. There

was only one letter that was not sketched out

beforehand, which was the W.

vectorsI scanned these completed sketches into the

computer and vectorized each letter with the

pen tool. This required me to make the strokes

into shapes, rather than lines, and to make sure

that no lines were out of place so as not to cut

letters in half when lasercutting. In addition, I

chose the colors in this stage so that I would be

able to discern which pieces of which letters

would be cut out of each color of paper.

laser cutAfter creating vectors in Illustrator, I brought

each one into AutoCAD, the program read by

the laser cutter. I marked the outline of each

sheet of paper and separated each letter into

pieces based the color of paper from which

they would be cut. This step of the process was

more challenging because the laser cutter had

to cut all the way through the paper without

burning it.

glueFinding glue was more challenging than I had

expected. The Tacky Gel was effective for gluing

the pieces of cardstock together. However,

when I glued the first letter to its page, the entire

page curled up becuase of the water base of

the gel glue. In addition, some of the glue sticks

that I tested did not successfully bind the letters

to the pages. I ultimately chose to use the glue

stick below to bind the letters to the pages.

bind bookThis book binding technique utilized signatures.

I first nailed holes into each signature which

aligned with each other and with the holes cut

in the outer matte board binding. I then sewed

each signature into the outer binding.

coverI originally created the left design for the book

cover. However, when I cut this design and put it

on the book, I realized it was not what I wanted.

The design itself, in addition to the black space,

created a harsh feeling that did not match the

elegant feel of the letters in the book. After

trying several other designs, I decided to use

a plain white cover with the black lining inside

because it fit the elegant feel of the letters