One of the main books I have used as inspiration for my book design is Martin Usborne’s book ‘I’ve Lived In East London For 86 1/2 Years’. This photo book is about an old man who is living in East London and Martin Usborne, the photographer is photographing him in his everyday life.
I really like how each photo is presented alongside a couple of sentences which are Joseph’s words. These words show Joseph’s view on a topic. I think it makes the book have more character as you are able to read his thoughts and different views on modern life.
In my photo book, which has a similar concept to Martin Usborne’s book I will be taking extracts of my grandparents words. I will be taking these extracts from the interviews that I conducted with them a couple of months ago. The main headings/ topic heading will be; Music, Family, Jersey, Wales and Faith.
For the cover of my photo book, I am going to cover it with a patterned material, rather than a photograph. An example of this is Julian Germain’s photo book ‘For Every Minuet You Are Angry You Loose Sixty Seconds Of Happiness’. This cover is very colorful and eye catching. The type of pattern gives an essence of what the theme of the book is going to be.
This photo book has presented its pictures with white boarders around the pictures rather than full bled. I do like the white space around the photographs as I think it gives the book a clean cut look. Germain has also included random plain white pages, which breaks the book up nicely.
In this book, Germain presents some archive photos:
Although it is effective I not like the style he has presented these photographs. I don’t like how he has scanned the whole photo album, however I do like the positioning of the archive photo’s in the book. Germain has positioned them all together, in the middle of the book. I am still yet to decide how I would like to preset my archive photographs in my book. Either have them all together in a cluster, in the middle of the book. Or have them spread evenly throughout the book.
I am choosing to title my photo book ‘The Heavens’ because I think it has a strong sound to it, and makes the book clear what is going to be about.
- Square shaped book
- white board around the photos
- material front cover
- extracted quotes alongside photos
- random white blank pages
- archive photographs in the middle of the book
- title ‘The Heavens’