Handmade Book Project - Phobias

Anyone who knows me will know that I am a huge fan of anything handmade - I like things to be a little bit different! I carry this (style? don't really know how to say it) through to my Graphic Design as well as all of my personal projects. One of my 'things' is that I don't believe that everything these days has to be digital - there is a place for this OF COURSE! But I think finding a nice middle ground is key. I get bored of designs all looking the same to be honest, and especially if there is no real idea or purpose behind them then purely digital works can look empty. Do you understand what I mean? It's like the difference between beautiful letterpress type and printed digital type.... ANYWAY, I think I am waffling/ranting so I'll move on :)

I wanted to write a bit about a project I did during my degree, my Handmade Book. If I can remember correctly, it didn't start out as handmade. Or a book. I think the project was to design a brochure based on a subject of our choice, and my topic was 'PHOBIAS'. But without going on too much it evolved into being a book, and then handmade. It just felt right, I mean phobias are irrational or intense fears that often evolve over time or because of a certain incident. Its very real and terrifying to each individual. So my idea was that this would be a typographic exploration of chosen phobias, in a small and strange book. 

I had made books before but I really wanted something different to this, and I ended up buying 'Handmade Books; Binding Folding and Decorating' by Heather Weston.  I highly recommend the book, it was so clearly written and lots of great examples by artists too.

Anyway, here are a few photos of the book, what do you think?

cover

 The cover was made with card, overlaid with strips of very thin card to symbolise being 'bound' by your fears. The book was then covered with black handmade paper, and to touch it it feels leathery, slightly like skin. A bit horrible!

Opened fully

The book was a 'star book' or circle book, so when opened fully the front and back covers actually meet. I thought this was a good way to represent the endless 'cycle' of fear. There were 3 layers, so the book became a 3D piece, very tactile.

Agoraphobia

I loved this page of the book, agoraphobia - a fear of open spaces. The page was a pop up which left the words elevated and isolated away from the page. The typeface was heavily spaced/kerned and the overall effect was really strong.

arachnophobia

 

Arachnophobia page structure.

Everybodies favourite phobia - the spider one! This was more textural than anything else - and it's interesting to watch people who have picked up the book and looked through; people who dont like spiders HATED the page :) (i'm not being mean - i am terrified of spiders too!) I used a sheet of angel hair for the middle layer of the book to give a webby background. The actual name of the phobia was cut out of the whole page to form a seperate web type structure.

Dextrophobia

Dextrophobia. This is a very rare and odd phobia, as you can see by reading the text - I would love to find someone who actually has this! I have a really weird phobia too, but I keep it secret these days as last time i told my lovely friends about it they proceeded to find nice 'examples' for me, to see if i freaked out! Anyway, I used stamps and inks to make the letters appear as though they were falling or gathering toward the right of the page.

There were more pages, this is just a selection!

Sorry if there has been any of this that didnt make sense (or silly typos), I am very sleepy and off to bed now!

Goodnight!