So the books came today! I played around with photographing the cover, to find a balance of it being focused on the book and not have a distracting background. Overall I am happy with how the book turned out in its printed format and it has given me the experience of doing so. 

I have chosen to use Mixam for the printing of the book. I have gone for a paperback version and kept costs as low as I could. I found I could order 3 books for the same price of one, and have 28 pages in total. The process of doing was mostly straight forward, though they had to adjust the bleed and I had to add a lamination to the cover. This has set back the time for delivery for the Monday deadline, but I enquired and it hopefully will be sent out Friday or sooner.

Here is a digital copy of the finished book.

Here are the finished illustrations for the book. I have used a font for the main bodies of text that I would probably have to change if I take this project further as it is for personal use only.

With this project I think it is no longer possible to get into the printed format I originally wanted. It has been really difficult keeping on track during the current situation of being in lockdown, and each month has felt like a week and each week a day. I think my ambitions of this project were set to a standard that if we were in normal times I would be able to achieve, but as we are not then I have had to compromise. I think aiming to get a paperback version printed is affordable for myself, as well in May at some point, when I have the book finalised, I would want to start a Kickstarter for the hardback version I originally wanted to do. It would allow me to have a physical paperback copy I could amend if anything needed to be, and be able to possibly fund a printed run of hardback books. 

I had decided on my book size awhile ago at 210 x 280 mm, just slightly taller than the Russian Folktale book I mentioned in a previous post, as I liked it as a size. Also I had considered doing a dust jacket then but hadn’t fully decided. I think I want to do one and have looked at the practical side of getting it printed with mixam, same with the book itself, and the outcome would be printing on A2 sized poster. I wanted the jacket to be slightly longer but realised that the price jumps massively to A1, so A2 is the likely size to go for as I want the soft touch lamination they offer for the jacket, as it is a small detail that I think ups the value of the book.

With the book itself I want it to be hardback and with the end papers inside I want them to be coloured. Initially I wanted the end papers to be with a repeat pattern but that isn’t possible with mixam so instead I want the colour options they have for it. It does bring up the price however, but it would be an extra £1 - 3 depending on the number of books ordered, and I don’t feel the black/white cheaper options suit the book.

So at stands with the technicalities:

Hardback book - 210 x 280, Paper (silk, 170gsm), pages 32 - 40, cover Matt laminate.

Dust Jacket - Using the poster product, A2 (Jacket itself 594 x height would have a bleed on top of 280 to be trimmed down by myself), front (silk, 200 gsm, soft touch lamination), back (blank, maybe gloss lamination though it ups price further by £20) 

Taking this project to the next level is by actually making the project and selling it. Kickstarter is a platform that allows you to show/promote your project and raise funds to get it printed/ produced into the final form. If you don’t reach the goal you set no one loses their money and the project simply doesn’t happen, yet. I do think it is a good way of being able to get your work into a final outcome and it allows you to get the funds to do so. My doubts are in whether my project would actually interest people, or even be seen, and if it would reach a small goal that I set. However I think I would regret not even giving it a go more, so I am going to look into how I can use Kickstarter and set the project up on there. I haven’t ever sold anything online before so I need to understand that aspect of shipping/packaging etc, as well.

At this point I have a general idea for each page, I just need to make some pages more interesting with the layout and composition, as well as play around with the text placement.

Here are some more illustrators I am inspired by, as well as some having used elements of Scottish history in the books they have illustrated for.

After feedback today I need to write up the text to have a better idea for what the imagery is/ sits on the pages.

After feedback I needed to adapt ideas into being more different and less obvious to what the next page might be. Also to use double page for the illustration rather than on just one side. Decided to remove using little portraits of the person as it was limiting my illustrations I felt. I might use them for the contents/ timeline instead.

Initial sketches and ideas for page illustrations.

Colour versions, starting to think about what colour schemes to use and layout of pages.

These are some illustrators who are able to create illustrations that I think are the direction I want to go in with my own work. They know how to use composition, shapes, colours and textures that work well together in an illustration, which is something that I hopefully can do in this project of illustrating a book.

I have had a look at the books that I have at home to get a better idea of what size, shape and dimensions I want to use for my book.

This book by Ignotofsky has a nice size to read through, and it has a layout within that I can use as inspiration to my own book. Also the cover use gold embossing in the text and certain details, which catches your eye when looking at it.

Again similar to the previous book it has a nice size to read through, also I really like how the cover has a cord texture to it, it adds another element to the book making it different.

With this book I think the square format works well with the subject of the book being patterns, but I doubt I will use square dimensions for my book. Also I like the emboss of the text on the cover which adds to the texture feel used as well.

This book has such an unusual format, being more taller in shape, but it benefits the imagery inside, mostly being posters.

This book takes on the format that most Disney/ Pixar concept books use, and it allows the imagery to be in landscape without a line break like in portrait books. I do like this format for that reason but I am unsure if I want to use it yet.

There is also the consideration of dust jackets and if I want to do one. I think they do add another element to the book but it is the logistics of time and if it is possible to easily make them. 

What I liked about this book is the use of colour from the spine onto the front, I don’t know why but it is interesting to me.

Size - I think having a medium sized book is what works best, similar to the first. They are easy to hold and read through, but I do like the idea of a bigger book, like the last, for the imagery to draw you into the book. However it is the cost and availability that make it not really a viable option to go for a big sized book.

Format - I definitely think square is not the right format for the book that I am wanting to do. I am torn between a format like Ignotofsky’s, as it gives a practical layout for information, but them a format similar to the Brave book would allow for larger imagery.

​Typography - What I have noticed from most of the books is that they use at least two fonts, one usually more decorative for the main words and the other simple for the informative words. So this is something to consider for my own book.

I think deciding wether I take the book into print is important at this stage as I need to consider if the dimensions and other specifications for the book are able to be easily printed, as well as the cost of it. COVID might be having an impact on printers, so I don’t know if it could be printed on time for the submission, as well as the scale of how much I want to illustrate for the book. If that is the case then it would have to stay digital for submission and I could maybe get it printed at a later date.

From doing some research into online book printers these two seem to have enough customisable options for books. COVID doesn’t seem to have affected being able to get books from them and delivery isn’t too bad time wise.

These are examples similar to what I want to achieve with my book, and give me ideas for layout and what kind of size/dimensions to possibly use. They are illustrators that have effectively conveyed information alongside or within the illustrations which  emphasises the people, events, facts, etc.

I have known for a few months that I wanted to do something history related because as a whole I have always had an interest in history, from learning at school and watching Horrible Histories at home. It would give me a starting point as well, rather than coming up with an entire, original story for example. Again I felt that illustrating a book would be able to fit with my aspirations of going into book illustration and in doing so I can show that I am capable of producing the work for a book.

​I had some other ideas of illustrating book covers for the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman or covers for David Almond books, but in the end I have decided I definitely would prefer to have one project of illustrating a fully finalised book on Scottish women throughout history. It is a topic that I think needs to be taught more at schools as there was very little mention of any Scottish women when I was at school and illustrating a book aimed for 10 - 14 year olds would be the age range I am going for. I feel like it is an area that has only recently been started to be researched in more depth and there are examples of books written on this topic, but from what I could find only one book has a more illustrative tone, but not with as much imagery (from what I can tell on Amazon) as I want to include.