Exercise 4: Collating and binding



 

 

I started my exercise number 4 from testing in on the small samples that I have printed for the exercise number 3.  There weren't that many pages therefore it was easy to stitch all of them only with a needle.  As it was just a trial I decided to stitch half of the paper and the other half glue with double sided tape.  The final thought is to glue my big illustrations with double sided tape as it is going to be much easier to hold them together.  However as far as I can see this way of putting pages together is not as perfect in terms of holding page one to another.  There is a big risk that they will come apart after a while.

 

 

 

 

A book cover where the stitches are visible.

A half of the page stitched with a needle holds strong and nicely another page.

One page glued with double sided tape makes it easy to do, however this is not strong enough for the big book.

This is my small booklet from above .

After the testing on the small samples I can make a good decision in terms of the way how I would like to hold all my pages together.  I will glue them with double sided sticky tape, with the illustrations printed on separate pages.

 

The front cover is with the heavier paper to protect the book, with a cut out revealing the first page and introducing my character - me!

I made a kind of spine, using normal plain paper to cover the edges for a crisper finish.

Possibly the most "important" feature that is not included in my book is page numbers.  I know that the page about motherhood is the first page (and as I said, this is the most important part of my life now), however I didn't want the book to be like a list of the parts of my identity in order of importance.  I think that leaving the page numbers out shows that I try to be well-rounded, and at the end of the day there is no "beginning, middle and end" of your identity so it doesn't follow a normal narrative.

 

It's nice to see my work in physical form, after all of the work on the computer and making collages with different paper forms.  For the last few months I have been gathering the knowledge and ideas for this moment, to actually create a book!  When I see it all coming together like this, I hope we don't all end up with Kindles and no physical books, because there is still something magical about turning a page and wondering what will be on the other side.