Creative: Morocco Test Book #3

I knew this book would be a challenge. I’ve made this book many times, with many different stories, and I’m never quite happy with it, which is why I keep attempting to make it work. I KNOW how to make it work, don’t get me wrong, but I fight against it. A Blurb 8×10, matte, softcover photobook, with Mohawk Eggshell, a paper I truly love.

Depending on the bind, running images across the gutter can be challenging.

This is the part I knew going in, but there is something to keep in mind. First, I still love how this book looks. When an image successfully runs across the gutter, it’s like hitting a home run. It looks and feels great. Just remember that images toward the front and back will lose less in the gutter than those in the middle of the book. That’s just a natural occurrence with a bind unless you use layflat or a sewn bind. So, I knew there would be spreads that worked perfectly and others that would not. This is my only frustration.

I will say I LOVE the new matte covers. I don’t want to use anything else. I begged for these for fifteen years. The current CEO would see me coming and just shake his head, saying, “I know, I know, matte covers.” I would bring up matte covers in every single meeting, regardless of what the focus was intended to be. It worked!

If this were a real book and not a test book, I would have designed the inside pages differently. I would have still gone doubletruck, bordered, just not nearly as many, and there would be WAY more text. The story would be included in writing throughout the entire book, and I would have built out both the front matter and back matter, allowing the book to breathe.

You might notice the images look a bit textured. I added some in-camera texture, a first for me. It’s supposed to mimic film grain, which it does not, but I still like it. Sometimes I love the perfectly smooth textureless feel of digital, and other times I do not. This will also be greatly impacted by paper choice. This eggshell paper has a slight texture, which will emphasize the in-camera added grain. The next book, which has also arrived, will show you what these pictures look like on a coated paper with less texture.

The spread above shows two men on their phones near the coast. I like this picture, but I don’t like it on a spread. As I mentioned before, the closer to the center of the book, the more you lose in the gutter, so this picture gets too fractured for my liking. I would run this left to right, but editorial style across the gutter, but not to the edge of page.

This spread, with the wall of ancient dirt and splash of red from the trash can, works but barely. The can is ever so close to the gutter. But I still feel the overall spread is doable. I love pictures like this. Things I would have historically never photographed, but when bookmaking is the goal, photographs like these are pure gold. Informational more than graphic, although this one fits both bills slightly.

These two spreads work better. If I could hold the book with both hands, you would see the arm of the guy on the left can be seen. Shooting and holding the book is always a challenge. Another thing to remember, most people are looking at photography on a phone. One of the lamest ways to ingest photography, so when they see an image in print that is over twelve inches in width, it can stop them in their tracks. That’s why a good book works differently. If shot well, edited well, and designed well, a book makes an impact unlike anything else. This book has been a great experiment for me, and one I will learn a lot from. The “final” book will contain elements you see here.