jessandersenstudiosem2

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

final photos of the drop banner illustrations

these were really challenging to photograph as the foil is very reflective in the light. I tested them both indoors and outdoors and outdoors seemed to have better lighting. 

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

photography of the final concertina. I used calico fabric as the under side of the photos to create a nice texture as well as a visual link to the drop banner illustrations. 

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

these were notes from the calculations that i had to do to make sure that each of the flags was the same size in relation to the aspect ratio of each print. a lot more maths than i was anticipating but ultimately worked out successfully making sure that the drop banner series was cohesive in shape and size. 

I had a test flag that we made intially that I took the measurements of and did all the calculations of the other banners based on those measurements.

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

These are images from a test concertina i made as a prototype before makiing the real one. You can see from the photos that the prints on the cover are over inked and become blurry. the small text becomes unreadable and confusing to understand. These were challenges that we faced in the printing phases for the cover. I ended up having to foil my name on the back of the real one in the bindery as the screen printing wasnt working out because of the point size i had it set at.  

The concertina itself in this test was created one sided and ended up being about 3 meters long. this felt commical and took away from the nature of the display i was trying to create. This lead to some editing decisions where i decided to do the concertina double sided. I was worried that this would wreck the timeline affect that i was trying to create with the ordering of the pages. It actually worked out to create a subtle duality with the older three artists on one side and the more modern ones on the other. This helped to speak to the modern and historical arcetypes of the witch that i have been exploring.

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

“Classic layout offers an ample quantity of text per page while improving readability and allowing the selection of typeface to subtly and invisibly set the tone of the book.“

I think that this is an important point of view in book design. Even though it may look and feel just like text boxes, which is how i felt when designing my concertina, the subtle layout choices and type decisions set the tone of the book giving the reader a subconscious experience through legible readability. when designing my concertina i found it important to have a typeface and little design landmarks like central page numbers and headers to keep within traditional book design aesthetic, this gives the audience a visual experience that helps like with the tone of the other visual outputs  

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

looking into different type writer style fonts to evoke the feeling of old and aged paper / print. Looking into storybook archetypes and traditional book design is something that is a prevalent theme in this practice led design project. Typesetting and typewriting were older ways of creating traditional communication pieces such as letters or books. Keeping somewhat within this realm of type design, looking at more traditional and legible typefaces will keep the overall visual tone of the project cohesive and structured.   

The two typefaces that i decided to go with were tribute OT for body text and Carta marina for display headings. Tribute oT is the perfect combination of aestheitc display and ledgiabilty for an old storybook style design. Carta marina has an occult look to it with its sharpe edges and textured letterforms. The texture in this typeface lent itself to the screen printing process well with the texture coming through very subtly. 

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

These were a series of photos i had saved to my phone when I was thinking about creating hand drawn lettering to act as drop caps in my concertina. I feel like this could have further leaned into the art nouveau influence creating a stylistic link between typography and illustration conventions. This is something that admittedly i ran out of time for and would have liked to experiment with further.   

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

Starting to assemble all the pieces ! 

This was a very satisfying moment seeing it all come together. The dark wood of the poles contrasts well against the cream coloured calico. from this point i just need to add on the strings to the poles so that they hang.

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

Reflection of sewing the banners

this process was time consuming and tedious because i didn't measure the fabric before the printing process. This resulted in many mathematical calculations to get each of the prints the right size. The aspect ratio of each drawing was different which meant that each banner needed a different amount of white boarder around the gold foiled illustration, 

we did it and we made it work but i would most defiantly cut the fabric to the right sizes first if i were to do this process again. 

The sewing itself was pretty straight forward process, adding a backing and looping the tops and bottoms to create a slot for the poles to sit in.   

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

Process photos from sewing the banners 

-measuring the correct lengths and widths for each banner 

-ironing the edges down to a precise measurement to make the sewing process easier. 

-testing the poles in the loops once the banners were sewn 

-last two photos are of we unpicking the jessica shaw banner as i messed up the measurements for this flag and the overall size and quality of the bannere ended up not matching the rest of the series. i unpicked all the sewing and re measured and realised one of he edges was off. so i adjusted it, re ironed and sewed to get it to match the rest of the series. 

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

Reflection of foiling

This process worked really well for my illustration series. we only had one print that registered badly and ended up having to re print. The foil stood out on the calico really well and offered a really engaging visual. The foiling linked nicely to the book covers that i had looked into and provided a medium that allowed my whole series to work strongly together with research ideas. 

This process didnt seem to work as fluidly on the book cover. The weave of the brown material was slightly rougher and the actual design of the cover had a lot smaller details and text that presented a challenge. we got some good prints but there were more dud ones than in the illustration foiling process. 

The foil is very reflective in the light. the nature of fabric being malleable and easily manipulated means that the foil is more susceptible to changes in the light which gives a very magical quality. The fluidity in movement that would create the foil reflections creates visual spiritual connotations. 

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

staining the poles for my drop banners. 

i bought 12 pieces of dowling from bunnings and 4 packs of wooden beads from spotlight. my dad helped me to drill the bead holes bigger so that they fit onto the ends of each of the poles. This is both decorative and also makes sure that the banners dont slide off of the poles, keeping the structure of the drop banner sound. 

I decided to stain the poles a darker brown to contrast with the light tone of the calico banners as well as match the brown concertina cover. This kept both design outputs cohesive and made the overall project visually engaging. 

these photos are of me staining the poles and dipping the beads into the stain to make sure they were as evenly covered as possible.  

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

constructing the final concertina. 

i used paper clips to make sure that i had them in the right order before i started gluing the pages together. i used a glue roller and a tray of glue to cover the back of each page and make sure that they were well adhered to each other

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

Process photos of the foiling process 

-laying out my screenprinted image and cutting a piece of foil that would cover the length and width of the image so that there were no overalapping crease marks.

-laying down the foil on top of the screen printed glue and lining it up perfectly to make sure all of the image is covered.

-rolling the print though the press to apply pressure to the foil and help it stick to the glue. we did two roll throughs of the print to ensure all the foil was stcuk down and this seemed to work well. Previous tests with one roll had parts where the foil would lift. 

- a fun and fancy image of a print, textured and scrunched to shoe the foil in the light on the calico.  

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

process photos from screen pronting my concertina cover. 

-the dark room where the emulsion has to dry on the screen

- my screen set up and the type of glue used to create a surface that the foil would stick to.

-cutting and measuring the print of the cover so that there was enough room for it to wrap around a grey 3mm backing board 

-the final designed cover  

[jessandersenstudiosem2]

making book cloth ! 

This process was interesting and something i never would have considered as an integral part of the process had i not popped into the bindery to see Lindsey and fluer. This process involved wetting the fabric and gluing sheets of rice paper to it. This solidified the fabric and ensured that the weave of the fabric wouldn't move during the screen printing and backing processes. 

we had to make sure that we were smoothing out the paper from the centre to the edges to ensure that the glue would adhere to the fabric with minimal air pockets. Air pockets are not ideal as they would create different tensions within the cloth, potentially creating problems during the printing and backing phases of the process. 

Once glued down the fabric had to dry over night to make sure that all the glue was dry before printing. This process was fairly quick and easy to do and was an important step in the construction of my concertina hard covers.