As i gradually begin to chalk up more and more finished bird images, and accompanying words i been looking into which custom book creating company to use. My parents have had holiday photo books made by Photobox before, and the quality is great, but i'm getting on with Blurb's 'create your own' interface (BookWright) a lot easier, plus the selection of book format is a lot wider so i'll be going with Blurb when it comes to getting the physical copy made up.
I'm leaning towards a 20x25 portrait format, with a dust cover. Have yet to make any decisions on the paper type, but they all look pretty Pro to be honest, and very affordable - i may even get a few done eventually, so i can keep one in my portfolio.
I cant wait to be able to sign this whole thing off by having it my hands, in a real book, like a real person! The 'tangible conclusion' is what's driving me on now, as i'm fast running out of productive steam right now - but i'm still going to have to knock out 2 birds a day (fully complete with type) for the next couple of weeks if i'm going to meet my target!
Sweet sweet Photobox discounts.
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So i don't get myself in a pickle when it comes the undoubted last minute compiling of all the artwork and sorting all the typesetting on Blurb's BookWright self publishing tool; i've been laying out my pages as i complete them, so i can get to grips with it all. I mean, it's not massively tricky to get my head around, but it'll be one less thing to stress about.
I was scratching my head a bit about how the text should be aligned -after having a quick chat with Ben and i showed where i was up to and he pointed out that it should definitely be justified, as currently my type was wonky at the ends, and a bit unsightly. I thought it might be a bit of a ball-ache to get it all 'squared-off' but the justify tool on BookWright sorts it all out quick sharp! So now i have nice neat blocks of type on one page, and the image page opposite.
The tone in which i 'narrate' the book is light-hearted and pretty much how i would talk about the birds in real life. I'd like to think my sense of humour comes across when reading the short paragraphs, and also some of the bird love i have with it. I've been a long time fan of Matt Sewell's bird books/drawings (below) and he's always been the benchmark i've been aiming for.Although with my graphic style im not sure i've got same sort of appeal.
Reading his books and the way he describes birds is pretty similar to how mine is going - you can tell he's got a real passion for the subject in his writing, and a quirky sense of humour. Even the layout is similar, but then again i'm not sure how many more innovative ways you can effectively lay out a bird picture book?
At least my images look absolutely nothing like his, so i've not totally ripped him off!
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