Starting a Book-dummy – Book Commission

Commission dummy, trim size , copyright 2017 Douglas Stockdale

When developing a photo/artist book I am a very firm believer in the creation of a book-dummy to be able to pre-visualize the final published book. It is very hard to look at a monitor or screen to obtain how a potential book feels as an object. How the book will open, how the papers will turn, the texture of the paper and the weight of the book as it lays in your hands and at some point in this development, how the combination of ink, paper and image will appear. Creating a book-dummy will just take me that much closer to the final printed book.

For the new book commission we needed to come to an agreement as to the potential trim size as this will impact the layout of the text and photographs. Fortunately there were two basic sizes already predefined; 9-3/4″ x 7″ and 12″ x 9-3/4″ in either a horizontal or vertical format. We quickly agreed for this book project to work with a horizontal 9-3/4″ (W) x 7″ (H) format design. Taking this one big variable out of the rest of the book development equations (decisions) is really, really nice.

As a result of this format decision I was able to very quickly cut down some paper to the right trim size versus my first version yesterday.  This stage of book development is still very rough so I used scissors and not the paper cutter (saved a little time as my two paper-cutters are stored elsewhere) to trim the paper down. Still not sure how many pages just yet thus cut up a few sheets to start framing the layout. At this stage I am also using some big paper-clips to hold the mess of pages together. The binding of the book-dummy can become a lot more formal a little later in the book development process.

The pre-visualization is in process and I am in turn starting to become more focused.

Other self-serving stuff that I need to keep repeating (yuk, yuk):

Getting things ready for the Introduction to Photo Book Design workshop at LACP in a few weeks, which starts on October 1st.

I still have a few copies of the Bluewater Shore edition that are available (and another book review for Bluewater Shore that will be posted soon). So email me (doug@douglasstockdale.com).

Cheers!