Middle Ground – Book Dummy #3

Middle Ground, Book Dummy #3, leporello design 2018 copyright by Douglas Stockdale

This is an update on my artist project Middle Ground and the background story of why I created my third book dummy. In one regard I am very happy with this book dummy as this is the very first time I created a leporello book from scratch.

But first, why a third book dummy? A quick recap, the first book dummy was a proof of concept that helped me further visualize this project in a book form. What I quickly realized is that I did not like the loose and unhinged covers, that I like the covers connected with a spine. What I did like is how my concept for this book was developing; that by carefully cropping each image, I could create a continuous line with the top edge of the border wall as the leporello unfolded. Very, very nice!

The second book dummy was made at scale of what I intended the book to look like with the interior images an impressive 12″w x 9-1/2″ h. Now this looked great. The other design aspect was whether to include a small white margin around each photograph, which I had included in the book dummy #2.

To help with that design question, I created this book dummy #3 in which the images are trimmed with a full bleed. In checking with my prospective printer, I found that I still did not trim enough of each image off to simulate the book printing process. But it was enough to understand that I had one important image that was at risk with a full bleed printing process. Perhaps I did not need to create a complete book dummy to understand this aspect, but I also wanted a scaled-down version to be able to carry around with me (book dummy #2 is too big and too  awkward to carry around).

The fun part of building this entire book from scratch was playing with the wrap around cover (below) in which one of my images will extend from the front to the back. I am also realizing that in order to do this, I need to seriously crop the image and may not visually work as I intended. So this is another design issue to wrestle with; what to do with the outside covers.

I am now in the midst of getting some final printing quotes and we are working on some alternative designs for the interior layout and covers. This may lead to a Book Dummy #4. But after watching to Oscar’s last night and how Jordan Peele re-wrote his screen play like 20 times, the fact that I might need to do Book Dummy #4 is like a walk in the park (plus, did I mention how fun it is to build a book from scratch?)

Equally interesting is in a discussion with a Mexican photographer/book artist friend, in addition to having the colophon in both English and Spanish (España) also understanding how Middle Ground symbolically investigates the issues of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and the Dreamers. So more shortly about how that will be broadening the scope of this project.

Let me know if you want to be placed on the interest list (doug@douglasstockdale.com) for Middle Ground, which delightfully is steadily growing and if you can help me network for potential exhibitions, I would really, really appreciate that very much!! (expect this to part to be repeated very often!)

Cheers!