This was a very fun project. I had two copies made at the school’s printing office, one of these copies I will be sending to my sister, and I will keep the second for myself.
Working on a close time schedule is something I have done several times. This was not really any different for me. I needed to select the pictures and the poetry to place in the book and make choices regarding book size and placement of the elements. My completed book was ready for printing this week on Monday, with one exception, I had not received the information that I need to save the file as a PDF. Once this was done, I was able to present a disc and have the book printed.
I found that all skills acquired though out the term helped with this project. Knowing how to use the tools in Photoshop helped me make some important changes to several of the pictures I included in the book. In two of the pictures I chose to alter the background so the subject of the photo was what drew the eye instead of the cluttered background. On many of the pictures I needed to alter the size of the image to fit the page format I was using for my book. This was easily done using the resizing tool in Photoshop. On others I used layers to create a pretty border for the picture.
Design choices I made that proved to be important were the size of the book, the placement of the elements on the pages and sizing of pictures and text. For size, I chose 8 ½ by 11 format. This was in part because of one of the poems chosen to go in the book. “A Mother’s Love” I have always thought looked best printed on letter sized paper. This poem is centered on one page and across from it is a photo of a young mother holding her young son, which is also centered. Another choice involved the length of the book, to accommodate the quantity of pictures and the poetry I wanted to place in the book I needed a 16 page book including front and back covers. Other design choices included where to place which picture and which ones went best with the poems included in the book. I also found that I needed to write a new poem for the book. This poem, “Generations”, is placed in the center of the book and helps the pictures placed with it tell their stories.
Ultimately, I plan to sell this book and to create others as well for sale as well. Some copies of it I will give out as gifts to special individuals, in particular those who gave me a review to place on the back of the book. Again this was a very fun project and the knowledge gained throughout the term all helped with the completion of it. My own sense of time and the need to complete it in a timely manner also proved helpful. I believe I can complete other books of a longer length and in a reasonable time frame. Therefore I plan to use the knowledge gained in this class as a whole and this project in particular to create other books and sell them as well.
