Collection!

For this assignment, we were allowed to pick any focus for books, but I've kept mine consistent with the theme of the book I selected for this course.  This book, as well as the two preceding it, are included in this collection, as it centers around the main type of book I read-- dystopian societies. While I realize that we have the opportunity to "own"any book for these collections, I thought I would showcase so,etching unique about myself-- the fact that I actually own all of these books, in print, no less.  This is something I take great pride in. 

Cass, Kiera. The Selection. New York: HarperTeen, 2012. Print.

Cass, Kiera. The Elite. New York, NY: HarperTeen, 2013. Print.

Cass, Kiera. The One. New York, NY: HarperTeen, 2014. Print.

These three novels are an excellent dystopian society trilogy in which people are separated into eight castes, based on financial status and occupational tendencies. The main character, America, is in a lower caste, but she is selected to compete to win the affections of Prince Maximus, to join the family of the only One caste. In the second, she has made it past the eliminations and is one of the final 6 who are vying for his affections. I'm actually about to read The One, the final book, in the next few days. 

Collins, Suzanne, and Phil Falco. The Hunger Games. New York: Scholastic, 2008. Print.

Collins, Suzanne, and Elizabeth B. Parisi. Catching Fire. New York: Scholastic, 2009. Print.

Collins, Suzanne. Mockingjay. New York: Scholastic, 2010. Print.

These novels are most likely familiar to any parties who are reading this, as the film franchise is exceedingly popular, but, on the off chance that anyone hasn't heard of this excellent series, they center around a society divided into 12 districts. Katniss, the heroine, lives in District 12, the poorest of the districts. In the first, she is selected to participate in the Hunger Games, an annual event in which two teenagers, one male and one female, from each district must go into an arena and fight to the death. Upon being the victor in the first book, the second chronicles her journey through the tour she completes after winning and then her arrival back in the arena when the 75th Hunger Games has special circumstances causing victors to return. The third follows her attempts to stop the Capitol from continuing the "games".

Condie, Ally, and Jesse Goossens. Matched. Rotterdam: Lemniscaat, 2010. Print.

Condie, Allyson Braithwaite., and Irene Vandervoort. Crossed. New York: Dutton, 2011. Print.

Condie, Allyson Braithwaite, and Irene Vandervoort. Reached. New York, NY: Penguin Group, 2012. Print.

This is another trilogy that I actually have yet to complete. In Matched, the main character, Keira, is extremely excited when she goes to find out that the man she has been paired with to marry is none other than her best friend, Xander. However, as most people don't know their matches, when she goes to the next event where more information about matches are provided, the screen flashes another boy's face before Xander's appears. As she meets this boy and begins to fall in love with him instead, Keira begins to questions everything around the system she grew up in. 

Lu, Marie. Legend. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2011. Print.

Lu, Marie. Prodigy: A Legend Novel. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2012. Print.

Lu, Marie. Champion: A Legend Novel. New York, NY: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2013. Print.

And here we have this blog's main focus. Day and June are both teenagers in the a Republic. However, Day is a criminal, and June is the Prodigy. She score so well on exams that she is in college at 15 and working on entering the military, the most prestigious of positions in her society. Her brother is also an important officer in the military. However, when he is killed and Day is blamed, June sets out to catch Day, something no one has been able to accomplish so far. Eventually, June learns that Day is innocent, which makes the culprit become an unnerving mystery, as only military personnel had Ben around at the time of her brother's murder. Things only get more complicated as Day and Jayne begin to develop feelings for one another. 

Oliver, Lauren. Delirium. New York: Harper, 2011. Print.

Oliver, Lauren. Pandemonium. New York: HarperCollinsPublishers, 2012. Print.

Oliver, Lauren. Requiem. New York, NY: Harper, 2013. Print.

In this society, love is considered a disease. Until they are given the Cure once they come of age, boys and girls are not even allowed to interact. The heroine of this series is all for the cure, having known uncured people and what happens to them. But then she falls in love. Things get more complicated when people find out, and she has to go on the run, leaving civilization to fight for love and freedom. 

Quinn, Susan Kaye. Open Minds. United States: CreateSpace Independent Platform, 2011. Print

Quinn, Susan Kaye. Closed Hearts. United States: CreateSpace Independent Platform, 2012. Print.

Quinn, Susan Kaye. Free Souls. United States: CreateSpace Independent Platform, 2012. Print.

This trilogy documents an advanced society where most people are Readers. They are telepathic and that has become the main method of communication. The heroine, ,however, is a Zero. She still hasn't developed her abilities, and, at this point, never will. Until a cute older boy named Simon takes an interest in her and reveals her true abilities to her. She's much more than a Reader. She's a Jacker. Instead of simply reading thoughts, she can link directly into people's to influence them. However, while the general public knows nothing of Jackers, the government is aware of these people and forces them to go to jail-like facilities. So, she joins forces with the other Jackers to free these innocents and to help Jackers become accepted in society. 

Westerfeld, Scott. Uglies. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005. Print.

Westerfeld, Scott. Pretties. New York: Simon Pulse, 2005. Print.

Westerfeld, Scott. Specials. New York: Simon Pulse, 2006. Print.

Westerfeld, Scott. Extras. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Print.

This is actually the first dystopian series I ever read. Tally lives in a society where everyone is considered to be ugly until they turn 16 and are given a surgery to make them beautiful. Her best friend is a few months older than her, and has already had his surgery, so she is anxious to come of age and join him in Prettytown. However, when her friend Shay, who has the same birthday as her runs away the night before their surgeries, Tally is told she cannot have hers until she brings Shay back. Once she locates her, she finds a community of Uglies who are perfectly content being just that, and suddenly she doesn't know what she wants anymore. Furthermore, she them learns that the Pretty people at given lesions in their brains to make them unintelligent and obedient. Tally becomes part of a group determined to return society to a less controlling state. 

When It's Socially Acceptable to Eat Books

My endeavors this week were quite different from those of the past weeks.  My silence the past fortnight has been due to preparation for the project I presented with fellow classmate David.  Our assignment was to create an edible book.  We were required to full express what the book was about while still making it delectable.  So, we went the most seemingly-basic route, by tackling a cake, but we made it more complicated by adding the element of interactivity. The book, or series, rather, that we selected was Game of Thrones.  The twist we put in was making it an actual game, which isn't technically an aspect of the actual storyline.  

We used bright colors for the cake to exhibit the Candyland-esque influence we wanted the game to add.  Furthermore, the cake itself was marbled to implement the complexity of the obstacles the characters in the series face.  The "board" included a manifestation of the Iron Throne created from graham crackers and icing.  And the way of playing further involved the difficulties faced by participants in the plot of the books.  It is highly complicated to gain access to the Iron Throne, which was able to be reached only by getting through the path set out on the cake, which featured a series of spaces that could allow to you move forward or would force you backwards. Furthermore, to move about the board, the edible sugar cube dice had to be used, but these were hand-made, and extremely rigged.  

The amount of work we put into the cake and the rules behind the game it contained were well worth the effort, as ultimately our pairing took home the "Best in Show" prize at our Edible Book Banquet. I truly enjoyed this project, and all that it involved!

Such Book. Very Picture. Much Wow.

This week, the instructions are to talk about a book that is some way extra-exciting.  And, honestly, the book I've chosen for this class would be a great fit for that prompt.  That is, if I hadn't been telling everything interesting about said book for the past 10 weeks.  Instead, I've chosen one of my favorite childhood books, The Escape of Marvin the Ape by Caralyn Buehner.  First of all, it was illustrated by Buehner's husband, Mark, which is just a fun little tidbit, but obviously not a remarkably standout quality.

What makes this book special is Mark Buehner's use of his illustrations.  Not only is he a fantastic artist, but all of the images in the book feature little Easter eggs, if you will.  For example, there is an ostrich that apparently has escaped the zoo with Marvin, who can be found somewhere in every scene, along with a cat of unexplained origin.  Caralyn's words may be sparse, but each one counts as she is clever and concise with her captions.  Yet part of the magic of this book is that the pictures truly tell the story. 

The pictures are filled with details. Not only are there the ones that I've already mentioned, but also many more.  It'd be nearly impossible to notice absolutely everything that goes on in every image without paging through the book on numerous occasions.  I've been endeavoring to locate a PDF of the book, but so far, the best I've come across is the following video, which has some fairly annoying children's voices narrating the story, but at least shows all the pictures.  For some reason, the video doesn't show up when I attempt to embed it, so click here to view it on YouTube. 

I highly recommend this book to absolutely everyone, whether they have kids or not.  It is a beautiful piece that can be appreciated by all ages. The story is delightful and the pictures are simply magical.  If you ever come across this book in a store, don't hesitate to pick it up and flip through it. Though you'll certainly be hard-pressed not to end up purchasing it.

Ties That Bind...

Don't worry, this blog definitely isn't about Chinese foot-binding, if you got the reference I made... If you didn't, don't worry about it.  This week's topic is book binding, which is a much more logical subject to discuss given this blog's content.

This is another instance of my book not being out-of-the-ordinary in terms of how it was created.  The standard binding method for commercial production is Case Binding, which Champion features.  It implements signatures, which are groups of pages that are sewn together,  which are then combined into what is called a "textblock".  The process gets its name from the "case" that the pages are then glued to, which is cardboard covered in paper, in the case (no pun intended) of my book. 

 Last Spring, in my Typography class, I tried to replicate this method, but I had all loose pages, which didn't allow for signatures, plus I didn't really get how to make a signature.  So I did my best to do the same process but simply gluing the pages to the case.  It actually worked quite well and definitely stayed together.  The only issues I came across were the glue bleeding through the end-papers where I put it on too thick.  Sadly, I don't have any images of this piece to show.

There are a few other processes for binding books that are used today, albeit less than Case Binding.  One method that perhaps would have been more suitable to my Typography book is Oversewing, which uses loose pages that are then clamped together before being sewn.  However, even if I'd had a clamp to use, Oversewing results in the book not lying flat when opened, which wasn't conducive to my needs. 

Essentially, I somehow manages to combine the binding processes for hardcover and paperback books in creating my piece, as paperback books are simple glued together after being carefully stacked.  This flexible layer holds the book together while maintaining plenty of ability to read with ease.  

What's crazy is that, in all these words, I've talked about only three different methods.  Well, let's say three and a half to include my make-shift original binding.  But there are still so many different ways that books can be bound.  There's a fascinating amount of possibilities, and I urge you to explore them.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bookbinding#Hardcover_binding
http://printwiki.org/Case_Binding
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWbcriODmntE-UQtP98v5A_fLIHwrm9rGpFGi4KQm37CkluTXPxcjdAQy1rFJykBRC5_7Mm4SXG8gSL-remIa7ob3aYcNyA4WJgaWmckXp0PiOKtw_FLu_voqSv9tlsEPqaUwxAlEVXvE/s1600/bookbinding.jpg

Print

As a mass-produced novel, the printing process for Champion isn't the most interesting.  There isn't strenuous, painstaking work put into it from assembling type to be printed.  The most common method is using a web press, which is a machine that is fed a continuous roll of paper, generating many pages in a seamless stream.  Most machines even include parts that cut and fold the paper, augmenting the binding process greatly.  Essentially, once the book is written and formatted, the only work that much be done is to ensure that the press has the supplies it needs.  Then someone can simply oversee it as the press pumps the books.

Personally, I've never done the type of printing that occurs for bookmaking, though I have done other forms of printing in the Printmaking class that Marshall offers.  I took it my freshman year and here are my favorite products of the course:

The one on the left is a tri-color monoprint of the logo of what I believe was a body jewelry company... But I may be incorrect on that.  I just know it was an image I found in an dvertisement in Alternative Press magazine during the class one day.  I then made an enlarged sketch of the logo and went from there.  The process is pretty simple.  I traced the drawing onto a large piece of glass, then rolled yellow ink onto it.  From there, I removed the ink in the areas that I wanted to remain white.  I then put it through a press so the yellow transferred onto paper.  I repeated the process with red ink, except that time I removed the red in the places where I wanted both the white and yellow to remain solitary.  Then once more with the blue, which I obviously mostly just retained for outlines. This is definitely my favorite piece of the entire semester. 

However, the one on the right was also a lot of fun.  The process was about the same, but I used oil pastels instead of ink and I hand-selected the exact regions I wanted to color instead of having to put the color everywhere and remove it.  This process, however, was more of an experiment, and the resultant image was much lighter than I anticipated. Once of my classmates remarked that it reminded him of the "pictures" people find in food.  Which instigated my addition of the pancake in the picture.  Though that was simply watercolor and involved no printing processes.  

All in all, though, I think monoprinting is a very fun process and I highly recommend trying it if you're ever presented with the opportunity.  You can create some fantastic art with little knowledge or experience, which is very rewarding, as well as very encouraging for further pursuing the art form.  If I get the chance, I'd definitely take another printmaking course.

http://desktoppub.about.com/cs/printing/g/webpress.htm

Typography Revisited

As I made very obvious in my first post, I'm a big fan of typography.  It kind of comes with the territory as a Graphic Design major.  Even if it isn't your main interest, you find yourself consistently having thoughts like, "Oh man, that kerning is a mess," or "Why did they have to use Papyrus?" or "This definitely should have been a sans-serif font."  Now, I'm in no way saying that this course of study gave me some sort of special ability to notice the font changes within the novel.  It's just this area of interest that made me want to further explore the typographic novelties present in this book.

Champion begins with Day's point of view, which means that a scarlet-hued Mercury font makes its first appearance.  Mercury is a bold, sans-serif font that seems to be neither condensed nor expanded.  Here's a brief look at the font, created in 1997 by Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones:

At first glance, the font seems fairly average.  It doesn't have too many features that make it stand out.  However, it does have a few very interesting quirks.  For example, the bowl of the lowercase "g" is only about half the width of the character itself, something I don't know that I've ever seen.  Furthermore, the top and the left arm of the lowercase "t" are connected, creating a bit of a triangle.  These are very small details, but still give the font its personality.  Even the ampersand is constructed in a way that is slightly out of the ordinary, having open space instead of crossing over itself.  

The other chapters feature Adobe Caslon, a font designed in 1990 by Carol Twombly.  However, she did not create it herself.  William Caslon made a group of fonts known as Caslon, the first design being in 1722.  The font "became popular throughout Europe and the American colonies; printer Benjamin Franklin hardly used any other typeface. The first printings of the American Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were set in Caslon." Caslon Pro was modeled off of instances of Caslon that appeared between 1734 and 1770, so, in a way, it's still its own font, as it was created from taking inspiration from many different versions.

Caslon doesn't have too many outright standout qualities, either.  It's a pretty standard serif font, with just a few noticeable differences.  For one, the top of the lowercase "f" sticks out farther and curves under less than in most fonts.  It includes old-style numbers, so the 1,2, and 0 all fit within the x-height.  The 1, actually, is another unique feature, looking almost like an uppercase "I," while the 0 is oddly round, appearing almost like an "o".  However, these aspects just make the font what it is, and obviously that works, as the New Yorker utilizes the font for its content.  

I could go on a lot more about both of these fonts, discussing how the leading is probably about at 1.5 in the book, which is pretty standard for a novel, as it eases reading.  Single-spacing can appear cramped.  Ironically, this entire blog is single-spaced, but it also incorporates pictures and double spacing between the paragraphs to give the eyes a periodic break.  But, they'll also get an even longer break, as this is where I'm leaving off.

Sources:
http://www.identifont.com/samples/fountain/Mercury.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Hoefler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caslon
http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/store/html/index.cfm?event=displayFontPackage&code=1712
http://www.identifont.com/samples/adobe/AdobeCaslon.gif

I Speak For The Trees...

Some books have beautiful, intricately-made papers that house its words.  This is not exactly the case for my book. It was released in 2013, and is about as commercial as they come.  And extremely boring, it seems, in terms of paper.  According to some investigating I did, the type of paper used in the book publishing industry is literally just called "book paper."  Yeah.  No surprises there.  It is also sometimes referred to as publishing paper, but I wouldn't say that's too much more of an interesting name.

I cannot seem to find out whether there is a specific type of tree whose pulp is used to create this paper, but it does have a lot of other specifications to it that make it ideal for its usage in published novels, such as its very exactly calculated weight.  For casual reading, the paper needs to be fairly lightweight for ease of use, but still needs to be tough enough to withstand everyday jostling and not tear too easily.  This paper can be colored, but in Champion, it is simply the default white seen in nearly all commercial novels.  It is completely blemish-free, without any watermarks or other designs.  The company seems to have done absolutely nothing to differentiate this book from others aside from the obvious content differences.

However, that is simply the nature of this type of book.  This is a book that has been highly anticipated, being the conclusion to a trilogy, so it was expected to sell a great deal of copies.  Therefore, the focus is put more on the efficient manufacturing of the books, rather than giving them any painstaking artistic touches such as expensive paper with intricate detailing.  Though, my particular book does have the benefit of having more detailed typographic design than most.  So, really, the plain paper helps to display that aspect of it.

Upon doing research on paper, I realized that most people know very little about paper at all.  Beyond the everyday types, information on paper really is not common knowledge.  It's just not something that we focus on in our culture.  Most people probably paper multiple times a day, yet could not tell you how it is made using any details other than that it comes from trees.  So I figured I'd put this short video here that shows the paper-making process: