This was a short and simple exercise guided me through making my own printed mock ups, which gave me insights into some of the ways that books are printed and bound.
Creating a small scale mock up
The first mock up was a small A6 booklet made out of a twice folded sheet of A4. To keep track of the pages, I listed them in the order that they would be read when folded.
Once unfolded, I could then see how each of the pages would be printed on the single larger sheet. I found it interesting to see how the pages translated and reversed as I didn't previously know about this form of printing, folding, then cutting along the folded edges to bind a book.
Creating a large scale mock up
To create a larger A5 mock up, I used the more familiar method of folding folding multiple sheets of A4 in half, then stapling them together as a booklet. I numbered each page in reading order again, including the front and back covers.
The exercise mentioned how the folded pages start pulling in from the edge the more sheets are included. This can be fixed by trimming the edges, but the available space available from differing page widths would need to be considered during the design process depending on where each sheet would be placed in the book.
Another new term introduced to me was pagination or the process of translating document to be ready for print. Pagination doesn't necessarily reflect written page numbers, as there are some books with introductions and glossaries with the numbers starting several pages in, but the magic number can be calculated from the total number of pages plus one. In the case of this booklet, any of the page numbers on one side of a single sheet can add together to reach 17.
This was a valuable exercise that taught me the logistics needed to produce a book and I'll be using these mock ups as a reference in the next exercise, where I'll be reviewing my designs and how they could fit into the form of a book.
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