So, this time around I went through PRINTING HELL to get to the inkjet prototype. Honestly, gate folds are a gigantic pain in the butt, even if it turned out pretty awesome.

For the sake of not messing anything up, I made no cuts in the gate fold, but I may try it after Monday’s crit, just to see what it looks like.

I think the sequence was a very deliberate and conscious effort on my part, so really swapping any two pages, even just misplacing the center spread, really changes the flow of things, creating a huge bump in the sequence. Honestly, changing two pages makes it a very awkward book. Now, if the pages are in the same spread, it might just give the book variety, as the overall narrative would remain intact.

the narrative itself is comparison-based. The whole story revolves around life, death, and the cycle between the two. In the case of the book, the flower is used as an example of the theme through juxtaposition; the live plant and the dying one represent the young and old, and it reveals the somewhat naive concept that nothing really dies; we’re all extensions of those before us.

Anyhow, in terms of the book itself, I’ve had to make a ton of small, minute changes in order for things to work properly. My changes have ranged from full-scale remakes to simply changing two numbers in the document setup tab. It’s been one heck of a rollercoaster ride, and I’m glad Tuan and my peers have been able to help me through it. My mom has also been a big help, reviewing my written content and letting me bounce my ideas off her. It’s somewhat mind-blowing to think that this whole book started with a single spark — a small idea — and turned into such and intricate and painstakingly crafted product. I’m pleased with how things have progressed, and I’m glad the gate fold and its many counterparts did not force me to pull my hair out.

The main changes were text placement, text formatting (i.e. hidden characters and spaces that shouldn’t be there/widows), image sizing, page sizing, print sizing, spread scaling (turning off “scale to fit” for the gate fold), and making the content flow better in terms of the written and visual content. The font choice on all pages was also deliberate and evolved over time.