Studio Practice : OUGD404 | Studio Brief 02

Over the last two days, I have been to drop in to bind my book. I went in with my printed pages ready to bind. Unfortunately, when I printed these during my booking, these had printer errors on the block colour pages. A streak was shown where the printer had been working. This meant I had to go back to a print drop in session to reprint the design. Fortunately, this error meant I was able to spot a few small errors that were not as visible on screen within the design. I was able to correct these in time for the drop in session, where the block colours printed much more vividly and with no streaks.
I had tried to print a mock up of the book in black and white to check these errors, but as I printed the book the pages kept printing out incorrectly so I was unable to properly check these. In hindsight, I should of asked a tutor to help me print it correctly.
When it came to binding my book, I encountered another big issue. The tutors at the book binding drop in felt that my design would not be feasible to make and I would have to rethink my whole design. This was disappointing for me as I was happy with my design overall and prior to this no one had mentioned any issues. Thankfully, the tutors at Vernon Street were extremely helpful and showed me a way to bind the pages I currently had together.
The first issue lay with how my book had printed out. I had not had a perfect bound induction, but was informed that if I created my book as it would appear on indesign I would be able to print this correctly. However, the tutors informed me that my book had not been printed correctly for perfect bind (despite following the advice of the print tutor). This meant I had to bind this section using thread firstly as 3 smaller books had been printed out. I was shown a way to thread these together by the tutor, and then he advised I glued the spine and left this for a few hours.
The second issue was that with perfect bound there should be a blank front and back page as some of the page would be lost to glue. To solve this, I cut new pages using blue stock I bought from the library and glued these on to the design. We created a test with my failed print version of the book and thankfully none of the text was lost on the first page.
The main issue was that the original cover I planned was not possible in the opinion of the staff. I had originally planned to create a three side cover, meaning that two flaps would fold over the pages. Within this longer cover would be a pocket which the concertina at the back would fold into. Instead of this I had to change my design to two hardcover buckram squares which would cover the front and back. Unfortunately this meant my spine had to be visible, but this showed the handmade feel of the book. This design makes my perfect bound/sewn section difficult to find/read but this was my best option to bind my book.
Other issues I encountered were down to personal error, this included inaccurate cutting and wonky glued pages - this will all come with time but this book in particular was created much more inaccurately than normal. I would definitely create this again if I had the time and resources.
Thankfully, to the untrained eye my book appears reasonably professional and I was very thankful towards the tutors that were able to help me. If I am to create a book for another brief, I will ensure to firstly check the design is feasible, create a full mock up and take my time over the whole creation of the book.