With less than two weeks to go until the Zinesmate Tokyo Artbook Fair 2014, I haven’t hit the panic button yet. Things seem to be going pretty well. If I meet my weekly target this week I think I’ll be okay.
Last week had tasks other than book making. I created an invite for a PDF mailout for our group and ordered new business cards with a company called Graphics. I’m stupidly proud of the PDF invite because I figured out how to make links on the PDF. This isn’t a really complicated thing, but I’d never done that before so it was nice that it worked out. It works even better on my smartphone than my computer.
Preparing the books has been a lot of fun. There have been compromises, but the good kind.
Estello Mame Bons
I’m not going to do the Estello mamebon (bean books) or I’m leaving them until last. I like this project but at the moment, it’s my weakest idea. I really love this project but the gap between my resources and my idea of what a finished book should look like is a bit too wide. If I have time at the end, great. I think I is better spent on other things and I’m not heartbroken if I don’t get them in the fair.
Estello Zines
The Estello zines are going really well. The final image selections and edits done. I’ve even finished dummies of them all. I’m working on the last of the layouts from the dummies I made last week. It always amazes me that layout takes as long as it does. I realized I didn’t have to make detailed templates once I had really rough dummies done. That was a nice surprise.
Starfold Books
This project is going really well. I’m already well into producing them. I’ve finished all my prints and already folded them. I just need to make a few more covers then finish the assembly.
There were two surprises with this project. The first is the emergence of two new topics. Aside from Yuki (Snow), there is now Flower and Butterfly. The new topics lend themselves to the idea of opening and unfolding that is inherent to the book form. The second surprise is the tiled designs for the reverse side of the papers. That took a bit of study to get it right.
Kandachime Uma
This hadmade book/zine is going to be the trickiest because it is the book I think will be the easiest to get done. And that kind of assumption might bite me in the butt. I finalized the format and print layout months ago. I think it will just be a matter of printing and assemblage. I’ve put off doing that in favor of solving other problems. But I just realized I am still dithering about the final look of the cover.
Goals for This Week
1. Printing Kandachime Uma pages and finalize cover style
2. Finish layout for final Estello zines in Photoshop
3. Test print the zines and edit mistakes
4. Printing more pages for the starfold books.
5. Interview fellow artists from Art Byte Critique about their books and post on The Spendy Pencil
If you’re participating in Tokyo Art Book Fair 2014 I’d love to hear from you. If you are going to attend, please stop by our both and say hi!
The Spendy Pencil 
Reblogged this on Studio Deanna | Fiber & Metals and commented:
Mamebon and Estello Art Book progress report from my fellow artist, Lori, who will also be at the Tokyo Art Book Fair, Sept 19 – 21.
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