This is costing me money, but I can’t see any other way around it as I just have to see the book in its final form in order to determine if and when it is completed. I have made a series of changes to the book that I will discuss more fully when I receive it. But the main ones are:
Creating two books! One will be a smaller book (7×7) and the other 12 x 12. This will enable me to offer the book at two price points but will mean that I have to adapt the production values for the different scale. The cost of the last large book I have sent to Blurb for printing is £58. A lot of money. So I have selected standard paper for this one and will see how it turns out as it’s quite a lot cheaper than the one with premium paper.
But I have also created a second smaller 7 x 7 book and reformatted the images to work at that size. So for example, I have used different images in various sections and left the stronger chapter separators here as they appear to work better. Once the two books are received I will post videos of them.
The book cover moving toward evoking a sense of cultural rather than personal issues. The former old image could be read as “overcoming disability or impairment” so locates the issue within the individual body whereas the new cover juxtaposes my personalised wheelchair symbol along with some non disabled people aligned to me through colour against the wider non disabled populace and so is cultural in emphasis and evocation. That’s the idea anyway. 
I have also revised the chapter separators in the books so they work but are not so dominant on the page. They also lose their conventional colour signatures of orange and blue.
Then I made the following changes.
- I adjusted the levels of three of the images on pages 13, 15, 16 and 17 as they were over processed and too light in some cases.
- I removed a couple of sensor dust marks that were showing on the image at page 35
- I replaced the symbols image in the My Feelings section and made the image full bleed in the smaller book.
- Changed the images used in My Community as it’s clearer and better.
- Change in terminology with My experience becoming My Outlook and swopping around My Dreams and My Feelings
- Reformatted Blood images into separate images on each page
- Removed the urine bags images from the small book as their impact was poor
- Added a statement at the back of the book to make cultural evocation explicit
- Changed My community image to a less busy collage so the messages are clearer
Review and next steps
“Firstly it should contain great work. Secondly, it should make that work function as a concise world within the book itself. Thirdly, it should have a design that complements what is being dealt with. And finally, it should deal with content that sustains and ongoing interest”.
(John Gossage quoted at page 8)
This above, is what I am aiming to achieve.
G. Badger, and M. Parr, (2014) The Photobook: A History Volume III Published by Phaidon Press
anomiepete 