Photobooks

• Self-publishing (from Book Design course)
• Exercise 5.3: Print-on-demand mock-up

Whether or not you intend to produce a book to present your photographs for Assignment
Five, suppose for this exercise that you will. During this exercise you’ll familiarise yourself
with a print-on-demand application and experiment with a book design.You don’t need to place an order for the book for this exercise.

If you don’t already have one, set up an account with a print-on-demand service, such as
Blurb. (You don’t have to use Blurb, but whichever company you use must offer the option
of saving your book layout draft as a pdf document.) You’ll need to download Blurb’s Booksmart software from their site. This application is fairly intuitive.

Import the photos you’ve made so far for Assignment Five into the new project.
Experiment with layout, text, titles and captions; when you’re satisfied with a draft, save it
as a pdf. If you’re using Blurb the pdf will be watermarked with their logo but this doesn’t
matter. If you’re keeping your learning log online, link this document into a blog post. If
you’re keeping a hard copy log, print the pdf on regular printer paper.

Make some brief notes about how you found working with the software and briefly evaluate
your rough book design, describing any particular design choices and noting any influences
in terms of other books that inspired you.

If you’re thinking about producing a book for your self-directed project, you may want to
email the pdf or send a link to it to your tutor for their comments.