Colours may vary

I went to 'Colours May Vary' to day to talk to Andy about the book I made for 504. He gave me some advice about changes I should make if I was going to try and publish it. The first thing he mentioned was the size of the book, I had already thought that if I was to reprint the design I would make it slightly smaller. Andy pointed out to me the concertina's made by Nobrow that are smaller and printed on both sides, they have a separate wrap around cover so that the books can be infolded and used as a poster. As my book has not lettering apart from the quote at the beginning and the illustration is continuous over all the pages it could work as a single illustration to be hung on a wall if it was scaled down. Doing this would make the book multi functional and add to the appeal for potential customers. Andy thought that the grey board I used for the cover was a bit too cumbersome and unbalanced the book, it would also make it more likely for the pages of the book to be ripped while viewing it. Using a wrap around cover would make the boom multifunctional, less cumbersome and still allow me to include the key hole cover used in the original version. Andy also pointed out that due to the continuous landscape it is not entirely clear that the character is the same person throughout, I need to find a way to make it clearer that it is the same person without effecting the continuity of the narrative or overcomplicating the composition. Andy mentioned that I should state where the Neil Gaiman quote the book is based on was taken from either next to the quote or at the back of the book with other information like author, edition and other publishing information. Andy also gave me some practitioners to either contact or research that have experience in self publishing that could give me an insight into the process and possible problems I could encounter. I am going to try and contact Dan Saul Pilgrim who is a graphic designer who recently published a book using kickstarter and research the work and interviews of Ed Emberly.