OUGD603 - Photography Book - Print and Production

In the production of this book, I wanted the finished outcome to look as professional as possible, since this is a book in which a copy will eventually be sent to the photographer for them to potentially use as a kind of portfolio of some of their work, a publication which other creative professionals might also see and so producing this at a good quality was important to consider.

In order to create a nice finish on the photographs, it was initially intended to use a thin glossy stock for the inside pages of the publication and then a thicker glossy stock for the cover. However, when printing, I was advised that the thin glossy stock for double-sided printing does not print great and makes photographs look patchy and streaky. For this reason, and since I want to make my publication look as professional as possible, I chose to take different direction in terms of print stock. Instead, a slightly matter stock was used than initially intended, however where the photographs are printed onto the stock, the ink still made these look slightly glossy and so acted as a good alternative.

However, since the cover was only one-sided rather than double-sided like the rest of the publication, this meant that the cover could be printed on a glossier and thicker stock without the image going patchy. This cover was therefore printed onto a satin stock which was thought would enhance the professional feel of the book before it has even been opened.

Based on visual research into the typical production of photography books, these tend to use a perfect bind method, since this is good for industry standard work that involves publications that need to be mass produced. For this instance it doesn't, however it was thought that the process would further make the publication look more professional, and enhance the format and layout design of the book itself. In preparing for this, each page had to be printed individually and placed in a 'text block' in which glue can be run over the spine to hold each page together.