I have thought, designed and produced a publication with five pieces of digital artwork to accompany it. ‘In a Blue Funk’ is based on the experiences that my mother had when she had been diagnosed with cancer, I have portrayed some of my emotions and feelings when she was going through all the trauma such as radiotherapy, also I have included my mother’s point of view as well as mine, so there is a slight contrast in thoughts and emotions. In the publication I have gone through my mothers cancer journey from the start to the very end, explaining what cancer is, looking at her diagnosis through to her treatment. I also look into her diary entries, and her medication logs. (My mother wrote down all the medication she took throughout her journey). As it is such a strong and emotional subject for me to produce work from, I completed it I feeling like there was a sense of relief and alleviation that I had come too.
Front Cover - I have used my mothers handwriting for the title as I feel like a persons handwriting can reflect on what they are like. It's like a visual voice. The picture represents the three stages of the book. The hand personifies the first stage, where my mother was diagnosed with cancer and how she had to deal with it, (what she was given). The chemical symbol shows that this was the stage when my mother had to go through all the treatment, and this is when she started to take the medication for the cancer. The third and final stage represents the final stages of my mother's life.
Perfect Binding
Introduction
Diagnosis
The start of the cancer journey.
Radiotherapy
My mother's medication logs that she chose to write.
Terminal...
Type Specification for 'In a Blue Funk' publication
The page size of my book is 148x200mm, I wanted to keep it small to represent the size of a diary, as I have diary entries that my mother previously wrote in her own diary layed out into my publication. I used a simple grid system: 6 rows x 3 columns. I kept it strict so that there was a constant flow within the book. I made the gutter 18.9pt, so that I would have enough spacing inbetween the images and the busy text. Also I kept to a multiple of 12.6pt which was my leading and baseline grid height, just so I could keep everything consistent.
Margins - Top: 8.89mm. Bottom: 22.225mm. Inside: 17.78mm. Outside: 8.89mm.
I used two particular fonts for my book. The headers, I used Avenir Black, and I used a lot of the Minion Pro family for primarily the body text, I also used it for quotes and sub headings. I had a sans serif for the titles and a serif for the body text so that I've kept to a traditional rule, but dressing the book with a contemporary style.
The publication was perfect bound, as I think this is one of the strongest binds to keep the book together, it's quite a lenthy process when you do it yourself but definitely worth it when it's complete.
I have produced five digital art pieces using illustration, collage and photoshop to portray five stages in my mother's cancer journey. 'Hospital' 'Medicine' 'Radiotherapy' 'Pain' and 'Time'. Each one of these stages represents the most painful and emotional points in her journey.
Hospital
Medicine
Radiotherapy
Pain
Time
