The Book Has Arrived

After sending my InDesign template of my book design into Blurb, I received a fast and efficient delivery of the book back. I wasn't expecting such a quick delivery as the book was estimated to arrive on the 3rd May and actually arrived on the 1st May but thankfully I was here to answer the door. I felt both excitement and anticipation when I first held the package in my hands and I was unsure whether to open the parcel around my peers or on my own. I opted to take the first view on my own and proceeded to open the book, my first reaction was that it looked a lot more professional than I had envisaged, the black hard cover was a dark, deep black as apposed to look more grey and matte, I was extremely happy with how the book had been printed to such a high standard. 

I began to open the book and again I had the same reaction pleasure at how professional the colouring, paper type and texture looked in person. One of my biggest concerns was the colour of the black background of the book as I had previously had issues with Blurb and the colour of black appearing as grey on their PDFs I was thrilled to see that my pages were as dark black as I had hoped and that there hadn't been an issue with the colouring. The deep shade of black in the pages was paramount in creating and portraying to reader the dark theme and concept of the book. As blurb gives you a choice of which type of paper you want your book to be printed with, I was advised by my photography teacher to use the photo paper called Premium Lustre, as he said it will bring depth and tone to my darker images and their darker colours. He was correct, the paper type defiantly adds depth to the pages and has a subtle sheen to it creating a more luxurious, expensive looking print. 

Overall I am extremely happy with the quality of printing and how the book has transpired from a screen design into an actual book. I have studied the book several times and there are a couple of elements that I feel could be improved if I was given more time to re- design and re-print, however with my time frame before the physical hand- in this isn't possible. As in print you can see the images much more clearly than on a screen there are a few elements of the images that could do with further editing, for example in one image of Rapunzel part of the tuplast scar on the face is coming off, this could have been easily fixed in Photoshop with the clone tool and therefore would have been less noticeable in print. Also I feel that some of the images are too big for the page size and seem to get lost in the binding of the book; as the book is newly printed the binding is quite stiff and high arched in the middle of the book. I would try and press the binding down slightly however I don't want to handle my final copy at all as it is still in the cellophane packaging ready to be handed in for submission. 

Although I have mentioned certain elements of the book that could do with slight improvement, overall I am really happy and proud of my book as I feel it represents concept well and is printed and displayed to a professional industry standard. Through my own thoughts I was keen to hear other people's feed backs on the book, I showed my friends, family and university peers to see whether there reactions were positive or negative and whether I could receive any constructive criticism back from them. Most people were really impressed with my work and praised me on how professional the book looked and how it showed that a lot of time and effort had been put into it. A constructive criticism that I did receive was that the black of the images was a different shade of black to the background and that the pages might have looked better linked and more professional if the black edges of the images blended into the back background. During production I noticed this myself however as I had to change the images to CMYK colour for print it causes the images to lighten therefore making the black a lighter shade than if I was to keep the image in an RGB format.

As well has having the book ready for submission, I have also now completed my 'Ruthless' film portfolio. I printed all of my evidence work on professional looking printer paper with my name logo as a make-up artist on each corner of each page in the portfolio, I hoped that this would create a more professional finish. I am really pleased with the overall outcome of my portfolio as it shows a range of evidence of my time and work throughout the film process and clearly shows how much time, planning and skills went into my role as the head make-up artist. I choose a range of my most successful images and mood boards to add a visual element to the portfolio and to also show my design abilities and make-up skills. An element of the portfolio that I'm not so pleased with is the front cover of the portfolio, the logo was created by the marketing team and not by myself and in my opinion I feel that it looks slightly amateur and not particularly original, however as this logo is representative of the film and all of it's advertisements I had to use it as the front cover and title of my portfolio.