Exhibition

My final piece in the exhibition

Front Cover design, book bindingand book layout as a narrative

Book Binding went quite well and im quite pleased with my overall book, but it could have been a bit tighter as a few double page spreads need to be a bit more in line but I dont have tike to do them so I will just wwrite about it in my evaluation! I looked at books by artists who I like such as Martin Parr and had a look in the libary at college to see how book front covers look as Im making a sleeve for it. I've bound my book and it is just smaller than A4 so in photoshop I amde a few designs as to how it could look.

My final design has a white spine and the the name of the book is in bold and just from the top, with my name slightly smaller and positioned in the middle. The text on the spine couldnt be read other wise and so I played around with how it was going to be positioned on the spine. I chose these two photographs for the front cover as the the one i have used on the front page is perfect for showing the cafe and is the 'enterance' to the book - hense the doorway and on the back I have used the photo of themenu that is is on the front so that people know what they are going to find in there. Martin Parrs think of England has something similar on the back which shows a menu of a cafe he photographed. I think it works well.

Ive treied to get across in the book the idea of getting introduced to the cafe from being outside it, to coming and ordering to it being busy to then it dying down and finally leaving which took a while to get a right but think it has been succesfful.

In Design and Book Layout

I hated quarke and so opted use In Design as everyone says its better. Its a design programme that will allow me organise my photos to print out to make my book. I've never used it before so Im gradually learning. Its just a matter of getting used to how it works and then applying it to each photo. These are my book layout designs from my notebook




you can see the print layouts in that i have done handed in with skectbook work as to how Ive organisged the layout visually, they have some notes on them too of what needs altering etc.

Final photos

these will be going in my book. i've arranged them by doing some test prints that can be found in my sketchbook stuff. I think these photos show my experience in the cafe really well. There are several photos showing bev interacting with the customers whihc was definatly a highlight of my time at swan street. There are photos of the food, in particular the yorkshire pudding and beef stew that I had! there is also the legendry photo of the builders big full on english breakfast whihc I was really pleased to photograph and thanked them a lot for allowing me to a few shots before they all tucked in! The photos of the signs on the wall are really funny and reflect Bev's personality. The one of the "beat the bird flu - chicken in lempsip sauce" was my favourite and Bev said that people actually try to order these! "its just for a joke make people have a giggle while they're sat down waiting" says Bev. I've tried to get a mix of photos showing different times in the cafe such as the landscape shot of the cafe where everyone is sat down eating and chatting, to the dirty plates at the end of the day. I nee to arrange these some order now to see how im going to make my book have some kind of narrative.

Book ideas...

I've spent a few days in the swan street cafe, chatting with the cutsomers, taking photographs and getting to know what Bev and the cafe is about and Im starting to see a pattern forming. Its not just the fact it is your typical working mans greasy spoon cafe, and the typical cliches around them, its the experience you have in them which is part of what drives Bev to do what she does, as she said when i was chatting to her that they are a dying trade as people are wanting to eat in trendy places now.

But what i've noticed is that there are still plenty of people who still like the greasy spoon, as it is a social place as well as cafe. Ideally I would have liked to have spent more time here, but due to tight deadlines approaching for this project and i've only just within the last week or so decide thta I was going to make my book on one cafe, i need to start thiking of how Im going to present these photographs in the book.

I've enoyed talking with everyone in the cafe, and have got some really good feedback on it, though I think for my book I want it to be purely photgraphic, with an introduction to the book. I want the photos to speak for themselves and reflect my experience in the cafe.

chat with bev

I came in a bit later today to have a chat with bev about the her and the cafe so i can learn more about for my introduction that im going to write in the beginning of the boo. some of the quotes can be found in my sketchbook.

More photos

I really liked this sequence of photograohs as they dont give too much away of the peope, but their hand expressions are very striking. A double page spread showing all four would look quite effective i think.