The Journal

For this project I was tasked with creating a book from scratch. I could extend the definition of what a book usually is and make something different. This made it both exciting and challenging when it came to brainstorming. The challenging aspect was finding ways in which to form content to fit the technical restrictions and tell a visually interesting story. There were no real restrictions and the only goal was to create a fascinating and engaging experience telling some sort of story.

Since it was around Halloween time when I made this I knew I wanted to make something that was scary. My idea was to create the book of a serial killer who collected his victims skin and eyes to create a biography about himself.

Final Outcome

For the actual construction of the book the front and back cover took the longest to make. I repurposed covers from an old book I already had to build off of. To make the skin I used air dry clay to build it up but I found this to be too flimsy and soft. To fix this I added paper mache over the top to harder and more durable. After this I layered acrylic over both sides to make each section look like a different skin tone.

To bind the pages together I used rubber cement which didn’t warp the pages at all. Inside each of the corners I hid fake missing persons papers and newspapers about the person I made to make it seem more like a murder mystery. Unfortunately I accidentally made the covers too thick so the book didn’t open all the way which rendered the handles somewhat useless.

 Sketches

I had several ideas that I thought of exploring when I first started this project. The first one included creating the covers from stitched together human skin including facial features. Another idea I had was putting layered tracing paper with holes showcasing certain letters and words. I also wanted to add moving parts that pertained to certain parts of the horror story I was telling. I wanted whoever was reading it to move the parts in order to see the words on each page.

Dummy Book

After figuring out what I wanted to do I needed to see if I could make it function or not. I used cardboard for the covers and printer paper for the pages. The handles, which I cut off a grocery store bag, were originally added so that when opened all the way the book would be easier to hold. To cover up the writing on the cardboard I used old wrapping paper to make it look more professional. Since I used liquid glue to to put it together the pages ended up warping and ripping in certain places due to it not being strong enough. I knew that I would need to use a different binding agent so it wasn’t visually affected.