Brief 2 - CoP - Publication: Printing The Book And Problems On The Way

I decided I wanted to print my book on sugar paper as it seemed to be the right thickness and texture, as well as it being cheaper meaning I could print all three books for less. I wanted to the paper to be quite thin so that I could staple it together as I had previously planned.

Printing seemed to be  struggle as because of the small size of the book digital print seemed to be impossible to get the lining up right as you have to refeed it yourself. Wanting to print on my own paper meant I couldn't print using the MAC suite computers, the studio printer would take the paper but the ink was printing funny colours; green came out blue etc... I decided the best thing to do was to cut the paper down at home myself and print it there.

I found printing a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. The pagination of the book worked automatically off indesign which was great however it wouldn't let me stop it to turn the paper (as it doesn't print double sided automatically) so at the end I had the sheets but the backs were plain. When I managed to print the other side I couldn't change the way it printed so even feeding the paper back through it printed on the side lower than the first page. In the end I had to re edit the document my self so that page 2 was with 19 and so on... Once I printed one side I had to cut off the excess and then refeed it through the printer this then meant it printed correctly in the right space.

One design decision I made was to have a large gutter to allow for staples and also a small outer margin. However I found that once printed they didn't really line up so that when I cut one side it and it looked okay the other side was missing part of the image or page number. I found this really stressful as I firstly struggled with the print for quite a few hours and then once I managed to get it looking okay and lined up I trimmed the pages wrong.

I will reprint the first book I made but decided that when I went onto the second book I would make some adjustments. Even though I liked the large gutter and small margin, because it wasn't printing properly I decided to move the text in so that both pages were more central. This allowed for more leeway when it came to later cutting it.

After I printed my second book I cut them to the same height and then trimmed the sides to make them equal. A few of them are smaller than the others but I have left the cover until after I have bound the book to the cut so it overlaps the content. It is unfortunate that I cannot staple my book instead down the side however the amount of gutter space it would take up would make the book hard to open and read. A simple saddle stitch will probably be most appropriate now.