The Book of Nathaniel
It was my partner’s 50th birthday this year. He has an inordinate number of amazing friends that he has amassed over the globe throughout his life, and who hold a deep love for him. So, I came up with the idea of producing a bespoke commemorative book to which everyone could contribute whatever could be printed on a page: photographs, artwork, creative writing, memories, recipes etc.
We made something pretty cool in the end: 72 contributors, 116 pages, and beautifully designed inside and out. Going bespoke (vs using ‘off the peg’ online designs) turned out to be quite complicated though, so I thought I’d record the process here.
Here are some images of the final work:
Here are the steps I went through to get here:
|
Order |
Step |
|
1 |
Build a project plan with timelines |
|
2 |
Collate contributors and contact details |
|
3 |
Find and visit bookbinders. Get creative. |
|
4 |
Lock production specs and timelines |
|
5 |
Brief contributors |
|
6 |
Monitor, organise and chase submissions |
|
7 |
Find and brief a graphic designer |
|
8 |
Initial design review & feedback |
|
9 |
Complete design |
|
10 |
Final Amends |
|
11 |
Send print files to bookbinder |
|
12 |
Pick up final book |
Step 1 – Building a Project Plan with Timelines
I started by building a Gantt chart, working back from his birthday, where I worked through the steps I needed to navigate, and gave an indication of how much time could be allocated to each.
I built in plenty of secret buffer for the deadlines I gave for submissions, and for the final book production. This absolutely saved my bacon!
Step 2 – Collating contributors and contact details
I started this as early as possible, as I didn’t have everyone’s contact details (or even knowledge of everyone who would want to contribute. This took some serious detective work with the contacts that I did have.
I built a tracking file on which I included a country field, so that I could follow up with key ‘node’ contacts in each country to flesh out contacts that I didn’t have. I also used this to track who had said they wanted to submit, and whether they actually had.
I also used my initial contributor brief to help with this – asking for people to nominate submitters who I’d missed.
Step 3 – Finding and visiting bookbinders
I Googled around to find interesting looking bookbinders in London who’s work I liked.
These were my top 3:
https://www.bensonsbookbindingltd.co.uk/fine-binding
https://barnardandwestwood.com/gallery/
I made contact and arranged visits to them. They had loads of examples of work they’d done previously to check out. It was also the best way to get an understanding of what creative/production decisions I needed to make.
Here was some of my creative inspiration:
And here was the list of elements that needed decisions (this was super confusing initially and required asking a lot of questions!)
- Size
- Colour or black and white print
- How the book is sewn (I went for section sewn so the book would lay as flat as possible)
- Endpaper (interior lining of inside and rear cover)
- Text Paper (for all interior pages)
- Cover (case and finishing material)
- Cover design (e.g. photo inlay / debossing (imprinting) / foil etc)
I also got pointed to this website which is great for seeing the different finishing materials available.
I got some samples, and did some sneaky work with friends to get second opinions on what we liked.
Here’s what we settled on
- 330mm x 330mm square book. This was the biggest size that Barnes & Westwood (preferred binder) could get through their printing press.
- Make case using 3mm board and cover in Cloth: Wicotex Brillianta – mid green (BRI4041)
- Endpaper (interior lining of inside and rear cover) – 175gsm https://www.gfsmith.com/gf-smith-colorplan-misthttps://www.gfsmith.com/gf-smith-colorplan-mist.
- Text Paper (for all interior pages) – 150gsm Munken Design
- Fold, collate, section sew (to lay as flat as possible), tip on end papers, spine line and trim
- Make foil blocking die
- Foil block and deboss THE BOOK OF NATHANIEL to one position on the front
Step 4 – Locking production specifications, timelines and rough costings
Once I’d made my decisions I got quotes (with some flex around pagination depending on how many people ended up submitting) and a final deadline for the print files (2 weeks in this case). Then it was time to open it up to folks…
Step 5 – Briefing Contributors
As well as telling people about the project and the timelines I included a request to nominate other submitters to capture anyone I’d missed
Step 6 – Monitor, organise and chase submissions
Not going to lie, this step was a ball-ache in terms of the amount of time and communication this takes! People had loads of questions, asked for more guidance, sent stuff in that didn’t match the brief, missed deadlines etc.
I got a lot of requests to make amends from this point through to the final design being locked. Doing these piecemeal would be a nightmare, so Here’s the response I used to manage these requests.
But after it all I ended up with a well organised folder to brief the designer with.
Step 7 – Finding and briefing a graphic designer
FINDING:
This was the hairiest step. All the designers I knew were either way out of budget and/or unavailable.
Which led me to freelance websites (Fiverr and UpWork). These sites can feel like the Wild West. I shopped around a LOT, looked at designer’s work, got them to send me further samples of similar projects, and then crossed my fingers and picked Eisen from Upwork. Who turned out to be AMAZING!
Here’s her profile (I hugely recommend her for any design projects):
https://www.upwork.com/freelancers/eisena
N.B. Sad reality, but skilled designers in certain countries cost a lot less than others. Eisen’s from the Philippines. She did the whole job for $200, which is ridiculously cheap. (I gave her a tip afterwards)
BRIEFING:
Here’s the design brief I sent to Eisen
Step 8 – Initial Design Review and Feedback
I asked Eisen to have a first shot at a few submissions for feedback, so that we made sure we were on track before she did a load of work.
Here’s a look at her first draft:
It was a good start, but I generally wanted it to be a bit less ‘commercial’ and a bit more ‘organic’, and because I’d deliberately picked a style of binding (section sewn) that meant the book could lie flat, I wanted to ‘spread’ over the double page sections better.
Here’s the full feedback I gave her
We then had quite a lot of communication (she asked lots of questions and shared progress on the way, which was great) before we got to something that looked more like this:
Step 10 – Final Amends
I took the view that everyone should be able to tweak anything they wanted in their own submissions, but that I wasn’t taking any general feedback on the overall design at this point. Time was tight!
These are the comms I sent out with the design file
And this is what I then collated from the contributors to send back to Eisen to finalise
After these were made it was time…
Step 11 – Sending print files to bookbinders
These looked like this (single page pdfs, with bleed and trim)
N.B. I had also been sharing interim files with the bookbinders throughout, just so they could flag any potential issues, and to ensure that they were kept ‘warm’ for production and there were no delays. I think this definitely helped.
Step 12 – Picking up the final book
Sounds simple, but the first time I did this I spotted a printing issue, and got them to reprint / rebind the whole thing! This took 2 days. (Remember secret buffer!)
Oh, and of course, the most important piece of the whole thing: giving it to Nathaniel!
We spent his birthday surrounded by his friends and family on Zakynthos in Greece. An amazing time!