What is a book?
A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment of or other material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A book is a physical object consisting of a number of pages bound together, whether digital or material.
Leaves
Individual sheets within a bound book
Pages
Leaves have a front and back side each is referred to as a page
Page Spreads
When bound together the right (recto) and left (verso) page are centred on a gutter where they are bound together at the spine
Belly band, flap, endpaper, book cover, top edge, fore edge, tail edge, recto, verso, gutter
Don't worry if your book isn't perfectly bound to professional standards. Consider different types of binding.
Content can be anything. You aren't being asked to write an essay and then produce it visually. Think about data and information and how to make it visually informative. The design decisions for your publication should be directly informed by the content. Show sophisticated knowledge of a subject.
It doesn't have to be serious. What is your take on your subject matter/themes?
(The Muppets - Name Etymology) But produce it visually and aesthetically more pleasing than the muppets one...
Take what is already there, and start to put them together in such a way that it produces a new, unique and personal understanding of something.
Delivering facts and figures can be done in something as simple as numbers. Or it could be purely visual. Photography could be a key part of what you do, but you are more likely to pull type and image together to communicate your visuals and information.
Think about the relationship between content and design decisions.
Layout can be simple. You don't have to over do it. Simple layouts can effect the way you start to interpret the visuals, by placing appropriate text next to the illustrations or photographs.
In another way, the content could be simple but the design of the content allows you to develop an idea over a period of pages.
How can the layout add to what you're trying to say?
The organisation of the type can be really creative.
Are you talking about just one object or a range of objects? Ranges of objects could contain different content and different layouts, then produce something visual within the interrelationship of spaces by playing around with the idea of layout across several publications.
The form should relate to the format. Manipulating the form can take the reader through the book as a consistent story, rather than looking at the several separate pages, for example adding holes into the pages so you can see the next page through the hole.
A ringbinder is a ready made way of creating a book.
Box folded info-packs are just as valid as creating a spine, as you are collecting several different pages of information. You break the idea of a perfect bound.
Challenge what you already have. You could take an existing book and work with it or into it or deconstruct it in some kind of way.
Think about how the audience could interact with your book. You could grow your own cress in the front cover or have peel-able stickers within the book so the reader can change the words within the book.
The experience of the book is important. Be playful. Make it exciting, in a way that it adds to the content.
