Thursday, May 17, 2012

Portfolio

The deadline for the Portfolio part of the Professional Futures module was yesterday, where the brief was to produce a website and a printed portfolio. For the printed portfolio, I decided to go against the grain and produce something a bit different - mainly as I didn't feel that a typical printed portfolio (a box of large prints) would really truly reflect my interests or work.

I particularly wanted my interest in book making to be part of my work, so I chose to make a set of mini books / publications, which are approx 125mm x 160mm in size. In addition, as my work is predominantly project based, I really wanted each project to be seen in its entirety rather than images viewed out of context. So in preparation I undertook a short course at the brilliant Bookworks, where we learnt about different bindings. And with this new knowledge, here is the end result - everything, including the box, was handmade by me!
















Overall I'm pleased with them, particularly as it's my first proper attempt at making books on my own - although still not sure it's quite what is required for the module. Of course having made them I spot all the little things I would change if I'd had more time, money, paper...Unfortunately the print quality of some of The Island of Secrets images are a little below par, so at some point I will remake it again, and on hindsight I wish that I'd made it as a hard-back book and put a cover sleeve on it. For another time...But my favourite has to be the book '20' - I used some basic sugar paper and I think the images work really well on this. The concertina is also quite successful - I think the perspective of the images works really well with this format. For the project Changing Rooms I had always wanted to create a set of postcards - so I made a set of small prints the same size as the books and a simple band to keep them all together. I like the idea that they can be interactive - and not require a huge amount of space to see everything!

Images from all the book projects can be viewed on my website.