THOUGHTS ON BOOK

CHARACTER SKETCH OF THE BOOK

Bag Watching, is a satire, written in the style of a casual scientific research report. It goes over the study of the plastic bags that have escaped supermarkets and people's home into the urban wildlife. It's a mix between a naturalist article, a field guide and a children's discovery book. The book structure is pretty standard, after an introduction and history of the plastic bag's evolution, it delves right into the bag's physical attributes (anatomy, cellular structure, physiology) and follows with observations of Behaviour (social activities & Human-Bag Interactions). Many photos of bags and detailed text are incorporated into the flow of things through the use of miniature books between or within spreads.

THE EVOLUTION OF THE PROJECT

When I originally decided to make a book on plastic bags last winter, I was going to keep it very basic and only display my photos without text. As the year passed on, the project grew into an amalgamation of many different things that have either inspired or helped me understand the plastic bag situation better. I thought of the book as pocket size, in order to carry around on bag-viewing excursions. However, from there I realized I should back up and try to understand why these bags are being watched in the first place, which lead me to an elaborate invention of the 'study' of these imaginary plastic bag creatures.

From there, I had to rethink the format of the book as I wasn't happy with it and its purpose no longer relied on size. Which lead me to imagination, kids and new perspectives on things most people have accepted. With all of this in mind, I decided a very large format book would make most sense in this nonsensical situation. It had a sense of importance and would greet people in a surprising and unexpected way (the way these plastic bags might have appeared to the researchers of this project upon the first encounter). From the start of the project, I had the intention of keeping aesthetics minimal and really allow the images to speak for themselves. 

MAKING CHOICES

Two things that I am very happy about are the layout and the direction in which I used diagrams in my book. I didn't want to make a boring illustrator diagram and I also didn't want to use illustration and distract from the photos. The compromise was to make little models out of household and often industrial materials and use photographs (of those models) to explain an abstract or microscopic concepts. As for the format, until I had settled on the size, I was pretty lost. By keeping things simple, I was able to let the format of the book lead the rest of the design and aesthetic direction of the book. 

COMPROMISES

I wish I could write more about bags! Money is keeping me from printing this book at more than 30 pages but there were many components I was really looking forward to making; an appendix of various species with their specified chest patterns (logos), colours, size, wings (handles), etc. I would like to map out all of the bags in the greater downtown area and become more specific in relating this research to the Greater Toronto Area. I would have also liked to incorporate some informational graphics about the type of bags in certain areas of town. I had originally wanted to make a cover out of resin but once again money is holding me back – I might fuse many plastic bags together to make a slipcover or dust jacket as a way of incorporating the bag into the project physically.

And of course time is always helpful! I just scratched the surface of this book and with more time I could really go all out and thoroughly research this topic with perhaps a little more credibility.

PLEASURES & FRUSTRATIONS

If I were to make any recommendations to potential book design students, I would recommend that they know their topic and possibly have their content ready before taking the course. I felt that design was pushed aside for most of the class because I was constantly updating my content. I would also suggest that they give themselves a lot of  time to make their books (and I think they should at the very least try to make their own book!). I found that I really did enjoy making my books but only when I had lots of time to make mistakes.

UH OH

polypropylene what?

So reading up on plastic bags bore me. Apparently after half an hour of reading up on the chemical breakdown of plastic bags, I only like to look at bags but not read about them. This might change over time but first impressions are lasting impressions ...

I'm probably going to take the abstract approach, or make a satire on plastic bags. I like the idea of thinking of plastic bags as birds but I don't like the restriction of sticking to a birdwatcher's field guide aesthetic. 

OLDIES BUT GOODIES

Parisian trash holders

Thirsty little bugger on the bench

BAGS VS BIRDS

To begin my research I found a few delightfully quaint bird watching books!

Family tree of birds – soon I'll have a similar diagram for my bag findings.

In one of these books there were explanations of specific bird calls, I'd like to see if I can conjure up a similar concept with bag/wind sounds.

Birds are all over the city, they can be very small or very large, some are colourful and if they aren't on the streets for a streetside nibble, they are usually in trees.

Aside from the streetside nibble, bags are pretty much the same.

The one big difference is that there's no recognition of these bags as anything beyond refuse. However if we are creating all of these bags we may pay greater attention to the consumption and waste of them if we treated them as creatures as opposed to objects.

I personally like the look of bags but always try to avoid using them – my book could go in two directions at this point, an appreciation of bags or an extermination guide, either way I'd like to use the book to draw up comparisons to bags and living, breathing creatures.

REUSABLES

People are scrambling to create bags that will last longer for us but degrade faster in the landfill. It's interesting and a little scary to realize that the plastic bags we use to take out the trash will be on earth far longer than we will. They are slowly and silently taking over our environment as they already blocked drainage systems in Uganda and are leeching out toxins which are slowly entering ecosystems causing infertility and mutation.

Bags are clearly exceeding the carrying capacity of it's planet, such is the case with humans and Earth, and technically would be referred to as overpopulation. Determined through the ratio of population to available sustainable resources, the excess of bags is being addressed more prominently than ever before.

BAGGU is one of many companies based on reducing plastic use. Another alternative, called furoshiki, is a traditional Japanese cloth that can be folded to create a bag. Dating from the Nara period (AD 710 - 794), the use of Furoshiki use dwindled upon the popularity of the plastic bag in the post-war period. But my favorite is (still) the classic canvas bag. 

(I'm a little curious as to why men in North America don't carry canvas bags, I personally like the look but rarely see it)

How to use a furoshiki

Baggu's in use

If teenage boys in Finland can sport the tote, so can we! (photo from HEL Looks)

BAG BEAUTY

One of the most famous plastic bags, a 'generic' whitie in American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999).

The BBC Natural History Unit has made a documentary, Message in the Waves, looking at the environmental challenges facing the people and wildlife in Hawaii & the world.

See & read more at Message in the Waves.

Uganda has banned plastic bags in order to clean up cities and prevent environmental damage but the ban does not seem to be taking the desired effect.

More information at BBC News.

BAGS, BAG RELATIVES & NON-BAGS