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.
