Monthly Archives: May 2017

The Little Prince: Book Mock Up

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These first two pictures show two pages that make up our book, along with post-its that describe some of the key features of the book itself.

The following images show the front and back cover of our book. The set up is so the book appears to be 2-in-1 in that from one side you open into a manual and from the other side you open into a pilot’s log. Our reasoning behind this idea is that the pilot would’ve had very little to work with after he crashed into the desert. Therefore, it is very possible that he would take whatever he had with him, in this case the manual for the plane, and use it to record his last days in whatever way possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next images show the first page from whichever end of the book you open up on. The first is from the manual side and the second from the log side. Using the backs of the pages of the manual allows for what appears to be a separate book, within an already existing one.

 

Finally, below are two examples of the drafts of what we will be including in the foreword. These types of notes will add to the explanation of the book itself as well as fulfill all of the project requirements.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Do By the Dates Listed:

5/10: (1) Burn the edges of the pages of the prototype and have in class on Wednesday; (2) Bring in ribbon or rope material which we will experiment with during the in-class workshopping for the binding of the book; (3) Bring in scrap paper and watercolor/colored pencils to experiment with potential sketches we may want to include within the pilot’s logs; (4)  Talk to Professor Curseen about “file folder” which we will put the book inside

5/12: Have final drafts of all of the pilot’s logs and forward content complete 

5/15: Group will meet to make FINAL copies of the first two books for the book fair

By the project deadline, the remaining 8 books will be split up among group members to each finish 2. 

 

BAB Final Project Check In #3 Due 5/8/17 @ 10:00 pm

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For this next check-in, you should complete a mock up for your book.  You  should  upload a photograph of the mock-up to the site.   Depending on your book, you may  need to upload photos of more than one view/angle of the mock-up book.

You should also submit a detailed outline or summary describing any details about the book that are not evident in the mock-up.  These details may include both content material (i.e. narrative, pictures, facts that will be in the book) or formal details that are not present in the mock-up (i.e. you will paint the binding black or weave in more fabric somewhere).   Please indicate an estimated date/time for when you hope to complete these other tasks.

If  you prefer, you may consider placing your mock-up on a large sheet of paper, and then using lines and captions detail  on the paper some of the formal and content elements you will add to particular places.  This option means you can just upload pictures, as the text will be a part of the pictures (showing  up on the paper around the mock-up).

THE PURPOSE of this check in is to make sure that your project is feasible, and that you can realistically complete the project by the end of the course.  I ask you to submit a mock-up because, even the greatest outline and well thought-out logistical to-do list can’t foresee  everything. Often there’s no better way to find out whether something’s not working or not than to actually try it.

Please keep this above described purpose in mind  and do your best with this check in.  Every group’s check in will be at least slightly different.  HOWEVER every group, should be posting a picture of  prototype (or sample copy) of your book + a  detailed description of the content material and a “to do” (+dates) list.  

Think like a child

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In Little Annie’s Ramble, Nathaniel Hawthorne tells a story of an old man taking a stroll through town with a young girl, presumably his granddaughter or someone close to him. The Old man narrates the “ramble,” stopping to consider everything that catches little Annie’s attention. While reading and skimming through this text, the reading voice in my mind is that of a lively and joyful person. The written thoughts of this old man have exclamation points in almost every paragraph. I like that he appreciates the innocence and wide- eyed curiosity Annie has. “Sweet has been the charm of childhood on my spirit, throughout my ramble with little Annie!” This is something similar to what my loving Grandmother would tell my mother after spending an afternoon with my sister and me. There is a pattern in the text makes it an enjoyable read for me. Throughout the stroll, the old man is detailed in his observations when Annie stops to pay attention to something. He thinks about what it means to him, then, what it means in relation to Annie. He then pulls her along so she can experience something else
Little Annie’s Ramble touches on the differences between the way children and adults think. If you’re an adult, this text encourages us to pay attention to our surroundings. We shouldn’t take things in life for granted. There’s nothing wrong with being giddy with excitement or wide-eyed in amazement, these feelings are not supposed to be exclusive to children.

Check In #2: Beloved Group

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Our group decided to make a scrapbook. We feel that it would be the most logical and creative way of expressing our ideas. One reason that we chose to create a scrapbook is that we can make it very centered around color. Color is a major theme in Beloved, that using many different colors to go into forming unique pages of a scrapbook can allow us to illustrate that. Another reason that a scrapbook would be fitting for our book Beloved is that the purpose or scrapbooks is to represent memories. The concept of “rememory” in Beloved is very significant. It is memories that you don’t just see in your mind, but rather feel and experience as if you were in that place or time again. Scrapbooks are similar to this concept, rather than just being a photo album or diary, they combine several mediums together in order to recreate memories even more vividly.

Our scrapbook will not be something you can find in a high school library or even something you can find online like cliff notes or spark notes. Our scrapbook will represent a personal item, such as a diary, that you can read and learn about specific characters and moments in their lives. You will not only get to read about the key characters in the book, but also about the members of this group and the author. We will be combining together, not as fictional characters or real people, but all as individuals who decided to scrap their thoughts into something meaningful.

Currently the main idea we have been juggling is to use all the components we have and mix it into one complex scrapbook. But recently, we have been toying with the idea of creating a set. A set as in, the first book of the set can be about the plot and history, the second book about Sethe, the third about Beloved, and forth about Denver and so on. This way, we can use the title, cover, and pages to specifically apply to the entire subject of that book that together will then create an overall collection of information for Beloved.

Our scrapbook could be stumbled upon by someone who read and wanted to understand Beloved better. We will have pages with character information and quotes. The pages will not just be plain old analysis like cliff notes, not cold hard facts like a textbook, but actually feeling and description of the moment itself. The book can help those like myself that struggled to understand the choices made in the book and give an emotional connection.

I do not believe we should have a photo on the cover. Instead we’ll have a creative scrapbook type of cover such as using magazine type to create the title and using multiple colors together. We do not want to give away too much of what you’re going to feel once you begin exploring the scrapbook, therefore keeping the cover a mystery could be exciting and useful for our audience.

We plan on using the average size of scrapbooks, where it’s not like an average piece of paper or pocket size either. We will be using a lot of texture and color as well as creating text for the pages. We will need a substantial amount of room. Also, scrap books are usually larger and cluttered, we hope to create a powerful and realistic scrapbook.

ABC: Check-In #2

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In response to your comments, Samantha is the most experienced using Adobe, but she will be giving me a crash-course workshop so I can aid in creating graphics. I am familiar with the programs but will be needing a helping hand to master the more difficult parts of illustrations. We are considering a mix of hand drawn and computer illustrated as a way to differentiate answering the questions posted specifically for the project. For obvious reasons our images will mimic Yang’s original work but will also have our own take on it. For example, for our presentation, Samantha cropped out the characters from the graphic novel to show how each character looks like. We will use a similar method to add/retell some part of the story. We have decided to focus on a particular scene to elaborate on but since we have not yet picked out of the options, we will omit from saying which scenes we’re considering. In regards to the aesthetic difference between the way we will produce the images and the way Yang produces them, we will be a disclaimer in the beginning explaining that we are using Yang’s characters but hopefully will be changing their tone of voice once we develop the particular scene.

As mentioned briefly before, we are trying to zero in on a specific scene to add on to. We believe that this would give us a little more creative freedom as we will be able to manipulate the story and the tone to make it ours. We have also been conducting some comic book-making research in effort to closely recreate a comic book. Having visited creative blogs and various livejournals, we found that saddle-stitch binding a book is what most comic book writers do. Therefore, we are going to saddle-stitch our final products. We are also going to stick with the book dimensions of American Born Chinese.

That being said, we plan on incorporating the characters to help answer the various aspects/information the assignment asks us to include within our book content. Samantha and I have been able to meet up and discuss ideas on how to creatively execute this but we are yet to make final decisions. We hope to come to a consensus by the middle of the week so that we can begin working on the creative as soon as possible. As a group, we have already began outlining and answering the questions and information that the assignment requires us to include. We have taken your suggestion of creating a forward/blurb to incorporate the information and we will be working on which would be a best fit for our graphic novel. If we were to do the blurb approach, we were thinking of doing something similar to the back of the novel. It has “ABC” with blurbs explaining what the book is about. We also will be incorporating the page block dividers when we see fit.

Samantha and I also visited Harper & Brothers to HarperCollins Publishers: A Bicentennial Exhibition at Columbia University, Kempner Gallery, Rare Book & Manuscript Library. We drew great inspiration from the books on display and have taken into consideration how important typefaces (commonly known as fonts) are to a book. We also will be using a different typeface for answering the basic requirements and when we add our specific scene. Aside from the block dividers this will be the best way to differentiate the parts.

The Little Prince Check In Part 2

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After reading your comments, we have decided to design our book about a book as a presentation of an artifact from the pilot’s actual crash in the Sahara desert. We considered your input on us actually purchasing the journals, and have instead decided to use what will appear to be a pilot’s manual. We found a website titled “Militaryfactory.org” which lists the aircraft information of many planes used by various countries. Through our research of the time period the book was written in, the 1940s, we found that a plane that could have very possibly been flown by the pilot is the “Amiot 354,” a Medium Bomber Aircraft in the French Air Force. Using the website that gives specifications of such an aircraft, we are creating our own representation of the pilot’s manual. The following images are examples of three pages of what will be included in the manual. 

 

Similar to what you suggested that the Scarlet Letter group does, we have decided we will use a file folder (which we will get a better idea about from you in class this week) that will allow us to include a foreword. In this foreword we will cover the following components of the assignment:

  • Labors that went into creating the actual work
  • Analysis of how parts of the work are in conversation with the authors/artists of other works
  • How works have come to be considered great and what we believe makes a work great
  • Bibliography

We will print such a manual on one-sided sheets of paper, leaving the backs blank. From there, we will include the pilot’s entries on the backs of each of the pages. This will contribute to authenticity as we will explain in part of the forward because we will make it look as though the pilot realized he may not survive in the dessert and wanted to record the events of his last days. Being that he was stranded in the Sahara, it is realistic that the only thing he could use would be the manual on his aircraft, therefore he wrote his daily entries in it. The entries will describe the 8 days that he was stranded in the desert.

Similarly to how copies of “The Little Prince,” have a “Translator’s Note” in the beginning of the story, we plan to include one in addition to our foreword. In the translator’s note we will fulfill the overview of the work’s reception and preservation over time  by explaining how our version of the story through the pilot’s log will again add to the already existing versions of the story.

We will incorporate the close reading analysis into parts of the pilot’s actual logs and keep the authenticity of the first person aspect of our book, by using passages of text coming solely from the prince. In this way we can truly go into all of what was being said in the text, but it can be presented from the perspective of the pilot. We will write these log entries as the pilot contemplating something said by the prince, and perhaps how it affects himself.

We will also incorporate the creative response into the actual logs themselves by including a map of what the pilot believes is the positioning of the planets that the prince visited. It will be an image of the night sky in which all of the asteroids are labeled (an estimation), and finally we will see a place where he questions the placement of the prince’s planet.

It would be infeasible for us to handwrite each of the entries for all 10 copies of the book, therefore we will type the journals entries and print them onto the paper we will be using (the back of the manual). To maintain authenticity in the fact that the pilot would be hand writing all of his entries, we will use the font titled HanziPen or a similar one, which resembles handwriting.

As previously explained, we will be making the paper itself appear worn and as though it has been through hardship in the crash. To do this we will use teabags and potentially burn the sides of the pages, giving it a slightly destroyed look. In addition, we will have visible markings on the cover of the manual where the prince would have crossed out the title and wrote the meaning of the new journal, his own last days or at least what he thought would be his last days.

Check-in Part 2: The Scarlet Letter

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Regarding the comment of what the contents will be about:

  • We have not come up with a solid page by page idea of what the contents will be but some ideas came up that it will include:
    • Problems in the marriage that made Hester go to Dimmesdale
    • Finding out she is pregnant with Pearl
    • Being shamed by the community
    • Feeling bad that Pearl has to also deal with the community
    • Husband and Dimmesdale’s death
    • This is not a confirmed idea, but we can include a page where Pearl had found the journal after Hester has died and her feelings after she had read all the journals from her mother
  • “Relatedly how do you plan to integrate the various aspects/information the assignment ask you to include within your book content (i.e. information about the history of the book and about the reception of the book over time)? See assignment page for all things that need to be included.” – Professor
    • We have decided to create a type of forward to talk about the history, why this book precedes to create a “great work”. This will book will be archived as an artifact to show its historical importance, and moreover implying that this story was, in fact, a “great work”.
      • To show that this journal/book was from the archives, we have decided to put it in some sort of sleeve or folder to preserve the work.
  • We have decided to use cardboard, finely designed, to show how old the book is and to bind the book together, the seams will  sewn in to put Hester’s expertise into the book itself.
    • “what kind of needle?” – Professor
      • Not sure, but a thick sewing needle would be fine.
    • “As a potential alternative to wood cover, have you considered a cloth cover?” – Professor
      • We might sew the cloth on top of cardboard to give a more clean look and the cardboard will help give sturdiness.
  • To divide the work:
    • two people will focus on creating the contents of the book
    • two people will focus on designing the book and putting the book together
      • However, everyone collectively will help with ideas and answer any question raised throughout the process.