BOOK OF RED: VOLUME 3
Click here to view the PDF
The third iteration of The Book of Red, the first of which I originally created for print for my Degree Project red room as a collection of pre-existing physical photographs containing striking colors of red. Volume Three collects and presents work that I have made, words that I have written, and collections of others’ imagery & text -- just like my process for Degree Project, where this data ended up on my studio walls, and then on my red room walls.
I mindmap imagery in the exact same way on my apartment walls and still use Pinterest and Are.na as I did for DP, so this book presents some of these collections looking at timelines post-graduation from risd, but in relation to more recent personal research and thoughts about:
the color red, the color red in fashion, the metaphorical “red” and its associations to fashion & art (such as the concept of power), and process thoughts relating to projects included in the book (such as super 8 research).
The book also presents the connections between my work and my imagery research with scanned and typewriter pages. I used my typewriter to transcribe many pages from my notebooks from the past few months, and let the structure of my notebook notes inform how I used the typewriter (many clusters of information and connecting lines).
I put some of the typewriter text through an originally lengthy process of scan to image-traced / outlined letters in Illustrator, so that phrases from the pages could be blown up to larger size, but kept most of the typewriter scans edited just for brightness in order to save the Olivetti’s unique letter texture.
Lastly, Volume 3 contains all Polaroids at larger scale that some, but not all, were included in the Volume 3 Abridged / Portfolio version, and larger scale stills from the Lady Stardust / Lipstick Effect video.
There is MUCH more imagery of my own from many different cameras, more inspiration imagery to add, and SO much more notes that could be added, so this book will continue to updated as I continue sifting through the many archives that house my brain’s thoughts, and consistently transcribe any significant words from my notebooks with my typewriter. I also am never done researching and learning, so this book will only continue to grow and grow. Perhaps I will put a stop to it before next fall and start a Volume 4 of some kind.
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I designed the Book of Red: Volume 1 based off the Book of Common Prayer, a red hardcover book that I used to study in church as incense was being swung and the choir was chanting -- very happy & peaceful moments. I hadn’t stopped to consider why exactly I decided to let the book inspire my own, and now I think maybe the Book of Common Prayer was my first forray into graphic design -- I loved the paper and typography of every page.
So in the first volume I matched the title pages almost exactly with leading, kerning, and tracking and Volume 3 reflects these details as well. Book of Red: Volume 3 “The Abridged Version” AKA my portfolio for Master’s application references the BCP in new ways: the section pages that follow the page structure of BCP, placing the subtitle text like “Alice” in an exact relationship with the main title page, and the Appendix is a new addition of larger amounts of body text -- however I took more creative liberty with that part.
Volume 2 is currently in photo album form, with all of my 250+ Red Room documentation photos printed as 4x6’s (therefore since Volume 2 technically is not compiled in the Book of Red format in InDesign, this Volume 3 was almost called Volume 2, but I am planning ahead... and it was almost called Volume 4).
I mindmap imagery in the exact same way on my apartment walls and still use Pinterest and Are.na as I did for DP, so this book presents some of these collections looking at timelines post-graduation from risd, but in relation to more recent personal research and thoughts about:
the color red, the color red in fashion, the metaphorical “red” and its associations to fashion & art (such as the concept of power), and process thoughts relating to projects included in the book (such as super 8 research).
The book also presents the connections between my work and my imagery research with scanned and typewriter pages. I used my typewriter to transcribe many pages from my notebooks from the past few months, and let the structure of my notebook notes inform how I used the typewriter (many clusters of information and connecting lines).
I put some of the typewriter text through an originally lengthy process of scan to image-traced / outlined letters in Illustrator, so that phrases from the pages could be blown up to larger size, but kept most of the typewriter scans edited just for brightness in order to save the Olivetti’s unique letter texture.
Lastly, Volume 3 contains all Polaroids at larger scale that some, but not all, were included in the Volume 3 Abridged / Portfolio version, and larger scale stills from the Lady Stardust / Lipstick Effect video.
There is MUCH more imagery of my own from many different cameras, more inspiration imagery to add, and SO much more notes that could be added, so this book will continue to updated as I continue sifting through the many archives that house my brain’s thoughts, and consistently transcribe any significant words from my notebooks with my typewriter. I also am never done researching and learning, so this book will only continue to grow and grow. Perhaps I will put a stop to it before next fall and start a Volume 4 of some kind.
Click here for the PDF to the Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer
I designed the Book of Red: Volume 1 based off the Book of Common Prayer, a red hardcover book that I used to study in church as incense was being swung and the choir was chanting -- very happy & peaceful moments. I hadn’t stopped to consider why exactly I decided to let the book inspire my own, and now I think maybe the Book of Common Prayer was my first forray into graphic design -- I loved the paper and typography of every page.
So in the first volume I matched the title pages almost exactly with leading, kerning, and tracking and Volume 3 reflects these details as well. Book of Red: Volume 3 “The Abridged Version” AKA my portfolio for Master’s application references the BCP in new ways: the section pages that follow the page structure of BCP, placing the subtitle text like “Alice” in an exact relationship with the main title page, and the Appendix is a new addition of larger amounts of body text -- however I took more creative liberty with that part.
Volume 2 is currently in photo album form, with all of my 250+ Red Room documentation photos printed as 4x6’s (therefore since Volume 2 technically is not compiled in the Book of Red format in InDesign, this Volume 3 was almost called Volume 2, but I am planning ahead... and it was almost called Volume 4).