Intention
The kind of book I wanted to make needed to be of a generous size as it was to hold text, drawings, and some decoration. Some of the pages would be very full of marks, some nearly empty; and I envisaged a substantial number of pages to give the feeling of a book rather than a pamphlet.
The style of the book was also important, and I made some basic decisions at the beginning: that it should be more of a personal notebook than a very carefully worked out formal manuscript (I looked at photographs of Kepler’s notebooks). This informality would absorb some of the mistakes that would inevitably happen in the making process.* see PS. It would also allow me to add additional material later if I needed to. This decision then guided me into the choice of writing style; and I chose an italic hand as it could be used more formally in headings, and as a small running hand for basic text and notes.
Rough Drafts
As the content of the book only appeared gradually - theme by theme and page by page - I designed each double opening as it became required. For a few of the very complex pages I did make a thorough rough draft, but more often I assembled the essential drawings on the page and then added the accompanying notes bit by bit, organising their placement as I went, and sometimes rewriting the text. I discovered other formats too : an especially useful one which came from an Indian ms which showed how a very strong framework on a page could hold many different drawings together - in almost any order (pp 44-45.)
The Paper
The paper used was a light-creamy coloured handmade paper by the makers F.J.Head. This paper must have been made around the 1940/50s. I inherited it from my tutor at the Central School Irene Wellington after her death in 1984, along with some tools, materials and other papers she left behind.
The paper was quite substantial in weight so the pages would turn nicely for the size the book. It was also thick enough to prevent too much show through from the reverse side, which was important.
The sheets of paper had a deckle at the edges, and this partly decided the choice of the book-size.
The Book Size and Shape
The choice of the shape of page is of utmost importance, as it has to work as a single page and as a double-page spread. In this case I found that a √2 shape (the A size of modern papers) was too narrow as a single page, as it did not allow for the necessary subdivisions of text columns that I would require. A √3 size looked too wide - too near the shape of a square. A Golden Proportion seemed perfect. So in the book the double-page spread is a golden proportion, and the single page half of that.
I then trimmed the paper into that proportion, leaving the deckle to form the side and lower edges. The next stage was to fold the pages into sections: a section being two folios. This gave me a continuous double page spread once every 4 pages, where there was an opportunity for me to create a larger page spread.
Finding the Area of Text to Page Size
In finding the text area, I followed the Jan Tschichold method, using one of the geometric devices he suggests to find the text area within a page. However I sensed that the inner margin on a single page was too narrow, so I contracted the text area there a small amount to allow for a more generous spine margin.
Having a clearly defined text area is very helpful in making a book, as it gives a kind of scaffolding to the page within which one can make different column-widths, and outer margins for notes if needed. This serves to lend a cohesion to the book as a whole.
Jan Tschihold was a German book designer (1902 - 1974) though he emigrated to Switzerland because of the Nazi regime. In his book (The Form of the Book, published 1975) he cites different methods of page constructions using compass and ruler only - without measurement. In his researches concerning this area he discovered what seemed to be a secret canon known and used by medieval craftsmen, both in manuscripts and in architecture. Amongst these was Villard de Honnecourt, a 13th century Frenchman who left a notebook including many drawings concerning mathematics, geometric proportions in architecture, books and mechanical devices.
Finding the line unit
Having found the text area, and the style of writing (see above) the next decision was to establish the basic line unit. This needed to be adaptable to various tasks: it must carry a line of writing across the whole width of the page; it should accept vertical columns of smaller writing, and the line width on these columns might be divided into 1/2 or2//3 of the basic line wide. This is decided by trial and error: by considering the amount of white space within which the line of writing of a certain length sits comfortably, so that the eye keeps ‘on track’ across the page.
By extreme good fortune having decided on the basic line unit, I found that 24 of them filled the height of the text area - almost exactly. So I ruled up the the text area and the basic line ruling for the first few pages.
Tools and Materials
The pens used were wooden shafts with Rex square edge nibs. Compasses, ruler, set-squares, paint-brushes of various sizes.
The paint was Winsor and Newton Artists watercolours. The colours used throughout were Cadmium Red, Cobalt Blue, Lemon Yellow and Zinc White. The brown, green, grey colours used in the work were a mixture of these three colours. Though there was one addition colour on a few pages. I needed to liven up the green colour in a few places, so some viridian green was used.
To mix the colours, I found a china pallet and squeezed whole tubes of the particular hues + white, mixing them thoroughly with pallet-knife with some distilled water, and checking them against the trials I had made earlier. When satisfied, the mixture was scraped into plastic containers with lids. The paint thus lasted for the whole book.
Preparation of paper
Though at first I tried to rub in some powdered Gum Sandarac on the surface of the paper (this inhibits the ink, and thus makes the pen stroke sharper). However it did not need it, perhaps as the paper was of such good quality. Small mistakes were removed with a very sharp scalpel knife ( No.10 with curved blade).
PS
As the book was on paper, I could not erase mistakes (except for slight spelling errors), and so I had to accept them all as they happened, and to recognise them as part of the character of a personal hand-written journal.
I had made a decision before starting work on the book, that I would not redo any page; partly because the stock of paper I had was limited and no longer available for purchase, and partly that I knew that I would never be satisfied with the work done. And if I had the option of rewriting I would constantly be tempted to do so!
More importantly it would change the image that I had in my head: that this was a kind of personal endeavour, a book of discovery - a Journal. So I envisioned it from the outset that it should be fairly freely written, and not over- worked out. For some of the more complex pages, I did make fairly careful rough drafts; but most of the other pages had a preliminary rough sketch, and then elements were added ’on the hoof’ as the design developed.
I never considered that the journal might be published, as then I might have proceeded in a very different manner: a blacker ink, tighter designs, a more thought-through sequence. However, firstly I was largely ignorant of the subject matter: it grew to be more huge and complex than I had expected as I worked and read; so to plan ahead was impossible. Secondly, I would never have started on the book, if I had known how far-reaching it would turn out to be - and certainly I would never have finished it!
