Five Objects Book
Assignment
"Design a book form featuring five objects you treasure, that are important to you. Either use your own five objects as source material or interview a friend or family member about their five objects."
My Approach
When I first heard about the project I got very excited because there were no restrictions on what the design should look like. I found it pretty hard to choose my objects because since I moved to the US one year ago I don't have many valuable objects here so I needed to think outside the box. The objects I chose are important to me because I either use them every day or because there is a story behind them.
I wanted in the beginning to create a book that looked like a modern magazine. But in the process, I changed my mind and decided to go for a more colorful, interesting, and unpredictable design.
This is my book.
The Process
We started the project by writing about our five different objects.
Bib
I got this bib when I competed at the World Championships this summer in Oregon. It was my first World Championship, and I managed to throw a personal best in the qualification round, qualifying me for the final. I finished 12th overall in the world! Looking at the bib, my whole body gets warm, and I become very proud of myself. I’ve been practicing very hard for this for a very long time. I’m super happy that all the hard works pays off.
Earrings
I love jewelry and at the moment I love the trend of wearing hoops. It’s practical because you can sleep in them and practice with them, without it hurting or getting your hair stuck in them. I got these earrings from both my mom and her boyfriend after the European Championships this summer. It was the first big competition that they watched me do in 5 years, so I’m very happy that they were able to come and watch me compete. These earrings remind me of that specific trip and take me back to all the good memories I had there.
Wrist Wrap
This wrist wrap means the world to me. I got it 4 years ago from my old coach. I had pain in my wrist from throwing shot put and from lifting weights in the gym. He gave me these wrists wraps to decrease the load on my wrist, and let me tell you, it was a game changer. Ever since that day, I have used it twice a day, 4 times a week, for 4 years and they are still one of the most necessary things I need to handle my hard training routine.
Water Bottle
This water bottle has saved me so many times. During the summer I practice outside usually around noon, and during this time of the day it’s usually very hot outside. Drinking cold water when it’s hot is one of the best things for me. This water bottle does a great job doing just that. I got it from the UNL track team as a gift for qualifying for Nationals. When I was in Oregon at the National meet, me and some friends bought stickers to place on our bottles so we could tell who’s is who’s, because everyone’s bottle looked the same. Therefore, every time I drink from this bottle I think about those memories and they make me happy.
Necklace
After writing about our objects, we did a couple of different designs in InDesign. I was not sure what type of design I wanted to do so I tried a few different layouts. I knew that I wanted to crop out the object from the photo to place the object in focus.
The design I liked most was this one. I felt it had a modern look and it reminded me of a magazine.
I made the other objects in the same style, but I did not like the way it was looking.
I did not like how the words were looking repeated with the longer words, so I decided to try out something else. I wanted to have the water bottle in focus but thought it was boring to just have it as a solid piece. I decided to break the bottle into different pieces, and I really liked how that turned out.
After having our first critique, I decided that I wanted to change my book from horizontal to vertical. A few people gave me the advice to add some color, so I kept that in the back of my mind.
Second Draft
My second draft is completely different than my first one. I decided to add more colors and my goal was to create a design that was interesting and unpredictable. I wanted the pages to interact with each other and not be two separate pages. I really liked how my wrist wrap, water bottle and necklace page interacted with eachother, but I felt that something was missing in the bib and earring page, so that is something that I wanted to change in my next draft.
I used duotones in Photoshop and forgot to change them to RGB colors when I transferred them to InDesign, so the green figures are supposed to be in other colors.
Third Draft
Final Booklet (digital)
I decided to reduce the capacity of all the objects and make them in a pink/purple color to make them more cohesive and to bring the focus to the necklace. I added a watercolor texture on the pages with the objects to make the design more interesting.
