Jennifer Forsberg makes fantastic public sculptures that liven up parks, school yards, hospitals and other public spaces around Sweden. Her works are, in most cases, abstract, and feature wonderful bulbous, organic shapes that make me think of mountains, sand dunes, stalagmites and mystical creatures.
This is the the third project that Jennifer and I have worked on together. It started when she realised she needed a PDF portfolio that she could use as a marketing tool. I had started mocking up pages for the PDF when she she received a grant from Högenäs Munincipality and was asked to create an exhibition as part of the award ceremony. She decided to publish her portfolio in book form.
Here are some of the things to think about when designing a portfolio: the content and look of the document are important whether it is a PDF or a printed book, whereas choice of paper and page numbers only really matter if you are printing your document.
Content
- Images – documentation that is high resolution and varied. At one point Jennifer and her photographer husband had to take a day trip to one of her sculptures in order to get photos from a different angle.
- Text – what has to be said, what could be said? How do you want to say it?
Look and feel
We wanted an airy, uncluttered look, with plenty of white spaces. It was also important that the book had a playful feel to it: a feeling that matched Jennifer’s sculptures.
There’s a lot to think about when designing a book. Not only is the pressure higher (once you send the final to the printer there is no going back) but there more aspects to consider.
Size and format
How big is the book going to be. Do you want it to be landscape or portrait, or a lovely square? Jennifer and I decided to design her book in A4 landscape format, as many of her sculptures are long and this format would let us showcase them nicely.
Paper
The quality of a book’s paper affects the overall look and feel enormously. Jennifer wanted her book to feel luxurious, and she was adamant that no sign of the opposite page’s content should be visible. We spent a fun morning visiting a local printer, thumbing different sorts of paper and asking questions. For a reasonable fee, they printed a test page, front and back, for us which gave us the information we needed. We decided on 170 GSM paper, slightly off-white.
I went home and increased the inner margin of the layout to account for the thicker paper. Nobody wants the content of their book to be lost in the margins of thick pages that don’t lie flat!
Number of pages
Unlike a PDF, the total number of pages of a printed book has to be divisible by four!
Information
Look at the first pages of any published book. There is information such as the author, the designer, the illustrator, the date it was published, where it was printed… sometimes books even include the typeface used. Even though Jennifer was self-publishing her book, we included all the relevant information, including an IBSN.
How did it turn out?
It turned out beautifully! A wonderful collection of Jennifer’s work and a truly convincing tool for her to use for marketing and promotions.
