Book Design Notes

I'm working on a book design, about Bellingham's Summer. The first thematic element is one of growth, fecundity, and for that I have a bunch of detail shots of morning glory and sweet pea. The conceit is that these pictures will crawl across the page, expanding like vines, for the first few pages. For "too long" really, encouraging a quickening pace as you leaf through, looking for the "real content" after you get the idea.

After that, these elements become background upon which other material is laid. They become graphical design elements rather than pictorial content, repeated on each page, and then there's some things that happen at the end about which more, perhaps, later.

The preliminary spreads look like this. Sepia-ish toning for an organic flavor.

Page 1:

Pages 2-3:

Pages 4-5:

Pages 6-7:

Pages 8-9:

Pages 10-11:

Note that the pattern recto is complete on page 7, so pages 9 and 11 are simply repeats. I think I want to leave 9 as-is, but begin to bring in the main theme, the primary "content" starting on page 11. These are photographs of things which I think embody certain aspects of the summer in Bellingham, something like this:

Well, bugger. That's obviously a mess. I knew there was going to be a separation problem, of course. I tried some borders and so on, but ugh. Nope, the background has to become quite a bit different. Let's make it much lighter.

That's a BIT better. Throw on a border too and fade that background a little more:

Later pages we'll give the verso the same treatment, and start putting primary content on both sides. The background material will evolve, with bits turning off, and probably an increasing fade, and eventually the whole thing vanishes bottom-upwards as we head into the final end-of-summer theme. In the end, the background is blank, and there's 1 or 2 more pictures to close out summer.

This probably isn't the final final design, but I am closing in on it, I think.