AXLE: every detail matters
FROM ZERO TO AXLE
Happy Holidays! I have been relaxing and enjoying my time here in Hong Kong. I guess I was too exhausted from making Axle constantly for 2 weeks, 20 hours everyday. There were times when I feel really upset about Axle and had doubts about my designs. I am glad that it ended up looking pretty good. However, according to my standard, the end product is not 100% there yet. There are several things that I’d like to improve when I return from Christmas break:
1. The spine looks cracked, because of the ink. I printed out at least 3 copies of each divider page, but the spines are still cracked. I will try to print them with different printers in Hong Kong, since it’s really cheap to print (I think I spent over $200 on printing at TEL….). Hopefully, it will work out.
2. Chapter 2 of the book (Bike Anatomy) was a fail, because I didn’t end up using transparent film and overlay them to show the parts of bike. The production of this chapter involves lots of crafting and glueing. I was almost there, but I screwed up the last page (1 bubble!!!!). I ended up reorganizing the layouts and made it worked, because I was running out of time.
3. I feel like the binding of the book did not turn out as great and precise as the ones I did for practice. It still looks fine, but I am not entirely happy about it. I will definitely fix it for my next copy.
Things that I am happy about:
1. The combination of meticulous illustrations and high quality photos seems to work very well. The feel of the book turns out as planned – high quality, meticulous, precious, collectable, clean and simple. The illustrations are my favourite part of the book, not just because of the time I invested in them, they express my focus on the word “detail”.
2. Typographic decisions were quite accurate. It serves the purpose and matches the tone of the book. I personally don’t like justified type, but it suits the theme of the book, which is highly structured and engineered. I went into each line of the contents and fix the tracking, just to make sure that there are no “rivers” and it’s easier for reader’s eyes.
3. Every little detail of the book is obviously important to me. I carefully pick up a hint of colour from the photographs and incorporate the colour into the illustrations, lines or type.
4. I sliced a part of my finger with an industrial x-acto knife back in 2nd year. I never touched that knife again since then. However, I feel like I should overcome this phobia / fear. I picked up this knife again to build my book case. AWESOME. I spent 10 hours doing that. FEAR IS GONE!
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I learned a lot from making this book. To be honest, I just love looking at bike and I ride them sometimes, but I never really spend the time to study its structures and how it works. This gave me a really good opportunity to go all out and learn something new. The interviews with people at Urbane and Cycle Shoppe were great. People there are very nice, informative and funny. In addition to the books and web resources, the interviews really helped with my research. I enjoyed learning the binding and production of the book a lot. It has been a wonderful experience to make my own book, starting from nothing to holding onto the finished product. I love my book, I love it. Thanks for those who gave me helpful advices and suggestions, especially to my buddies – Meghan, Greig, Manwai, Emma, Farah, Yvonne! Thanks Reg, you are awesome and full of knowledge! I will come pick up the book in 2011 
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I didn’t get to take some portfolio shoots for the book, but I took some quick shots with my iphone.
PHOTOS: http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc173/efok/AXLE/?albumview=slideshow
