Tip In

Once I added and completed more elements for my book such as the poster and the sticker sheet, and decided on loose leaf wiro bind rather than a normal spiral bind, I decided it would be best to have some sort of rationale or text explaining to the reader what this book is about and summarising some of the thought processes behind it as there is no front cover or blurb - only the belly band which is very general and more to keep the book together while giving the reader some quick information.

The tip-in explains in more detail what the theme is about and how this book explores shared living. It also encourages the reader to use the poster (possibly make them aware of it?), to share the stickers and also makes them aware that the bind can be unclipped and encourages them to move the pages how they please.

The design of the tip in is based on the letterpressing used within the book and on the belly band - the type is Clarendon Bold and it's in a dark brown similar to the ink used as it's more warm than black and complimentary to the warm toned speckled paper stock. The warmth also subtly connotes a more welcoming and encouraging personality to the book and information which is the purpose of the tip-in.

The version with the bitmapped stickers edited on was initially an experiment to see how the bitmap would look over text and if it would affect legibility which it didn't - it emphasised this urban and playful theme. The main idea would be that I placed the actual stickers on the text to continue this hands-on production process however as I was having issues with Digital Print and was unsure that I would even have cut out stickers, I printed versions with the stickers digitally printed on as backup.

Feel like this tip in is very important to the practicality of the book otherwise many of the features/purposes of these features might be overlooked. Therefore this tip in needs to be one of the first things shown within the book as it would be too much information on the belly band.

As the issues with digital print were resolved and I had stickers, I created 4 versions of the tip in to be possibly used:

1. plain text however this was cut too close to the margin
2. text with bitmapped images too close to the margin
3. text with bitmapped images in the centre of the tip in
4. plain text in the centre with stickers

I chose to go with the sticker version and the text in the centre as it's more legibly appealing to the reader as being too close to the edge interferes with the image on the page underneath making it too hectic to read. However what I like about the text being close to the edge is that it shows the continuous affect with the image underneath as they're in similar margins but I feel like that still shows with the sticker centred version but more legibly. 

Initially, as I wanted the tip-in to be the first thing viewers see when opening the book, I placed the tip-in over the initial first page. However once combining my other elements such as the gatefold poster, I realised the first page would be folded into the poster and therefore the tip in had to be placed after the initial page.