INK: A Basic Guide to Building a Kids Book
Made with artist Ania Bas as part of our two day ‘Zine’ in a Weekend Course with Wimbledon Bookfest
See Day 1 and Day 2 for full details of the course.
INK is here – our very own publication created by children for adults.
We realise that making quality art work can be an expensive business, we want to give children from all backgrounds the opportunity to take one of our courses – all proceeds from INK will go towards subsidising places or offering bursaries to children who need it at our after school art clubs and holiday courses.
We thought you might want to know – and more importantly your children might want to know – how their art work went from this….
to this…
Children are used to glossy colour magazines in full colour, but we chose to make a different kind of zine – they may not be used to the muted colours, limited palette and matt texture of this product.
With our limited budget we chose to print using a Risograph Printer on recycled paper stock and with a limited colour palette. This method is not only environmentally sound but also cost effective.
After the two day course we scanned work chosen by our ‘senior editors’ from the huge amount of quality content produced, to illustrate the concept of the zine – what would make a good children’s book – a guide for adult would be writers.
Words were a good way to include something from everyone
Our designer Sanaz Movahedi simplified the children’s images to three colours and set them in a template that could be printed and folded easily into an eye-catching zine that got our message across. We tried hard to ensure work from each of the children appeared.
We were using a risograph printer so we had to manipulate the colours of the children’s work during the design process. We explained this to the children during the course and during many exercises limited them to certain colours for exactly this reason.
Once all the colours were checked and tested we sent the designs to HATO Press.
Artwork was setup as separate greyscale PDF files, one for each colour layer, similar to the way artwork is prepared for screen printing – one design for each colour layer.
Visit the HATO press website for a very informative description of how they work.
The Risograph is an environmentally friendly and cost effective printer, which uses soy-based inks to produce unique outcomes. Each stencil (master) is made from thermal sensitive paper and unlike offset printing it only takes a single print for the screen to be fully inked and ready to print thousands of copies. The Risograph is extremely energy efficient and generates a minimal amount of waste. All our stocked papers are recycled or FSC certified.
Only 100 copies were printed, to own a copy of INK is to own a limited edition artwork.
We applied for our very own ISBN number, a number that identifies our publication as unique! There will be copies held in the British Library!!!
This number was issued by AND publishing.
We really hope you love your copy of INK as much as we do – so much love, care and attention has gone into every step – we hope this BLOG will make you love it even more and treasure it forever.
Why not buy a few copies to give as Christmas presents to your loved ones – a hand made limited edition art work – for only £3.50. And know that you will be helping us to make our work more accessible to more children in the future.
Click the image above to view the complete ‘INK - A Basic Guide for Building a Kids Book’