Practical Investigation - PDF Print/Download

Inspired by the work of Antoine Lefebvre, the publication has been made available to print at home via a PDF download. This ultimately increases accessibility of content, allowing people to experience art outside the exhibition context.

The publications available from Lefebvre's La Bibliotheque Fantastique emulate print as the pages consist of scans from the physical book. This picks up subtle creases in the page and textures of stock as demonstrated by LBF 2 by Joseph Imhauser and Antoine Lefebvre

This informed my decision to use unedited scans of my publication instead of the original InDesign file. This will allow me to capture the imperfections from manual processes in order to emulate the experiential qualities of the printed original.

Professional Consideration

Printers found at home and in offices most commonly print A4 size pages. As the original book requires the double page spreads to be printed on A3, I have scaled the book down to A4. This means once the book is printed and folded it will be A5. 

The document can also be printed in colour or black and white. This was also influenced by Lefebvre as it makes the artists' book available to print from old and new printers, ultimately increasing accessibility. 

Test printed the book via the PDF available through ISSUU to support my submission:

I simply stapled the book together, however their is opportunity here to provide instructions on how to bind the book using a needle and thread. Perhaps if I was to take this concept further, I would create a site dedicated to print on demand technology so that all of this information could be in one place. 

Once the book was bound, I had to trim the pages with a scalpel. Whilst this isn't essential in experiencing the artwork, it can have a detrimental impact on the production quality of print at home technology. As an alternative, the user can buy the printed format from independent bookstores to avoid poor quality. 

Overall I am really pleased with the quality of print considering it was printed on standard 90gsm stock from a standard printer. The flakey texture of the recycled stock has been successfully transferred into the PDF, allowing the user to experience the tangibility of the original book through print and digital.

Instead of using ISSUU it would be more beneficial if the book was available through my own publishing site. This would re-enforce the role of the artist as publisher.