etna Typeface specimen

For this project I was given the opportunity to choose any typeface of my liking. I happened to find the typeface Etna, designed by Mark Simonson a couple weeks before this project and just fell in love with it. I researched the ins and outs of the typeface and Mark Simonson as a designer. This project brought together my typeface knowledge, research capabilities and craftsmanship to make an engaging and interactive book.

My Process

Get ready, this ones a long one…

My first step was researching the history, inspiration and design behind Etna. This included understanding Mark Simonson's background as well through podcasts, articles, and his portfolio. From my research I created an outline for how I wanted the book to be structured.

Barnes & Noble field trip

cutting & printing

I took a trip to Barnes & Noble to see how books with 50 pages or less were made with a hard cover.

Research and Sketches

I wanted to understand Etna’s history a bit more so I visited Shakespeare Press Museum on campus. I went through hundreds of wood type drawers looking for the typefaces Etna was inspired from and I used stamps of them in my book.

Digging deeper

After finalizing the layout of my book in Indesign it was time to print. I found 9x13 children's craft paper at Michaels that I cut down to 8.5x11 to print onto then cut it again to my final book size 9.5x7.

After printing, I took the pages home and used a Silhouette Cameo machine to cut out the section divider pages.

silhouette cameo

Gluing

Once all the pages were in order, I glued them together and flattened them with some 10Ib weights from my garage.

This project has taught me that patience and experimentation go a long way. On my last step of letting everything dry, my inside cover ripped. I took a step back to figure out what to do and decided to improvise with a cut out, coincidentally mirroring a page designed on the inside.

I was determined to make a hardcover cutout. To do this I experimented with the CO2 laser in the BREA shops on campus for the first time. The first couple times I may have set the chipboard on fire, but after playing around with the settings I finally got it cut out. I wrapped the cover in vinyl to give it a clean, finished look.