Latest revision as of 16:11, 21 July 2010

• Exclude pieces we don't think belong
• Edit all the damn pieces for spelling/grammar/content.
• Write any stuff that needs to be written for a more coherent theme
• Layout process

1. formulate potent concept/strategy statement
2. layout roughs of typical pages
3. layout roughs w/fonts
4. layout w/fonts and images
5. table of contents, copyright page, credits
6. front and back cover designs
7. comprehensive draft printed and examined by as many people as possible
8. upload to lulu
9. joyous noises

• profit?

anything I'm missing? (Yes, it's been fixed.)

• this is how 000 usually works in Indesign:

1. collect the text and images that you know are going into a certain spread
2. paste/import them all into indesign
3. apply your default body/heading etc fonts, style, fix some copying errors (and check paragraphs if they look good)
4. move/change everything around until it looks properly layouted, possibly using some extra graphics or marginalia in the process. use copious amounts of creativity and awesome in this step.

• Net brutally criticizes 000's workflow

One of the difficult lessons I've had to learn (it may be different for you) is that it's vitally important to develop a specific idea of the audience, "feel" of the publication, and whatnot before I create it to help prevent rationalizing whatever I did to fit the bill after the fact. Maybe I'm just a shiesty bastard, but it helps keep me honest and seems to boost the quality of my work. If you're totally opposed to the idea, I'll stop pushing it, but I'd like to sketch out our audience and art direction (even if this is just 3 adjectives) before we get too deep into layout and fonts. Sensitive initial conditions and whatnot. Netaungrot 07:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

• notes:

• the cut-up thing would go right after step 1 or 2, but i still gotta read the wikipedia article on it, i never really got the appeal of cut-up, but then, i've never really tried it. 000 09:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• I'm not entirely sure what Cram is referring to. CRAM! Could you link to some examples or clarify what you'd like to see in terms of cut-up? I'd be happy to get near incomprehensible with it, but it could add a week or more to the production time if it's anything at all what I'm imagining. Netaungrot 07:04, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

• one problem with the modular way of working is that i generally like moving smaller pieces of text around between spreads, pretty much dependant on sudden insight that they fit better on other pages (layout/design-wise). but the only way to properly have both several people working on different pages, as well as everything in one document, is to have some kind of automated versioning system, and i dunno if SVN would work for Indesign :)
  Hm, it would be so nice if one could just update, commit and add per spread with a versioning system.. I'm going to think about this. But in the mean time let's not wait for it.
  Just try to keep the filenames distinctive. I suggest etc_pg4-7,12-13_v3.indd which would contain pages 4-7 and 12-13 of the book, and is version 3 of this document (documents that are a proper superset of another, are always considered the later version. so files can grow but not shrink. etc_pg4-15_v1.indd would supercede the other document, for instance). Tell me if this is a too complicated idea that'll just bring more trouble than it's worth? :) 000 09:30, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• Sounds perfectly prudent. I have my own loose file naming system that's very similar, so this seems very easy to abide by. Let's just stick to this one. Netaungrot 07:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
• Also, unless you have the most recent version of InDesign, all the files you'll be receiving from me will be .INX rather than .INDD for backwards compatibility. Netaungrot 07:13, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Cramulus' Notes 6/27

Here's Cramulus' proposed process 1.0:

• Netaungrot picks a font for the book.

• I'd prefer to do layout roughs before choosing the font, but if you really need it, I can come up with some suggestions. Why do you want to start with fonts? I was thinking we'd use one font for the body text, captions, bylines, and then one font for titles, headers and subheads. Netaungrot 20:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• We start with a blank page, with each piece laid out to fit on 1 or 2 pages.

• Sticking with 2 pages maximum may be a bit tricky. Maybe not... Netaungrot 20:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed. Some of this stuff is just not going to fit on 2-page spreads. Cramulus 22:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• We add 0-2 pieces of art, and 0-3 pieces of marginalia per page
• We cut it up and modify it. Zarathud starts out making minor rearrangements at the beginning, then really fine cutups towards the end. 000 or Netaungrot adds little St. Zarathud to do his dirty work.
• We do this for every freaking piece, or until we get bored.

• I assure you I will not get bored of Zarathud shenanigans. Netaungrot 20:55, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• I drew a couple of Zarathuds so far, here: http://000.blackironprison.com/zarathud/ I'll make higher quality scans later, these were made with my digital camera, cause i couldnt get my scanner to work quickly enough. 000 10:19, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

• Holy shit those are perfect! Netaungrot 21:23, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

We can mechanize production a bit if we adopt a process for editing these pages.

I propose:

1. We work on one spread at a time.
2. I'll (who?) set the words on the page. And maybe propose graphics.
3. 000 or Netaungrot will cut it up, arrange the words, & add graphics. Add a little Zarathud.
4. Netaungrot (or whoever's up for it) will add layout, style, etc.
5. Cram will collect the final PDFs. Mark that page DONE on the wiki.

• Not sure what you mean by this. Isn't the final PDF going to be one file? I was also under the impression that placing PDFs in a layout then making a PDF out of it leads to postscript errors. At least, that was my experience. Netaungrot 21:21, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

• I dunno about postscript errors, but I agree it should be one file. I think for this production scheme it's best if we work with .indd InDesign files? We can even use separate ones to make it a bit more modular, it's not a lot of effort to paste them together at the end. Then, once the complete book is in InDesign, export it to PDF for release.
  Also, Monday evening (that's monday afternoon for you guys) a friend of mine, Paul is coming over to help with the book. He also knows InDesign, so we can do anything. Got any specific ideas to make that a most productive evening? Looking at it now, we can just jump in on any of these steps and follow them, do some random work whatever seems inspiring. 000 09:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, I think we'd reap the best results farther on down the line if we don't jump into InDesign too quickly. I have a file with all the text files placed for length, room for images and carving white space, basic text hierarchy loosely established, and approximate sequence of main items throughout the publication. Feel free to play with it if that's how you prefer to brainstorm. I'm doing some strategic mind maps of the project and two metric fucktons of thumbnails which I'll post tomorrow evening (which you'll see Wednesday morning Zippletits). Netaungrot 11:02, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

NET ENCOURAGES everyone involved to comprehensively yet concisely run their ideas/goals/fantasies about the Et Cetera Discordia through the filter of language now, so it will properly permeate and percolate with the project throughout its development. Netaungrot 11:01, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Questions fill an answer if you've got one, or the start of a discussion. Sign posts with four tilde's. Cramulus 20:34, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

1. What file format should we work in? Should I release pages in .doc, .pdf, .jpg?

• File formats for the work in progress I assume? Please save images as TIFs or PNGs, not JPG. JPGs are compressed and lose data every time you save them. For pure text, DOC format is fine. Netaungrot 20:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• Cool. I'll begin making 2-page, 4-page, or 6-page .docs. How many words do you think we should have per spread? Cramulus 22:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

• Ok, it looks like I can cram about 1000 words into a spread if I absolutely have to. Somewhere around 800 would be more comfortable. Netaungrot 22:14, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

2. Syn said he'd be interested in helping too. Do we need additional help? Or is that too many cooks?

• I'd be very pleased to work with Syn, and I think he'd bring many ideas and skills to the table. Netaungrot 20:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

3. What is the default font we will be using for the body text?

• This is undecided so far. If you're trying to coordinate your DIY style pieces with the rest of the stuff, don't worry about it, go with whatever pleases you and we'll figure out the rest later. Netaungrot 20:47, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Ideal File Specifications

SCANNING STUFF

• line art (including text) - 1200 dpi
• images with tones - 300 dpi

DIGITAL FILES

• line art (including text) 600 - 1200 ppi
• images with tones - 300 ppi
• all grayscale or B&W

LOL AT THE LAIL ABOVE

Cram on 6/30

It's getting hard to follow this discussion with all the threading, no? ;-) I'll add my comments down here.

• I think it might slow us down if we wait for me to make spreads. Would it be quicker for Net to just grab the text from the Table of Contents page? If me making .docs would make things easier, I'll go ahead.

• As for the cut-up method... the idea is to take paragraphs and cut them out, and juxtapose them next to paragraphs from other pieces. It might be interesting to read. As the book goes on, we'll be making finer and finer cuts. Take a look at this, as an example. cutup example

Net 7/2

Yeah the threading is a bit troublesome.

I certainly don't need these as .docs - copy and pasting works just fine.