Having reworked my publication for Assignment 2: The Archive, I sent my new book Off with their heads to my tutor to make sure we were thinking along the same lines; “You’ve gone and remade the first book but with their heads cut off!” was his reply. Unfortunately, it would appear that I fell straight back into my old ways and was still unable to distance myself from the work, something my tutor felt very strongly about with the first publication; there were also a few layout issues that needed addressing:“You need to create the distance we spoke about.”
- All references tying the work to my family needed cutting out, apart from the credits, which he advised should go at the end.
- The captions should go underneath the relevant image, but not all images need them, in fact my tutor thinks it better if they are not all captioned.
- Keep the pages white (I had coloured them) and keep to three different type sizes of the same font, one for the title and chapters, one for the captions and a smaller one for the artist statement and acknowledgements. The chapter font is currently too big.
- The square format of the images is very reminiscent of SX70 Polaroids so the images should be kept to these proportions, with a bigger boarder at the bottom, this taps into the viewers subconscious.
- An elegant space for the captions should be kept.
From these points, you can get a general idea of my original format.
As I had been looking at these images and their layout constantly for a few days, I decided to have a clean break, revisiting my book a week later, which I feel has been rewarding, as I now have a more palatable submission for this assignment.
The final draft of Off with their heads can be found below as a slideshow.
Photography 2: Digital Image and Culture 