Family Monogram

Objective

You are to create a book plate for yourself, using imagery and motifs pulled directly from your life, interests and your family history. The book plate should be visually rich, employing imagery which is meaningful to you and your own family, since the idea behind the plates is that these will not only identify ownership of the books it’s used on, but turn your library into pieces of family history.

The book plate will be type-focused, but only to the degree that the imagery employed should exist comfortably around the initials of your name. The point of this is two-fold:

• You must visually solve the puzzle of integrating the letters of your name with each other and the imagery.
• The letters will serve as a structure basis for the organization of the surrounding elements.

Specs

• 1 Color (Black and White)
• (Whatever width your composition dictates) x 3.5in
• Creation of a stamp and 2 imprints to be turned in (imagery centered on 5.5in x 8.5in page).
• Your mark should contain your name and either the words “Ex Libris” or “From the Libary Of” before your name.
• Your mark should work compositionally without the above copy as well.

Instructions

Gather Content

You should start by researching your family history and documenting the things that you already know, in the form of a list to be presented along with sketches. You should talk to older members of your family, from both sides of your family, to gather insight that you may not have known. Find out about the origins of your family, in general and in this country. Obviously you can decide which facets of your family’s history you want to highlight.

Based on your research, write a short paper (about 2 paragraphs) about how your family came to be where you currently are, dating back as far as you can find in your research. You will turn this in on the class after assignment. In this paper, you should also make a list of motifs and imagery that you distill from your research and related sketch assignments, which should contain at least 15 items. These can be names, places, adjectives, objects…the imagery that is brought to mind when considering your research. Use this for your sketchbook assignment, due the same day.

Due 9-25-17 beginning of class

Put it Together

Use your imagery from your monogram sketchbook assignment and the family motif sketchbook assignment, and compile them into full, detailed monogram sketches. You should sketch at least 5 highly detailed versions, varying your sketches from one to the next enough that a new sketch is warranted each time.

Due 9-25-17 end of class.

Vectorize It

After looking at your sketches, we will decide on the best version to move forward with. You will create this in Illustrator, and continue to receive feedback while building it. We will address details such as positive/negative space and type handling, as well as stylistic consistency.

Make It

You will ultimately create a stamp from this, which will be what you turn in (and which will be given back to you), in addition to 2 clean imprints of the book plate on paper of 5.5in x 8in.

The way you create the stamp is up to you: you can have one made at an office supply store in town, or you can buy some easy-cut block print rubber and cut it out with linocut tools which are available at school. If you choose the latter, you will need to append the rubber to a hard surface with a handle so it is a functional stamp.

*In the latter case (cutting the art out of rubber), you can omit the “Ex Libris [Your Name]” parts of the design, as this may be very near impossible to get right. This is why your book plate composition should work without the type as well.

Submission

The due date listed here is the date for the design to be completed, by the end of class on that day. You’ll drop that in the class dropbox labeled [lastname_f-project4]. There will be a window of approximately 1 week (which will overlap the next project) during which you can produce the stamp and make your prints.

• Digital file(s) turned in on due date by end of class
• I will collect your files on 10-04-17, and will give you further instructions on 4-12-16 as to how the stamp creation will happen.

File Preparation

• Place your one-color vector artwork (with type outlined) centered inside an artboard of 5in x 5in, at 100% scale. Make sure all your black are the same black.
• Save As an eps, and make sure “Use Artboards” is selected under the file type in the Save As dialog box. You’ll get two eps files. Throw out the one that doesn’t size to your artboard size.
• File / Export, and choose JPG (make sure Use Artboards is selected). Turn the quality slider all the way up, and change the resolution to 600, and say OK.
• Place this JPG and your EPS in a folder together, labeled [lastname-f-monogram] and place them in the class dropbox.

Resources

• Famous Bookplates
• Vintage Logo Collection