There are no available registration dates at this time.

Note: This Multi-week Course will be held online using the Zoom Platform
Class meets Wednesdays from 9am-12pm EST (12 Total Sessions)

All your summer plans have been cancelled! Why not take this time to plan, design and create a limited edition book. The result of this class can be sent to an online publisher such as Conveyor Studio or Blurb or we will explore other options. You can take the InDesign files that you create to a commercial printer or do the printing yourself on Maine Media’s letterpress when the campus opens again or print on your own press. 

This summer long class will meet once per week in a 3 hour Zoom platform where we will talk about your project, explore your weekly progress, answer production questions, and hear from each other. I will prepare demonstrations and show basic tool uses. We will have guest experts. At the other end of the technology spectrum, I will offer computer file formatting tips and explain the printing vocabulary and process. Each online publisher has slight variations to their production system, but we will navigate those so you can choose which is right for your book design.

Beginning book designers are welcome, but you will need Adobe InDesign software and content for your book. If you are not familiar with Adobe InDesign, I would strongly recommend taking David Allen’s class offered June 8 – 12 to get familiar with the program and printing concepts so you can keep up with the class and get the most out of what is being offered in this course. We will not be teaching InDesign, rather we will be taking your knowledge of the program and applying it to how to create a production file to the specifications of your online publisher.

Books take many forms: Conventional cookbooks, Artist’s Books, Journals, Chapbooks of Poetry. Whether you are a writer, photographer, or artist, a book is an expansive platform expressing visual concepts and playing with sequence and visual timing. Choice of paper, printing technique, placement on the page, image selection, variation of scale and more become notes in your symphony. This is an opportunity to take your ideas and have someone else print and bind the book of your dreams.

Images by Richard Reitz Smith

 

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Instructor: Richard Reitz Smith

Richard Reitz Smith is the Book Arts Program Chair and Studio Manager at Maine Media. He is an artist trained as a graphic designer and excels in marrying traditional techniques with modern technology in the pursuit of all forms of book arts and letterpress printing.

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