I have had a lot of trouble when it came to informing all of my photos into one idea, this was because I have a very wide variety of photos that have no real theme as a whole. After a lot of thinking and speaking with peers/tutors I started to understand how much of a diverse country France has been over the years and I could try and show that through the amount of different typography around central France away from the more touristy cities.
So the question that I want to answer in my book is what has made France like this, why are there so many different typography infancies and does it benefit the country. From this I can then explore the variety of typography within my pictures that I have collected, I don't want a of the book to be filled with text as I believe the pictures can speak for themselves but I would add a introduction that explains my question and then the readers are then able to understand by looking through the images and seeing where they were taken.
Target audience is a key part to consider when trying to appeal to niche subject area, and I have tried to consider would would read a book like this. After talking to a few of my peers about this I decided that it would many be the design market, but more precisely people that are interested in typography in France and French design in general as there do not seem to many books out there that are hitting that market.
Production of this book needs to be carefully considered as I don't feel that it can just be a basic A4/A5 stabled book as this wouldn't have any sort of context/relation to the theme of the book. I have thought about a couple of ways that would be appropriate for the style and theme of the book, first would be a newspaper with some sort of wrapped cover. I am thinking about a newspaper because I noticed while in France that it is a very popular morning ritual for people to go to a cafe and enjoy a coffee and a newspaper more so than it is here. Price could be an issue with printing with newsprint as it if I get it printed with an external company I am going to be charged up wards of £45 for something like 5 copies so I may have to look into other ways of getting around this. I did look at other methods of bookbinding and found the French Link and Coptic Stitch which although it looks complicated looks very beautiful and could make a photo book slightly more unique, as there aren't many books that will have been put together in this way, if I was to proceed with this idea I would also add a hard cloth cover to make it feel more professional. The price for this method on the other hand is much less and all of the resources can be bought locally and then assembled by myself making it a lot cheaper.
EXAMPLE - Newspaper Club print examples
EXAMPLES - French Link and Coptic Stitch
Idea 2 - Forgotten/Hidden France -
As a lot of my photos were not taken in main cities like Paris or Marseille I haven't documented much/if any modern and contemporary examples of French typography. So I thought I could follow the theme of forgotten/hidden France because I know when I think of France I would think about Paris and and modern design etc. The content for the book would be based around this history of central and medieval France and the typography that can be found in these places and how it has changed to become more of a summer holiday destination, so in a way this a small guide that can be aimed at creatives that may want to explore central France in the summer months.
Target audience for this concept is similar to the previous but I feel that it could appeal to a slightly wider audience other than people in French typography as the concept is more than just that, it putting a subject that is very specialist and allowing a wider audience to appreciate the diverse history that the country has based around design/art.
If this book is going to be some sort of travel guide I would assume that it would be a portable size anything under A5 in that sort of shape would work well. If it is going to carried around on a day trip and put in a bag or pockets the stock specially the cover needs to be resilient. This could push the cost up of the book, but by keeping the page count down it will help to lower the cost and keep it more affordable for a more mainstream market, which is where i would want to see a book like this.
Idea 3 - You can't stop bad design
No matter where you go in the world there will always be bad design, but what why is more expectable when you're on holiday? The concept behind this book is to look at all the examples of very boring and average signage/typography and to bring awareness to people who are design conscious that good design does matter even if you are on holiday why does the scenery change the way that people view places.
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