Change of format

Having printed out a 2 mockups and being able to flick through and compare the feel of the publication and the how it works with the layout, I'm starting to reconsider the format that I had initially picked. Although the A4 size was good and felt quite nice to begin with, I didn't feel that the layout worked well with it. I was never sure about the narrow columns; they worked well enough when there was alot of copy, but when there wasn't the spreads just looked really empty, making the publication itself seem quite incomplete.

After some thought on this, and considering the different sizes that are available, I was left with a choice of 4 sizes. The A4 size was what I had printed for the print quality mock up, this felt nice to start with but gradually felt a bit like a text book, especially with the glossy finish on the cover. Due to the image quality sourced from the internet from secondary research, it wasn't wise to make the publication any bigger than A4 as the images would not be suitable for print quality at all, therefore the only option was to downscale. The 2nd option; 194x269 was the scaled down version of the publication from A4 size, printed in black & white for my mockup. Although this was intentional, it feels quite nice, it isn't the familiar A4 size but still has the scale to hold the content together. A5 was too small I think, especially after the bind, there woulnd't be much space to place the images at all, also A5 just seems a bit too standard for a book. Finally I came to the conclusion of using 189mmx245, an option that is available through Lulu! It definitely feels a lot more appropriate for what I'm doing in terms of the layout options and the general feel of it. It's slightly smaller than A4 but wider in ratio. For what I'm doing and the images I have to work with, I think this format is alot more suitable.

SO 189mm x 245 it is!