This week I attended a photobook workshop with artists from The Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, Poland. Barbara Kubska & Katarzyna Wolny who are Academics, Artists & Educators  visited the University of Plymouth Fine Art to deliver their precise & well rounded workshop over 3 days. With the overall objective of helping students navigate Adobe InDesign to make a photobook they also peppered in mini lectures that covered an array of book making processes. There were initial introductions into the history of artist photobooks, a book binding how to guide & a revealing pre-press session that outlined all of the decisions that book makers have to make in order to make a book function. These sessions gave us the information we needed to decide how our own books could look as a printed edition.

The rest of the time we learned how to navigate InDesign through one to one tutoring that was specific to our own project & follow along group teaching of the basics that everyone needed to get going. This was fantastic as it got us up & running by day 2. We were coached through our ideas & were shown how this could function as a printed book. With varied ideas on the table the vast knowledge from the teachers really shone as they knew something that would benefit each of the students.

I have completed this workshop with a greater understanding of design choices that will inform my practice greatly. I have an ever greater love for the form of publications as I learned to identify why certain things happen in books that we dont even notice. In addition I learned more about typefaces & have some great new places to look for materials & most of all I have a digital book that can will become an important part of my current project. Next I will refine some edits & get it printed.