Spontaneous Effort

For this book, I shot photos of a tape measure in new and interesting ways. Some photos are in grayscale in order to give variety. The color scheme is pulled from the photos, for instance, the yellow of the tape and the red of certain numbers to give a pop of contrast. I selected parts of the tape measure to incorporate as design elements and anchor points, such as the yellow bar to hold the author’s name on most spreads. The hash marks appear on most pages both to move the eye through the page and to indicate page numbers. The large type is set in Agency FB, an angular compact typeface that relates to the work which would be done with a tape measure. The body copy is set in Microsoft Yi Baiti, which is thinner and more open and thus pairs well with the large type. It is perfect bound with a hard cover, which relates to the toughness of a handyman, and covered with thick textured printmaking paper. The cover design is minimal both to play off the texture of the paper and to relate to the simplicity of the object. The format (7x8) also communicates this, and mimics the compactness of the object. The paper stock is Glodan rec bright white, 80lb text, which I chose because the columns within the paper relate the linear quality of the tape.