PrintWeek India Posts

Production Process for “Eye Spy: Indian Art” by Ritu Khoda and Vanita Pai

While researching for an article on Eye Spy Ritu Khoda and Vanita Pai shared a detailed note on the production process for the exquisitely produced book. Since it was too long to accommodate in the article I am reproducing it here with their permission. It is worth reading to understand how a book can be made. 

Children enjoy tactile activity. So we build in a great number of flaps, foldouts, stickers and die cuts, besides drawing and painting exercises. Usually, the artwork determines the production treatment and we work really hard over this. We never choose effect over relevance, and we are pleased that many readers have noticed the thought behind every page.

We chose Manipal Technologies to produce the book. Their technical expertise and availability of skilled manual workforce made it our only choice for the level of complication involved. Extensive manual tipping meant that the forms had to be perfectly organised for binding in the correct order.

• Cover die-cut had to be registered perfectly with the image on the inner second cover
• Tracing sheet (page 39) and Transparency sheet (page 43) had to be perfectly tipped in, covering only parts of the page
• All eight perforated, foldout section separators had to be tipped manually.
• Die-cuts (page 65 and page 93) had to be registered perfectly with the image on the inner second cover
• Flaps on page 83 and 139-140 were manually pasted
• Stickers (with the “eyes”) had to be perfectly kiss-cut to match the images below that children will stick them over

Production process and special paper: Aqueous coating on inside covers; UV spot treatment on eyes on inner cover; foldouts; flaps; die-cuts; stickers; perforation; tracing sheet; transparency sheet.

Vanita has designed and printed corporate calendars with MTL with a greater complexity level. These were relatively simpler operations. The complication arises while planning when they are trying to organize forms since there are different sheets and papers involved, and during prepress because it requires detailed DTP work such as precise keylines, diecuts, etc. Moreover, it was the first time that MTL packaged as many and diverse special operations in one product. This was appreciated by PrintWeek India Awards 2016 jury who gave the book Special Mention in the “Innovative Print Product” category.

We never force a treatment. It must add to the idea. For instance, a transparency sheet revealing the various arms of Durga in Manjit Bawa’s artwork on page 112 would not make sense because there we are talking colours. But Nandalal Bose’s mastery of lines and strokes lends itself to the transparency solution. So that children can see the emotion strokes can add to a painting. Likewise, the die cuts on Sultan Ali’s work on page 93 -95. We want children to notice the expression on the creatures, and the idea is in sync with “Eye” spying game.

6 February 2017

PrintWeek India Books Special 2013

PrintWeek India Books Special 2013

The cover of the PrintWeek India Book Special 2013 and the first page of my editorial.

The cover of the PrintWeek India Book Special 2013 and the first page of my editorial.

 

 

The Books Special 2013 is out! I have collaborated with PrintWeek India for the past eight months on this project. It consists of over 25 interviews with the senior management of the Indian publishing industry. In this 116-page publication, there are interviews, viewpoints, profiles and analysis. It provides a snapshot of the publishing industry, discusses the challenges facing publishing professionals in this ecosystem and most importantly delineates the the manner in which publishers are coping with the major changes that are sweeping through the publishing landscape. Ultimately the Books Special celebrates the future of books in India.

There are only printed copies available for now.

The list of contents is:

Introduction – Jaya Bhattacharji Rose

Perspective 

National Book Trust, India – M A Sikandar

Viewpoint – Urvashi Butalia, Zubaan

PK Ghosh – Homage by Rukun Advani, Permanent Black

Ramdas Bhatkal – Profile by Asmita Mohite

Motilal Banarsidas – Chronicle

In Memoriam – Navajivan & Jitendra Desai

Spotlight – Book printers of India

Trade publishing 

Westland – Gautam Padmanabhan

Random House India – Gaurav Shrinagesh

Seagull Books – Naveen Kishore

Aleph & Rupa – David Davidar & Kapish Mehra

HarperCollins Publishers India – PM Sukumar

Hachette Book Publishing India – Thomas Abraham

DC Books – Ravi Deecee

Pan Macmillan India – Rajdeep Mukherjee

Penguin Books India – Andrew Philips

Harlequin India – Manish Singh

Diamond Books – Narendra Verma

Kalachuvadu Publications – SR Sundaram

Bloomsbury Publishing India – Rajiv Beri

Simon & Schuster India – Rahul Srivastava

Children’s Books Publishing 

ACK Media – Vijay Sampath

Scholastic India – Neeraj Jain

Education, Academic and Reference Publishing 

Sage Publications – Vivek Mehra

S Chand Group – Himanshu Gupta

Cambridge University Press India – Manas Saikia

Wiley India – Vikas Gupta

Sterling Publishers – SK Ghai

Springer India –  Sanjiv Goswami

Tulika Books – Indira Chandrashekhar

Manupatra – Deepak Kapoor

Orient Blackswan – R Krishna Mohan

Publishing Process 

Pearson Education India – Subhasis Ganguli

Palaniappa Chellapan – Palaniappa Brothers

Sheth Publishers – Deepak Sheth

Hachette Book Publishing India – Priya Singh

Mapin Publishing – Bipin Shah

Prakash Books – Gaurav Sabharwal

7 Sept 2013 

Jaya Bhattacharji Rose is an international publishing consultant and columnist. Her monthly column on the business of publishing, PubSpeak, appears in BusinessWorld online.

@JBhattacharji

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