This book is a reworking of the text on the wikipedia page entitled Maritime History of California. At the time this was made in 2013, it was one of the top 100 longest wikipedia pages and I wanted to see how it would translate into book form. My first thought was that the book should be small and portable like a manual or a prayer book. I wanted it to be a simple, easy to read book with short lines of text and plenty of leading. Although the text is verbatim, I did omit all the images and instead used the materials to help tell the story.
The book is 3 x 5 inches, hardcover, perfect bound with smooth, slightly translucent french folded vellum pages. Each chapter title page has a blue insert that can be removed and used as a bookmark or a place to jot down notes. The book also has blue tabs that get slightly lighter as the book progresses. The tabs help with navigation, give the book an encyclopedic feel, and are indicative of the waning natural resources that the text discusses.
As with most books, I made mini mock-ups throughout the process to check on the sequencing, layout, and pacing of the book. The 1 x 1.5 inch accordion mini pictured here was a useful tool. It helped me realize the pages were too dense with text and that the tabs might work better on the page if they were rounded. Although this is just a mock-up, the text is legible and I was surprised by how many wanted to pick it up and read it because of its size and inviting form.
