Belly Bands for the Books

Making bands to go round my concertina books has been the final stage of making them and I am very pleased with the outcome. I used an old map of Portsmouth so the audience had an idea of setting even before opening the book.

To start with I just experimented making the belly bands out of normal printer paper by printing the map image onto it and cutting it to different sizes. This allowed me to keep costs low as I didn't pay for as much card (which I made the real versions out of). I tried both a thicker and thinner band but in the end I preferred the thinner. Although you can see more of the map on the thicker band, I feel it over powers the whole book and takes away from the title.

I decided to join the ends of the band together with string. This was because I didn't want to make a solid band help by glue or tabs as I want the audience to interact with the band more and realise what is on it. Having to pick it up and spend time removing it may encourage them to look closer. Belly bands often are forgotten about once taken off and get lost, so going through the act of having to untie and remove it will hopefully encourage readers to remember to tie it back up afterwards. I used PVA glue to attach the string to the band. I also really like the look of the string, it has that imperfect feel to it and is more suited to the time in which my story is set compared to more modern materials such as velcro which I considered using. I think velcro would have looked out of place considering the look and feel of the rest of the book. 

I also experimented with cutting the map length ways or across the width. I went with the width of the paper so I could easily crop the bottom of Portsmouth which included Southsea. This way the audience can put the title of the book to a visual place and help them connect better with the story. On one of the early experiments I wrote 'made in Portsmouth Uk' and 'Edition 1/3' on the front of the belly band to see how text would look onto of the map. I was unsure about it, thinking that it didn't look very good as it got lost in the map and took away the impact that the map had. I think I will find another way to include this information in the book, whether it be a book mark or writing it on the inside of the cover.

Overall I am really happy with how the map looks as a belly band, and how it completes the whole look of the book. I think the colours go well with the cover as well as the images inside. My next task will be getting it out in the public domain and getting people to interact with it.