Scene One... Scene Two... Scene Three... Well, that's done. I should be saying Book One... Book Two... Book Three...
The Illustrated Storybook is considerably more extensive than the Libretto. Not so much in terms of the writing, but more in terms of the layout. The Libretto is more of a technical manual, while the Storybook is more artistic in it's layout, which means the design must fit into the page in a balanced fashion. With the Libretto, it was just a matter of shrinking the page to fit into the space provided by the overlay. With the Storybook, it is both a reduction and a readjustment of the page components. Resizing of the art and repositioning of the text. The reason for this is that I originally laid out the pages for 8.5"x11" and have since created a design for HDTV (16:9). So that ratio requires adjusting everything. 800 pages! No wonder this thing is taking so long. I'm closing in on page 200 and I can generally do around 35 pages a day, mostly because I have to do each page (essentially) twice, right and left gutters. Because the outer page design (created as an overlay) changes the shape of the perimeter from right to left, the inner content needs to be adjusted so it doesn't hit the edge of the page and is balanced in the space. You can see what I mean by searching down in this blog to see some page samples.
The really nice thing is that once this layout process is done, it's done... Done. The only changes that will occur after that are adding new elements, such as animations, music and other links. But those elements will only take place in the context of a subscription page.
Once this is done done, we can start setting it up to distribute the finished product to the public. Gadzooks!
I'm at the point where I just want to finish putting my cars back together, putz around the shop, and not worry about anything else. I can dream can't I?
AG
