Skipping ropes, stilts, marbles, conkers, go karts, penny for the guy, a friendly bobby lifting a child up to the post box. Street Games We Played is Terry Orchard's illustrated book of 1960s outdoor pursuits: loose ink and watercolour drawings paired with short, funny write ups of growing up on the street. Mike's note from our photo shoot sums it up: a “Lovely reminiscent book of nostalgia for the post war generation.”
Terry arrived with a problem many artists will recognise. In his first email he said the book was about two things, his artwork and a wish to “rekindle happy memories from years gone by”. He also said, honestly, that putting text and pictures together was not his strength, and that he had more than 100 images to choose from. So we did more than print this one. Mike sifted the drawings, designed the pages and laid out all 88 of them. Every idea below came out of that collaboration, and every one is yours to borrow.
Idea one: let a designer choose, and let the artist correct the era
Before any layout, we posted Terry a box of paper samples, along with a couple of similar books we had printed, then talked it through on Zoom. Afterwards he wrote that it was “reassuring talking with you and it gave me a very clear focus of what I need to do next.” Elaine then matched every write up to its pictures.
Mike's first concept styled the book like a 1940s poster, prompted by the bomb sites in the stories. Terry and Elaine liked the look but pointed out, gently, that these were 1960s memories. Mike rolled the design forward to fit. The lesson for your own memoir: a designer brings fresh eyes, but the person who lived it should check every period detail.
Idea two: open every chapter on the right
Each game gets a chapter opener with its title in tall condensed capitals between two fine rules: STILTS, PIGGY BACK FIGHTING, and so on. Mike set every opener as a right hand page, so a reader never loses track of where a new game begins. That left a page on the left with nothing on it. Terry's solution was a good one: fill those pages with his spare drawings, faded back and printed on a coloured ground, so they read as mood rather than content. Opposite PIGGY BACK FIGHTING, a pale boy holds up a jam jar with a fish in it and a net in his other hand, ghosted onto blush pink. If you have more artwork than story, this is a lovely way to use it without crowding the text.
Idea three: lay a bed of texture behind the words
Mike's note on the finished book picks out the detail most readers feel before they notice it: a bed of texture behind the title pages to warm up the text. Chapter openers and text pages sit on softly mottled grounds in cream, sage and pink, so the type never floats on stark white. Bobby on the beat, a story about the police in Terry's younger days, runs in a humanist sans serif on pale sage, facing a white page with the watercolour of the policeman at the pillar box. Ice Cream Van gets the same treatment in pink. The textures are printed, not part of the paper, so you could add this to any book for nothing more than a little design time.
Idea four: uncoated pages for watercolour, a tougher skin outside
The 88 inside pages are 115gsm uncoated. Watercolour washes printed on an uncoated sheet look like paint on paper: soft edges, chalky pigment, no shiny skin between the reader and the drawing. The cover is the opposite choice for a practical reason. It is 300gsm silk, matt laminated, tough enough for a book that gets lent, borrowed and lent again, with a soft finish that keeps the old fashioned feel. The 210 x 210mm square gives each drawing room on the page, and a glued square spine lets it stand up properly on a bookshelf. To weigh the same papers yourself, see why watercolour suits an uncoated page.
Idea five: offer two covers and pick the brave one
Mike sent two cover options: a stronger red and blue version, and one built from the softer colours inside the book. His preference was the red and blue, and Terry and Elaine “definitely” agreed. The finished cover puts three girls skipping with a long rope above a navy strip and a wide red band, with the title in tall white capitals. At the foot sits a tiny drawing of a chain of children holding hands. That chain of siblings bouncing down the road happens to be Mike's favourite drawing in the whole book. A few more habits worth copying:
- Share a teaser early. Terry asked to post a cover preview on Facebook while the book was still in layout.
- Get the text proofread before print. Elaine and Terry sent back changes on every written page.
- Leave room for thanks. The thank you page even found space for a family in joke.
We are thrilled with it and will definitely keep you in touch with how things go and pass on our social media links.
Terry, author and illustrator, with Elaine
Terry added his thanks “for bringing his stories to life”. Mike's reply was simple: well done for the illustrations, “they are the winners!” If you are an artist with a box of drawings and a head full of stories, our Helping Hand design and layout service is where a book like this begins, self published memoir printing takes it from there, and you can handle our uncoated and silk swatches at home first.
PaperbacksA5, 44 pages, perfect bound£246for 100
Product cataloguesA5, 28 pages, stapled£166for 100