Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Collage-art book cover repair

A book on a counter, 'Rodrick Rules' by Jeff Kinney, with a paper-collage front cover. Next to it are a pica pole and paper scraps in blue, white, and rust

The challenge facing me: a large piece had been torn from the front cover of this paperback book, Rodrick Rules by Jeff Kinney. Aside from the torn cover, the book was in good condition, worth putting back on the shelf.

With those parts of the cover that remained intact, I decided to recreate the design.

I sliced off the front cover, leaving a “hinge” of about 1/2 inch to affix the replacement cover to. Next, I took a sheet of blue construction paper, and cropped it to the size I needed. (I also cropped a piece of white card stock for inside front-cover reinforcement.)

I attached the new cover to the book via the “hinge,” and then cut out the title and illustration from the original cover. (There’s a piece missing from the illustration, a casualty of the tear, but since the illustration was designed to look as if it was torn out of a lined-paper notebook, I wasn’t overly concerned.)

To duplicate the original label-maker effect of the “New York Times Bestseller” text, I printed the words out onto rust-colored construction paper. I printed it in 12-point and in 14-points fonts, and chose the one I liked best.

Final step was to wrap the book-cover — front, back, and spine — in protective laminate. I’m pleased with how closely the new front cover resembles the original.

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