The format of the book was based on that of a glass slide, meaning my book was very wide for its height. A full spread ended up 800 x 270 mm.

To cope with the weight of a book this size, I constructed the covers from mild steel plates. I also used Secret Belgian Binding, so I could print the spreads without breaking the image in the centre, then by guarding the pages, each leaf would have a pocket between the two sheets. I used these spaces to hide extra information and allow spaces to store some of the micrographic images which accompanied the book.

To encourage the reader to explore and play with the book I introduced a few interactive elements that are usually reserved for kids’ books, such as; Transparent flyover plages which would add more information onto the pages, books within certain pages, string going from a certain point in a page to the blood spatter (though tight enough to not allow the spread to be opened past 90 degrees).

These were all included to challenge the reader to engage with the book and to (much like forensic sciences) look a bit closer and see what was hidden within. I didn’t signpost a lot of these, it was down to the reader to search for them and be rewarded for their effort.