Brainstorming an Accordion Book

            In my opinion, brainstorming is one of the hardest parts of any creative process, especially when you’re given an incredibly open-ended prompt. Usually, I’ll struggle in any regard when it comes to brainstorming, for I’ll either have way too many ideas or none at all; rarely will I ever find that happy middle ground. In the case of our newest project, the accordion book, my creative process has been no different. 

            Thankfully, I had an issue with the former of the two problems, as I quickly became overwhelmed with ideas. As I flipped through examples, thought about my interests and passions, and considered what would look best in the format presented to us, I just continued to add idea after idea into my little list. I eventually managed to weed down my ideas to a small handful, but not without a lot of trial an error. 

So, what were the ideas that I whittled down to? 

One of the first ideas that I came up with, and one that I thought would look really cool when finished, was an animation based accordion book. I’m currently learning how to animate in a separate class this semester, and we recently made flipbook animations earlier in the semester; I figured I could either reuse or create a flipbook and turn it into an accordion book. Each page could have a single notecard or piece of the animation, that way when you pull it out you can easily put it together. In a similar manner, I eventually considered making a comic book with each page as a panel, but that was much later in the week. 

Since I’m in one of the horsemanship classes, I decided I could make a book with each of the horses from the barn involved. Each page would carry brief bits of information for each one and little pictures alongside them; it would be something I could share with both small press and the horsemanship class should I choose to create it. I would be able to fit each page to the horse and their personalities, hopefully capturing them to the best of my ability.

Another popular idea I had was reusing old coloring book pages and cutting them to fit on the inside of each page. I could choose whether to follow each of the designs or create my own for each page, and I could essentially make my own “coloring book” out of others. When finished, it would be almost abstract in design with a flurry of colors to coincide with it. 

So, what was the winner? 

The horses! 

Although the horse accordion would be a little more complicated than the others, it’s more personal than the rest. When completed, it would have more meaning to me, and it’s a piece that I can look back on and reminisce about both the club itself and how I’ve grown in the sport. I’ll be able to make little designs for each of the horses, ones that will hopefully capture their individual personalities, and I can flip through it when I wish to see them again. 

I’m looking forward to seeing how it’ll turn out!