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FLASH • INDESIGN • PHOTOSHOP

MAKE A FLIP BOOK It can be hard to stand out from the crowd – imagine how many animators send production companies their showreels every week. Peskimo outline an approach to self-promotion that really gets back to basics

ON THE CD

The file required for this tutorial can be found on the CD in the folder Tutorials\flip. TIME NEEDED

2 hours SKILLS

• Animation • Paper handling • Photoshop contact sheets INFO

Peskimo have been creating monsters together for five years. Their cute, ugly and odd output has graced T-shirts, toys and TV screens worldwide. To find out more see www. peskimo.com.

Self-promotion is a challenge that every creative has to face. You need to grab a prospective client’s attention, and quickly demonstrate the strengths of your work before they move on to the next mail-in in the pile. However, if you concentrate your efforts on creating a unique piece of marketing, you can capture the imagination of whoever receives it and win pride of place on their desk. A flip book is a devilishly simple device that is hard to resist picking up and looking at. This tutorial concentrates on using Flash then getting hands-on with cutting, folding and sticking paper together. The final result shows what can be done with some time and effort, and this will definitely be appreciated. The tutorial assumes that you can animate so it won’t be dealing with how to create your animation in depth, though it will offer some guidance about using Flash to the best effect for this project. Even if you don’t use Flash, any animation software should enable you to export your frames, so you can join in at step 8. And if you aren’t an animator, you don’t have to feel left out either – you can always use the same process to create a tiny portfolio book instead. Remember that many people are striving for the same attention, and a gimmick or two can enable your work to stand out from the rest. Consider presenting an entire package, too, showing that you can provide a full service. So if you send a flip book out, think about the envelope as well, and all the other elements of presentation that go along with it. Tutorial and illustration by Peskimo www.peskimo.com

Firstly, plan your animation. It should be short and sweet, otherwise you will have more frames, more paper and more work to do. The flip book will end with a frame of your contact details so tie this in with your animation if possible.

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Flash only uses RGB colour, so it’s a good move to avoid a subtle palette, though when you export the frames there will be an opportunity to make image adjustments when converting to CMYK.

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Set up your Flash movie with the following properties: 283x156 pixels and 25fps. Create a clear area at the left side of the movie 70 pixels wide. This is where the finished book will be bound and held when flipped.

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It’s important that you keep all the animation in the main timeline. When you export individual frames or movies from Flash, only the main timeline is read, so any animation taking place within Movie Clips will not appear in the outputted frames.

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For a 50-page flip book, you should create a 100-frame animation and drop every other frame at a later stage. Doing this helps you to preview your animation from Flash accurately and simulate the speed at which it will be flipped. The animation will last 4 seconds.

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When a flip book is flipped, the final pages are inevitably lost as the user’s fingers run out of pages to flip. So it’s a good idea to include a couple of additional pages at the back of the book, perhaps a mini-CV or portfolio.

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FLASH •INDESIGN • PHOTOSHOP POCKET-SIZED

Use Photoshop’s Contact Sheet feature to save some time in collating these frames into one sheet. In Photoshop, select File>Automate> ContactSheet, then use these settings: the document size should be 20x27.5cm, the resolution should be 300dpi, the thumbnails should be two columns in five rows, and the spacing should be 0cm.

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Now you need to remove half of the frames – just do this through your operating system. Make sure that the important frames are preserved, particularly the first frame and the final frame. Select every other frame and transfer them into a new folder.

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To export the frames, use File> Export>ExportMovie, select JPEG Sequence from the drop-down menu and in the next dialog box enter 300 as the resolution. The output size should be 1180x650 (give or take a pixel). Make sure the quality is set to 100 and click OK.

At this stage you may want to test that your frames will work as a flip book by combining them into an animated GIF. This can be done in Photoshop CS3 or in older versions of ImageReady or Fireworks. Set the frame time to 4/100 to simulate the speed of the final animation.

Let Photoshop assemble the frames across five documents. By specifying the settings as we did the frames will be placed at 100% scale. Now convert the contact sheets to CMYK, flatten and save as high-quality TIFFs. Make any necessary colour changes.

Create an A4 document in InDesign. Place the first contact sheet in the centre of the first page. Give the frame holding the sheet a stroke 0.5pt thick and 20% black. Create other lines to act as cut lines between each frame, and repeat this for all the contact sheets.

This flip book is the same height as a standard business card, so it lends itself to containing one or two in the back. You can stick a small envelope/pocket to the back cover containing these. If you have the time, you can print your contact details on the reverse of each page and create a perforation close to the bind so that pages can be removed and used as business cards.

As the flip book is being created as a promotional tool, it’s very important to select the right materials. The paper should be high quality and of a heavier stock than normal to give it a long life – a flip book has to put up with a lot of abuse when it’s used. We chose 170gsm.

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BINDING BUSINESS You might like to get the book bound professionally, or if you have the time and the patience, create a neat bind yourself by coating the spine in glue, allowing this to dry then covering the spine with a strong piece of paper or card. You can also use butterfly clips if your book is small enough, or if you can find clips that are long enough.

Export the book as a PDF, print it and cut out the pages. Don’t forget that the spine will hide the far left of each page, so always cut to leave any guide lines in this area if necessary. Keep the cut frames in the correct order or you’ll get extremely confused!

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There’s a stack of loose pages in front of you. Try some flipping – doesn’t it look great? The loose pages are messy though. There are a few options for binding the flip book and the one you choose depends on your budget and time.

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We’ve compromised, giving our flip book a clean-looking finish but on a budget. You need a 1.5cm bulldog clip and some more paper. Start by designing front and back covers. Don’t forget to reiterate your contact details and make your work recognisable.

Remember that the cover is on the right. Add to the design some small marks to show where you will need to fold the cover to fit around the clip. Print this out, score gently along the guides and fold in the appropriate direction.

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Add a blank page at the front of the stack and attach the clip as in step 17. Take the arms off the clip and stick the front cover to the front page. Using the scored marks, fold the cover around the spine and stick the back cover to the back of the book.

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Knock the pile of pages on a table to square up the ends that will be flipped and clip the spine. You could simply add the cover and back as additional pages, but if you’re using a clip with removable arms you can conceal the clip.

To do this, create a cover that is one long piece of the paper used for the pages (if the cover is too thick, it will make the book harder to flip). Use the file ‘Flip Book cover template.inx’ on the CD. The guides mark out the spine, the cover and the back, and the areas that conceal the binding.

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FLIPPING HISTORY The first flip book is said to have been created in 1868 and was a pocket-sized development of the zoetrope, a rotating cylinder that creates the illusion of motion from a series of images. The site www.flipbook.info/ index_en.php features a wealth of history with more than 4,000 flip books filmed for you to view online. It’s a great source of inspiration for making your own.

Leave the cover to dry. You could use this time to tidy up, put the knife away in a safe place, make a cup of tea, decide who you’re going to send your flip book to, draft a covering letter, or even create a new animation for another flip book.

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Your flip book is complete, ready to send out to prospective clients, favourite design idols and that web-design guy down the road. Don’t forget that you can always personalise each book according to the person or firm you’re sending it to.

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