
STEP 1: FIGURING THE BASICS OUT
Before we begin, we need to know a few details about the final book. For Kiosk 37, we knew it would be 112 pages (56 spreads). When looking at the edge of the book, there are 56 individual pages. We don’t want the graphic to appear on the first and last two spreads of the book so we’re going to subtract 4 which means the graphic will appear on 52 page edges. That’s it for the math.STEP 2: PREPARING TYPE IN ILLUSTRATOR
Create your type, outline it, ungroup it, then “Add to shape area” and Expand your graphic (A). Once that is done, draw 51 lines (51 lines will eventually give us 52 rows). We want each “row” of the graphic to be divided evenly. The best way to do this is to use “Vertical Distribute Center.” To divide them perfectly even, I add 2 extra lines: one aligned to the top of the graphic, and one aligned to the bottom (B). Press “Vertical Distribute Center” then delete those two extra lines.

Select all the lines as well as the graphic, then in your Pathfinder Palette, select “Divide.” This creates all the little pieces of the letters (C). By default, they will be grouped so ungroup them. You will also have invisible lines (C1) in the white space between the letters so select all of those random lines and delete them. You now have a bunch of individual little shapes thus leading us to the extremely tedious part. To avoid issues when pasting in InDesign, this next part is important. Select the shapes that are contained in their respective row one row at a time and click “Add to shape area” and Expand (D). Do this for each of the 52 rows. I alternate colors to help better illustrate which row of shapes should be added together. Once every row is done, open your Appearance Palette and double check to make sure none of your rows are grouped in any way. Select each row one at a time and make sure it reads as a “Compound Path.”

STEP 3: MOVING THINGS INTO INDESIGN
Once you have your rows made in Illustrator, select everything and simply copy and paste into InDesign. Once in InDesign, your graphic should be grouped by default so ungroup it (E). You should now have 52 rows. Rotate everything 90˚ counter-clockwise and place on the edge of the document at the height you want it. It should be on the right page of the spread (F). Now, just copy and Paste-in-Place all rows throughout the document moving your graphic over one row per page while deleting the row that was on the previous spread (G).



STEP 4: OTHER THINGS TO CONSIDER
Obviously, the success of this effect depends greatly on the quality of the printer and their ability to trim accurately, so you may want to make them aware of your intentions. In an ideal situation, you would only need one row per page but chances are, that won't be the case. Take in account the bleed and if your rows are very thin, you may want to include 2 or 3 extra rows in the Live Area of the page.This was more of an experiment for Kiosk 37 that went fairly well, but I have to note that while some books turned out very nice, a small number didn't turn out so well. Just keep that in mind. If you're interested in receiving a free copy of Kiosk 37, send me an email (luke@lisidesign.com) and I'd be happy to arrange something with you. Well that's it for my first post. You can download a PDF of this process here. If you made it this far, thanks! I promise, my future posts won't be this long.
Putting our differences aside, I'd like to thank Sarah from Mizzou for inquiring about this process. You can check out her blog "Come Out And Play" here. Thanks Sarah!
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