Hello crew, I'm long overdue to send out another production update on Knowledge Asymmetry. If you've backed other Mothership Month projects you've probably seen other folks grappling with production delays. I've fallen behind schedule as well, and I'm looking at fulfilling in Q3 rather than June. Jettila Lewis continues to work on art for the module between her other commissions and I'm still plugging away at layout. Page layout is satisfying work and involves moving the final text from my google doc into Affinity Publisher 2 alongside illustrations, logos, and the foundations of the page- headers, footers, page numbers.

Although Knowledge Asymmetry is in it's "Final" writing stage seeing how text changes visually from a text editor to columns, insets, and illustrations in layout has a way of making it even clearer what needs to be added and taken away. Text doesn't fit neatly onto this spread: what can be cut to save wardens from unnecessary page turns? Extra space on the page: do I commission or design additional illustrations or do I add more helpful level or faction description? In some ways layout is like a final FINAL editing pass on a module.

In the screen capture above you can see large red blocks on some pages. These are placeholders for art in-progress. The blocks give Jettila Lewis the exact dimensions of the available page space for illustration. For the character art which  goes here she has free reign to use part or all of this space as she draws. Alternatively, on the page above the text has been formatted to to fit around the pre-existing art, with minor edits to keep figures from being placed on the "spine" of the booklet, obscuring the art.

I'll send another update as we get closer to completing layout and move to the initial test prints. We can't wait to hold this in our hands:-)