Week 7: Don’t Turn the Page

One page-turn pair, designed so the reader has to turn the page to find out what changes.

Before the session

Bring simple materials for a two-page pair — paper, pens, scissors and old magazines, or your phone. You’re designing one turn, not a long sequence.

Before / After

This is the main studio activity. Design one before/after page-turn pair — two page-like units, read in sequence — built around a single primary effect:

Choose one of these rather than trying to demonstrate all of them at once.

Suggested process:

  1. Decide what the reader should believe or expect before the turn.
  2. Design the Before page.
  3. Identify exactly what information is being withheld by the physical turn.
  4. Design the After page.
  5. Compare what the reader knows before the turn and after it.
  6. Revise if the same effect would work equally well with both pages visible at the same time.

Step 6 is the real test. If your idea doesn’t depend on information being hidden until the turn, the page turn probably isn’t doing enough work yet.

None of this needs polished illustration. Rough drawing, collage, photography, typography, or simple shapes are all legitimate.

Studio check

Once you have your pair, answer briefly:

  1. What does the reader know before turning?
  2. What do they expect?
  3. What is hidden?
  4. What becomes visible after the turn?
  5. What changes?
  6. Why does this idea need a page turn?

Keep the answers short — this is a quick check, not an essay.

This Week’s Misbehaviour — Before / After

This shares its title with the main studio, but it is a different, separate 15–30 minute experiment — not a second constructed pair.

Take one simple event and make two extremely rough versions of where its page turn happens:

Compare how moving the break changes timing, anticipation, clarity, or surprise. Then answer briefly: which timing works better, and why?

This is about testing where a turn falls, not building another polished before/after pair — keep both versions quick and rough.

Afterwards

Add your before/after pair and your turn-timing notes to your Misbehaviour Toolbox. Week 6 turned the page itself into a place with edges and boundaries. Week 7 turned the act of leaving one page for the next into something designed — controlling what the reader knows and when they know it. Next week asks whether the reader has to move through the pages in one correct order at all.

The spec

What you bring to the session. Written so a reader can tell whether it has been met without asking you.

  • you have one before/after page-turn pair built around a single effect
  • you can name exactly what information the turn withholds
  • the effect would not work the same way if both pages were visible at once
  • you have completed this week's Misbehaviour, also called Before / After, testing turn timing rather than a second pair