Overall Feedback
Part five of this course has focused on layout through the design of leaflets, flyers, posters, and books. For the assignment you chose ‘book design’ brief which was a surprise following the success of the two logo/branding projects. Much of the same comment regarding research applies here too; in many respects your submission suggests you recognise what you need to do, and maybe have done so but not necessarily evidenced. The book solutions are innovative, work well as a series, and would visually appeal to target audience. The design layout and style of the spreads work well with the cover design. Refer to feedback regarding typographic detailing to help you refine the solutions.
Overall your response has been very good, well done.
My respond to the feedback
Pleased to hear that I had a good response to this part. I really enjoyed working on the exercises and final assignment especially the two logo design exercises.
Feedback based on Learning Outcomes
develop your creative and visual abilities in your practice as a graphic designer
The first exercise ‘magazine layouts’ evidences you are developing a sound understanding of page layout, grid structures, hierarchy of information within text, and balance of text to image. Although you do not evidence analysis of Infographic examples, they have informed your understanding of this brief as shown in your design solution; a clear presentation of the data that requires no explanation. Consider adding date to situate travel data in context, for example pre-Covid 2009 to 2019. Develop your ‘birthday list’ idea as the style of illustration and concept are promising. Focus on the frames, could they have photo of whose birthday? Refine your typographic detailing. Again some promising work for you poster design but use research to inform your typographic detailing, in particular focus on hierarchy of text, layout and composition to help the reader navigate the information as your design has 7 text areas that require visual connection. You seem to have really resolved your creative process working through the ‘Chance Housing’ and ‘French Hen’ briefs, logo/branding design is where your strength in design is, excellent well done.
use creative problem solving and research to generate visual ideas
Good research and analysis of layout and grid structure for first exercise. This set you up well for the following briefs. Some sound book cover research but be more explicit about what information it provided to inform your creative process. Although you evidence a range of infographic examples they are all from Pinterest rather than reliable sources as previously suggested, also you appear not to have analysed, therefore it is not clear how this particular research informed your ideas generation? Research point ’posters’ some sound research but ensure notation is in your own words and when citing examples show images. Did you access any previously recommended resources for this research point? The following music poster research, it appears you did not analyse examples in same way as you did magazine spreads? Again how did this research inform your ideas generation?
demonstrate your use of design and technical skills for graphic design
Overall work submitted shows your have acquired a confident command of digital software, in particular using InDesign for the iteration of some graphic design solutions.
articulate an understanding of the contexts of graphic design practices and reflect on your own learning
It is evident in your work how some (not all) research has informed your practice and therefore developed your understanding of the contexts of graphic design. What you did do well was to research different types of infographics to broaden your understanding of this area of graphic design. Your idea for the ‘birthday list’ is promising, but you say you struggled with idea, this is because your research should have followed on from the Infographic exercise rather than looking at ‘birthday list’ examples that have limited design credibility.
Action points based on Learning Outcomes
develop your creative and visual abilities in your practice as a graphic designer
Generally words per line between 7 to 12 (depending on design style); if text creates very ragged line endings choose smaller point size or a font that is more oval than round; compare and contrast Times as it was designed for short measures in newsprint to Baskerville designed for longer measures in books; experiment with slightly closing character spacing (tracking) on short measures; ensure you use paragraph breaks either as line ident or line space; avoid widows at end of paragraphs. When setting text to a shape you will need to manually adjust tracking and sometimes edit text to avoid rivers and uneven word spacing running through text.
demonstrate your use of design and technical skills for graphic design
You used Photoshop to iterate the book cover solution? Create images and drawn type in Photoshop, Illustrator or Procreate and import to InDesign, then use grid structure for layout design and iteration of solution. Using type fonts in Photoshop will be ‘soft’ and using grids for layout design is problematic .
use creative problem solving and research to generate visual ideas
Really analyse typographic detailing in research examples selected for magazines and books. How might visual research for a mood-board about the narrative of Handmaid’s Tale have helped ideas generation? Visual research may have informed to a grater extent the style of script font, handwritten style using pen/ink/nib, which may have been used by the women? Pinterest should only be used if you can verify examples are from a reliable source. When Harvard Referencing web-links you must state date accessed.
articulate an understanding of the contexts of graphic design practices and reflect on your own learning
Many resources have been recommended throughout the course, but it is unclear what you have accessed in this part of the course. Much of your reference is Pinterest images, which will limit your understanding of the contexts of graphic design. Generally you need to evaluate your graphic design solutions in context to professional practitioners, compare and contrast your solutions with selected research examples, write up in more detail your self reflection of learning.
Things to be considered
- Using creative problem solving and research to generate visual ideas
- Using more reliable sources than Pinterest
- Analysing the research
- Using Times as it was designed for short measures in newsprint instead of Baskerville, when there is a limited space
- Writing my self reflection of learning in more details
- Harvard references to be applied
Maryam: OCA Graphic Design 