The Chance Housing Association has been set up to try and help first time buyers get onto the housing ladder and they want you to develop a brand image for their stationery. It is important to them that the Association is seen as being different from the other local housing associations – more modern, more helpful and definitely welcoming to young people wanting to buy a house. They want to use their logo on their letterheads and office stationery and it will also be used somewhere on the sheets that hold the property details. It also needs to be reproducible in the local newspaper and professional trade magazines. What to do • Research other housing associations’ and estate agents’ styles. Look at other publications designed for a similar audience. This information should help you identify as much what you don’t want to do as what you do. • If this was a real job you would need to visit the housing association’s offices and website, if it has one, to see how many decisions they have already made – for example they may have painted their sign silver and dark blue and used a particular font. As the designer you may want to continue with and develop those decisions or change them. • Using just typography sketch up some designs. You want to come up with at least three initial ideas to show the client. In this instance you can decide which one you think works best to further develop. • Mock up a letterhead and business card using the logo and house brand. Look in you local newspaper and mock up an advertisement to fit in the paper. Measure the space carefully remembering to leave sufficient margins so your text isn’t cramped. Photocopy in black and white onto cheap paper – does your logo still work? Have any fine lines got lost? Are the differences between colours still discernable? • Show your designs to your friends and family. What is their feedback? • If you need to, go back and adjust your artwork. If all is well make up a presentation pack to show the client – in this instance your tutor. Keep all your work and record the process in your learning log.
Research
A logo is a sign, symbol, trademark or badge that conveys the identity or ownership of a product, company, campaign or concept in as memorable a way as possible.
How are logos used?
A logo can be used in many different forms, sizes and contexts. For example, the logo for a hotel could be printed on a letterhead or menu, embroidered onto a napkin or jacket, embossed on metal cutlery or illuminated as a huge neon sign on the side of the building.
What are the basic qualities of a good logo?
A logo should be simple so that it retains its clarity of design in different contexts. If it is too complicated, its details may be lost when it is reduced in scale. Also, a simple logo design is faster to read, easier to remember and consequently more instantly identifiable. The ‘I Love New York’ logo by Milton Glaser, one of the most reproduced logos ever, illustrates most of these basic qualities.
What is the main function of a logo?
A logo should convey an immediate and memorable identity and must connect with its target audience in a positive manner.
How have logos evolved?
Logos have been around in one form or another for several thousand years. The Ancient Egyptians are known to have branded domestic animals with hieroglyphs to mark their ownership. The Ancient Romans and Greeks marked their pottery to identify the manufacturer. The great faiths of the world have all adopted symbols for ease of recognition.
From the 12th century onwards through medieval times, heraldic designs (coats of arms) were used to identify the status and property of the nobility.
The heraldic tradition continues to this day in logo design. The Alfa Romeo logo is the official branding of A.L.F.A (Anonima Lombarda Fabbrica Automobili) which is designed to represent the family coat of arms of the Visconti, one of the most influential and respected families of Milan.
In general, the most common early logos were trademarks signifying the origin or quality of a craftsman’s product. Hallmarks, which testify to the quality of precious metals, are a good example of this practice. The leopard’s head has been the hallmark of the Goldsmiths’ Company Assay Office since 1300.
Unlike today, there was no concept of targeted advertising and designers freely used all these symbols to advertise any product. Cigarettes for example, before we understood their association with lung disease and cancer, used the full symbolic vocabulary to make their merchandise more ‘appealing’.
Over the last century, our lifestyles gradually became more complex. Conversely, the design of logos became simpler for ease and speed of recognition in a faster world. The evolution of the Shell Logo throughout the 20th century clearly demonstrates this effect. The 1971 version, which was designed by Raymond Loewy and is still in use, has dropped its brand name as ‘shell’ is an English word that gets lost in translation in an international market. In short, the art of logo design illustrates the design concept “Less is More” better than any other graphic form.
Logos, as we know them today, are intelligent graphic images that are carefully designed to impart their concepts, both consciously and sub-consciously, for immediate recognition by a specific target audience.
I read this book and was very helpful regarding to the visual identity and branding.
Mind mapping
Pinterest boards
Based on what I have found on these Pinterest boards, what’s included on real estate’s logos is mostly the whole or part of a house. There are some example of keys or key holes but not as much houses.
The colour pallets are different shades of blue, orange, gray and green.
Thumbnails
I made some sketches and found four of them more interesting. So made a cleaner sketches to transfer them to Illustrator.
I illustrated four logos and asked my family about their opinion. Then made my final design based on their feedback.
The colour pallet, I have chosen is gray and yellow. Grey is a colour for stability, security, strength of character, authority and maturity. Yellow represents optimism, clarity and warmth. I think the combination of gray and yellow works well together in terms of both authenticity and colour psychology for this purpose.
Mockups
Self-reflection
This was an interesting exercise, since I really like the logo designing process. I made some logos in the past for some friends and family. For the colour pallet, I wanted to choose something sophisticated to make the company look more trustworthy. I am happy with the outcome and received positive feedbacks from my family. My only concern is that one person read it hance instead of Chance at the first glance. But when I mentioned that it’s Chance, it became obvious.
This exercise is about how you deal with two different spaces to work in. You have been asked to design an A3 poster and an accompanying double sided A6 flyer to promote a singing course run by an organisation called SingOut (all one word). They have very little money so want to print these posters on their black and white photocopier. You can use a colour paper if you want. You may want to include an image such as a drawing or photograph, but be very careful with photos as they tend not to reproduce well on a photocopier particularly if they are colour photos. You will need to check by printing off your design and/or photocopying it. The information they want to give is: • Do you love to sing? • Join us for an exciting opportunity during the day with a professional vocal coach. Learn to sing different types of music, vocal techniques, meet new people and have fun! • 10.30 to 12.00 every Tuesday from 11 March • The Community Centre, Charlotte Church Road • £60 for the course • No experience needed/no requirement to read music • For more information call 011779 8765432 http://www.singout.com The first thing you need to do is work out if you have all the information you need to fulfill the brief. If not what is missing? Work out the hierarchy of the information. How will you divide your information up to fit on both sides of your flyer? How will you link the design for the poster with that of the flyer? How can you make the poster eyecatching and effective with such a limited palette? Which typeface or faces will you use and why have you made that decision? When you have finished pin your poster up and critique your work. What do you think? Keep notes and sketches in your learning log.
Research
I made some research about singing poster design as well as black and white poster design on Pinterest. It gives me some idea about what goes well on the singing poster. There are images of singers, microphones and abstract design.
Mind mapping
Thumbnails
Based on my research on Pinterest, I feel that having an image on the poster is more interesting. So I am going to use an image, but would like to draw myself and use it as a silhouette. The singer needs to have a microphone to show exactly what is the purpose of the poster.
Design process
I used the Procreate to draw an image of a singer and painted black to represent a silhouette of her.
Then used the image on Photoshop to complete my design. For the typefaces, I wanted to have an eye catching font, so I chose Broadway Regular for the heading and paired it with Open sans (Bold and Regular) for the rest of the texts. To add more interest to the design and filling some white spaces, I added two circles in two different tones and transparencies, which could represent lights as well.
For the flyer, since it’s black and white. I wanted something to draw the attentions. So I considered it as a whole and added the silhouette to both front and back in an actual size on the poster. Then played with the texts to find the best place for them.
Final Design
Mock upPhysical version
Self reflection
This was a challenging exercise, since I had a limited colour pallet. I used a silhouette in my design, which is black so tried to add more tones of grey to make more colour variation on my design. Overall, I am happy with the outcome. I received good feedback on the flyer. Using the same size of the image on the flyer as well as consider the front and the back as a whole, made it more appealing.
Posters have a long and rich history documenting everything from boxing matches to Bollywood films, the Soviet Revolution to punk, encouraging young men to join the army to persuading women to buy bras. There are many collections in books in museums and galleries and on the internet. Find out more about your own particular areas of interest. Make notes in your learning log.
Pinterestboards
WHAT IS VINTAGE POSTER ART?
Vintage – it’s a word we usually associate with the world of winemaking. Just as vintage wine refers to the grapes harvested from a specific year, so too do vintage posters hail back to long-lost times. Vintage posters evoke the sense of our forgotten past with images that we can clearly associate with certain eras.
Vintage poster art is a hugely popular art style, yet few people understand just quite what it is. We are all familiar with the general look: swishing skirts, elegant but thirsty femmes fatales, and large, bright brand names. Vintage posters have classy and stylistic images with advertorial content that summons nostalgia in all of us today.
But vintage art is far more than that. Vintage posters represent a shift in marketing attitudes and in social trends of the times in which they were made. When vintage posters were popularized, they plastered the walls of European cities, were sold to the public and changed the way we view advertising today. Vintage art is a surprisingly important piece in the history of art.
VINTAGE ART: AN OVERVIEW
Born in Paris, vintage art is generally commercial artwork created from the late 1800s until the mid 1900s. It is, in essence, print advertising made possible with the advent of mass printing, thanks to the lithography technique.
Parisian artist Jules Cheret, dubbed “The Father of the Poster”, perfected the art of colour lithography, a technique that allowed printers to print ink flatly onto paper, rather than with raised edges as happened before. This facilitated the quick and cheap production of images with good quality colour and texture. Cheret himself designed over 1,000 posters during his working life.
The posters, which often featured what were at the time risqué subjects such as women chugging alcohol, spoke to a large audience that in turn led to increasing popularity. By the 1890s, cities across Europe – and eventually also in the United States – were plastered with attractive posters.
Common subjects for vintage poster art were body soaps, coffees, detergents, sporting events, night venues, plus alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages. Pears Soap, Campari, the Moulin Rouge, and Coca-Cola are among the brands whose advertising became almost synonymous with the vintage poster movement.
So popular were vintage posters that the originals quickly became highly collectible forms of art. There were poster shows and exhibitions attended by thousands. Poster-collecting clubs, societies and publications were founded. Between 1895 and 1900, Jules Cheret directed the Maîtres de l’Affiches series of portfolios featuring four posters apiece. These miniature masterworks were issued monthly for roughly two and a half francs per issue.
Today, vintage artworks can be found in the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. Some of Henri Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters sold recently for over $200,000.
VINTAGE POSTER ARTISTS
The most celebrated vintage poster artists are commonly French and Swiss, not surprising given that vintage poster art arose in France. Swiss Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen, who created the renowned Chat Noir poster, was one such artist. He was joined by Georges de Feure, Pierre Bonnard, Adolphe Willette, Jean-Louis Forain, and the famous Henri Toulouse-Lautrec.
Another artist, Italian Leonetto Cappiello, simplified his poster designs using bold colours commonly with black backgrounds. His style was so influential he became known as the “Father of Modern Advertising”.
Vintage art influenced a number of other styles. Art Nouveau, made popular by Alphonse Mucha, considered “The Father of Art Nouveau”, and Eugene Grasset, were two such spin-offs. Later, Art Deco was established with a sleeker, more linear finish to its images. A.M. Cassandre’s futuristic images led the movement.
There is more to vintage art than you may at first be aware. It has been so influential that the ripples of the earlier movement can still be seen in modern advertising today.
I had a look at some different poster styles on Pinterest. The style that catches my eye most was the vintage style. I liked the illustrations, colour pallet and composition. Then I read about the history of the vintage poster art, which made more interested in this style.
For this exercise you are going to make up a poster list for yourself. It is intended that you keep it pinned to a noticeboard or wall to remind you of the dates and, as it will be there a long time, it needs to look good. Start by collecting all the birthdays of your friends and family. You’ll need their name and birth date, to decide whether or not you buy them presents or just send a card, text message or email. When you have all this design a page to include all this information for example:
Now you design your own ordering the information that best suits you and including as much additional information as you would find useful.
I just keep a simple list for the birthdays that I need to remember. So first I decided to have a look at Pinterest for some inspirations.
Pinterest boards
Most of the birthday trackers are tables. One table for each month. The gifts, balloons and cupcakes to decorate the list.
I wanted to make something different, decided to use a tree as a base for my design.
I had a look at my birthday list, I have less that 20 people on my list. So I don’t need a huge space for the names.
Sketches
My first idea was to have a tree and each branch to represent a month of the year. Then add the gift, card and text icons to each branch and write the name of the person inside it.
My second idea was to have a tree and main branches to represent a month of the year. Then add three small branches to represent present, text and card. The name would be on a leaf with the date for their birthdays.
Then I had a look at some image stock online and was able to find a tree that matches my design on freepik.
I liked my second design, but noticed it’s going to me very busy. So I decided to make some changes.
I put the information on the photo frames. I think it’s cleaner and less busy. I used Illustrator for my design.
Final design
Self reflection
It was a difficult exercise to come up with a new idea for a birthday tracker. I like nature and thought tree could be a good choice in this case.
Compare to the boards, I found on Pinterest, I think my design is different. Not quite sure about it’s practicality, I think time will tell.
I asked my family for feedback on my design. They said it’s colourful, cheerful and different.
Find some examples of information graphics. For example bus timetables, city maps, diagrams or representations of statistical data. Look at the way they are designed and try and work out the decisions the designer made. What can you learn from them and when would it be appropriate to use a similar design solution? For this exercise you are going to describe your immediate surroundings using information graphics; this could be a plan of your desk, the layout of your house, the arrangement of objects in your cupboards or your morning journey; anything will do. Before you start you will need to think about scale and about how you will break down the information for your design. Create a graphic that represents an aerial or front on view of your location. Be mindful of the hierarchy of the elements in the composition and the dynamics needed to draw the viewer’s eye from one stage to the next. Use typography, numbers and colours to describe what is being represented. You may want to produce a key to help us understand what is being shown, as well as a diagram title to put things in context. Keep all your sketches and notes in your learning log.
Research
What is an Infographic?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an infographic (or information graphic) is “a visual representation of information or data”.
But the meaning of an infographic is something much more specific.
An infographic is a collection of imagery, charts, and minimal text that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a topic.
What Are the Different Types of Infographics?
1. Data visualisation:
Data visualisation is simply a visual representation of data. We consider it an artistic science, as it uses design aesthetics to increase data comprehension, synthesis, and ultimately recall. Whether you’re looking at meta patterns or single data points, data visualisation translates that data into a visual language you can easily and instantly understand.
2. Information Design Infographics
While there are many different presentations of infographics, there are three general categories that infographics can fall into:
Information design is a subset of graphic design that focuses on the display of information efficiently and effectively. It’s a broad category, encompassing many functional design disciplines.
It differs from data visualization because it is not made from specific data points but rather concepts or other information, such as process, anatomy, chronology, or hierarchy.
3. Editorial Infographics
Although major publications have been featuring infographics for decades, there is a shift in the style and type of visual content they are producing. This trend has also been spurred by the rise of social. Infographics have become highly shareable content, so publications are embracing the medium to better engage readers.
Previously, editorial infographics were limited to simple bars, lines, and pie charts, using illustration solely in more complex features to map an area or show the anatomy of an object.
Infographic Design Styles
Regardless of the content or data depicted—editorial or branded—infographics are more flexible than ever in terms of their design format, allowing you to tell your story in unique and engaging ways. That said, the most common formats are:
Static infographics
Animated infographics
Interactive infographics
Each serves its own purpose and can be a powerful storytelling tool—when applied properly.
Pinterest boards
The Pinterest boards, I collected covered things like statistics, timelines, maps, guides and situations. Some were typographical, some illustrative and some used photographs. These gave me an insight into what this exercise was about.
Design process
Ideas for infographic:
House layout
School run
Everyday routine
Eating habits
Travel
After spending some time thinking about the list that I have prepared, I decided to make an infographic poster about places that I have traveled.
To make this poster, I have used Illustrator. I found a world map on freepik. Then decided to consider the continents that I have traveled within as well as the people I have traveled with.
Self reflection
At first, I was struggling to choose a subject for my infographic poster. So I made a list of couple of subjects. I thought about each one and the travel subject looked more appealing.
I think my design is simple and clear to understand, I believe that infographic design shouldn’t be very complicated. I kept my colour pallet limited with limited elements to finish my design with.
Choose a book by an author you are familiar with. You are going to design two different covers for it, one using illustrations or photography and the other using just type. Design the whole cover including the spine and back page. Include the title of the book, the author’s name, a brief description of the story and any other information you think is necessary. As you are working remember that your design is intended to help a reader know what the experience of reading the book will be. Is it a serious text book or an off-beat funny novel? Are the readers expected to be young women or older men and does this matter? Is it an ‘easy read’ or ‘literary’? Does the publisher have a house style you need to be part of? When you have finished critique your work – which of your two designs do you feel works the most successfully and why? Make notes in your learning log.
The book that I have chosen for this exercise is The Handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood. The reason that I have chosen this book is I’ve read the book and watched all the series, so I thought I have a clear vision about the book to help me with my book cover design.
The Handmaid’s Tale, acclaimed dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, published in 1985. The book, set in New England in the near future, posits a Christian fundamentalisttheocratic regime in the former United States that arose as a response to a fertility crisis.
Previous book cover designs
I’ve done some research about the previous book cover designs for the Handmaid’s tale. This book was published in many countries. So we can see different designs from around the world.
Mind mapping
Thumbnails
I made 2 sets of thumbnails, just type, type and illustration.
Design process
Found a silhouette of a woman on free pink, changed the colour and added shadow in illustrator.
Then took the image to Procreat and added some handwritten text and some lines around the neck. The line around the neck is to represent captivity.
I used Photoshop to complete my design. Made three Artboards for front cover, back cover and spine. The size for the cover is: 198mm x 129mm for the back and front, 198mm x 20.3mm for the spine.
I needed to pair my handwritten type with another type. I decided to use a sans serif type to give the design more modern look and looks better with the handwritten type. The type that I used is Open Sans.
I used the same size for the design, just using type. The pair fonts are Open Sans and Brush Script MT.
Final designs
Mockups
Self reflection
The brief was to choose a book by an author you are familiar with and design two different covers for it, one using illustrations or photography and the other using just type.
It was a nice experience to have freedom as well as restriction to make a book cover design. I followed the same colour pallet for my designs. I used Photoshop to complete my design since it was easier to make three Artboards for front, spine and back. It was helping me to consider the design as a whole.
I think both designs have their own eye catching elements, however I personally prefer the second one, just type. The first design took more time and might be something different from other previous book cover designs for this book. It might give more clues about the content of the book to people who want to buy it. But the second design is minimalist and it doesn’t give you any clue about the book, which might be more exciting for some readers.
Many hundreds of paperback books have been produced over the years. Look at as many variations as you can find to see how different publishing houses designed their covers and how the covers fit together as a series. Select a particular publishing house and describe their design style in your learning log.
Book cover design examples
Pinterest boards, book cover design series
4 Different ways to brand book covers for series
1. Same Cover Concept with Small Differences
2. Different Cover Concepts with One ”Signature Element”
After looking at different book cover designs, I like the idea of making a puzzle pieces of the book series, I think it’s a clever idea!
Published June 2012 by New Directions Publishing Corporation
Designer Paul Sahre both treated book covers like puzzle pieces or tiles in a mosaic; collect the whole series and you can put the whole picture together. Sahre keeps the four volumes by Clarice Lispector fairly uniform, adhering to principles of minimal design.
Although the covers complete a puzzle, the colours for each piece are different. The colours are from an analogous colour scheme, which helps the design to work as a set.
The typefaces that have been used are the same as well as the composition.
In the example above not just the front cover, but the back cover makes a puzzle as well. With the same colour scheme, typeface and composition.
Overall Comments Part 4 has focused on typography’s history and application. Overall your response has been good, therefore gaining a better understanding of type design, font families, and typography in context to graphic design. There is much good work here to build upon, so well done, take this knowledge forward to Part 5 to continue developing your creative thinking, craft and digital skills.
I feel happy with the feedbacks. I know that there are lots more to learn about type and I need to spend more time in exploring different types.
Project: The visual word Typography uses both written and visual languages, you were asked to explore this by visually representing a range of words. To start always use InDesign when using type and graphic design for layouts, Photoshop type will be ‘soft’. Once you start to manipulate type as image then use Photoshop or Illustrator, which you have done in step 2. Step 1: You have generated some good examples of how movement of letterforms can represent the meaning, agree with you that ‘speed’ and ‘shy’ work particularly well, ‘squeeze’ also works. Good to see you have considered white space of page as part of the communication, so important when designing layouts. Next time think about what else you could do to the letters such as cut them up for ‘shattered’ or reverse them for ‘shadow’. How might using all caps or all lowercase change the visual communication for example ‘serious’ in all caps or ‘soothing’ all lowercase? Research a few examples where a word such as ‘sophisticated’ would be appropriate for example designer brands or expensive perfume or ‘soothing’ children’s medicine. Some focussed research underpinning understanding of type styles / categories / application and what / how they visually communicate, will help you develop on from this exercise. Step 2: You have generated a great range of expressive words, the most successful are those not reliant on additional elements, in some respects those are working towards logo designs. Therefore ‘shattered’ ‘saucy’ ‘style’ are some of the most appropriate. Consider which words communicate purely through the typeface and composition (typography) and which are typefaces requiring additions (logo). Next, think about which words might be appropriate for what type of project for example a mens wear shop, a romantic novel book cover, advert for women’s product. Overall good start part 4.
Things to be considered
Researching a few examples where a word such as ‘sophisticated’ would be appropriate for example designer brands or expensive perfume or ‘soothing’ children’s medicine.
Which words might be appropriate for what types of project
Project: Anatomy of a typeface To explore your understanding of how a typeface is constructed you were asked to undertake a typographic jigsaw puzzle. This is such a good exercise to understand specific characterises of typefaces, in this case Baskerville. You have done some sound research about the typeface, but you haven’t really analysed it in your own words. In addition the brief required you to draw the letterforms into the sentence, which would develop your visual understanding of individualcharacters, shapes and form, relationship of each character to the next, spacing and alignment. A digital program in effect does that for you, but it is only a machine and it doesn’t always do it correctly, therefore by doing this exercise digitally was not helpful in learning about typography. Using Procreate has been helpful in terms of developing your digital skills but the correct program to use for typography is InDesign. So you need to trace type always using a sharp 2H pencil, quality tracing paper and draw really accurate rule tram lines, this will help you to carefully render each character and letter spacing. This takes time and lots of practise, therefore you will need to do quite a few versions, do not rub out and correct but start a fresh so by the end you have a collection of traces to compare and contrast the differences. This process will help train your eye when using type digitally making you a better typography.
Things to be considered
Using pencil and tracing paper to help with visual understanding of individual characters.
Project: Different typefaces You were introduced to some of the ways typography can be categorised, asked to create your own sample book of typefaces, and identify fonts you could use for a number of different design jobs. Good to see some research for this brief and that you are using InDesign.. The type specimen book is working well to show each selected font and how it looks typeset as ‘Quick brown fox….’. Be cautious of using colours because, what you have designed is called a ‘blad’ or sample of what the book could like like, therefore colour for a complete specimen book would be problematic as you would run out of colours. Colour in this instance is decorative and therefore distracts from actually looking at the typefaces and choosing one to use. What you could try is one weight and size for each typeface example in a colour, to show how it would look. Just using red would be suitable as red and black were originally the only two colours available for mass printing. You have added the styles in right hand column for Raleway specimen, so be good to be consistent and do same on Baskerville and Courier.
Things to be considered
Not using colour for the specimen book
Trying is one weight and size for each typeface for example in a colour, to show how it would look.
Project: Typesetting This section explored typesetting by looking at magazines in terms of how easy they are to read, and using Lorum Ipsum to typeset text. Magazine: You have chosen a range of magazines but you haven’t evidenced analysis of them. Suggested ways to analyse examples has been provided in previous feedback part 2/3 please refer to it to help you develop your analysis skills. So trace layouts to thoroughly analyse every choice the designer has made such as: font, serif or sans serif, weight, words per line, line length, text size, leading, gutters, paragraphs as line breaks or indents, text range left, centred or justified? Is there a change of text size for headings, introductions, main copy and captions? Consider how does the design communicate content in context to audience? On a separate post ‘Diving with Sharks’ double page spread you have addressed some good analyse and Developed InDesign skills. Good to see thumbnail sketch but it is just one. Next time explore a range of ideas generation and draw them more accurately with a higher level of detail. As a designer its always best to to be able to select the most interesting and appropriate layouts for development. You will always to need to have options to work with and show a client. You are working through a very sound process to establish magazine grid structure and layout design using InDesign for digital iteration. You are clearly looking at your research examples but you need to evidence how, what you are looking at is informing what you are doing. Really good to see you have used a type size to line length working to average of 8 words per line, linked text boxes ensuring horizontal text alignment, boarders and column widths are comfortable across the spread, and you’ve worked to baseline grid, excellent. A few details to be aware of are widows, orphans, hyphened words and deep leading in headline text. Parish advert: Same comments above apply here. The concept of your design is totally appropriate, lovely colour pallet, choice of image and appropriate typeface selection. Church rarely have a budget for advertising; did you consider reproduction in one or two colours? Did you test your design portrait format to avoid heading text clipping image? As a graphic designer you need to proof read text “ marks are incorrect. As with the magazine layout, this parish advert just requires refinement of a few details. Sports poster and flyer: Same comments above apply here. Remember to use Photoshop or iIllustrator for image generation then import to InDesign for layout design and adding text. Your use of type and image, hierarchy of information, layout design is defiantly getting more confident. Good self reflection, overall you have shown really good progress through this quite demanding long exercise, well done.
Things to be considered
Showing evidence of analysing: font, serif or sans serif, weight, words per line, line length, text size, leading, gutters, paragraphs as line breaks or indents, text range left, centred or justified
exploring a range of ideas generation and draw them more accurately with a higher level of detail
being aware of widows, orphans, hyphened words and deep leading in headline text
Proof reading
Project: Hierarchy You were asked to typeset headings, sub-heading and body text for three different pages. You have methodically worked through this exercise which has clearly developed research analysis and InDesign skills. The three chosen layouts presented as final designs all show you are developing a good understanding of typography. There are a few general points to take into consideration next time — with text make sure you have approx 8-12 words per line so there are no rivers (holes) through your text, your measures are short so reduce point size and/or select a slimmer font. The tec mag is a good example of font size to line line to words per line.
Things to be considered
Making sure to have approx 8-12 words per line so there are no rivers (holes) through the text
Feedback on assignment Creative and analytical thinking, Visual and Technical Skills For the Show Me… assignment you produced a cover and short article for a magazine on typography. Research and analysis: You cite lots of interesting examples to stimulate ideas generation. Primary research is that conducted by yourself but in the context of creative practice it is research that you have actually generated such as your own sketches of type found or drawing letterforms or your own photographs of your own collection of magazines, with your own critical analysis written in your own words. Secondary research is material researched by someone else, so books with academic critical writing for example on type, typefaces, typography and general graphic design such as poster and magazine/books; your selection of magazine covers are an excellent starting point. Eye and Baseline are very good case studies to examine for this project. However, you don’t appear to have researched the subject of the brief, type foundries? Choose three foundries that produce type using different technologies, compare and contrast processes in context to production. There is no evidence of critical analysis writing to demonstrate how and what has informed your work, see previous feedback. Next time, use actual copies magazine examples to enable you to trace grid structure, type and image relationships, scale and size of published format. Having actual magazines will allow you to feel the paper texture and weight. Search used section of Amazon or Ebay. You need to correctly Harvard Reference all examples shown, make it absolutely clear what is your work and what is by professional practitioners. Ideas Generation: Your sketches are more detailed, which is good to see, but very limited range of ideas, see previous feedback. So you need to consider how your research has informed your understanding of different type foundries; informed understanding of this task; informed your ideas generation? Use this information to produce a broader range of ideas generation. Development: You evidence creative process through digital iterations, next time draw the letterforms first as this will help you explore the potential of the shapes. Your following process developing in Procreate then Illustrator was good practice, you acknowledge that quite a few versions should be drawn first; did you do that? What calligraphic styles from your Pinterest board did you refer to inform the decisions you made, learning by example? Final outcomes: Work evidences some awareness of type in context to magazine design, good use of grid structure, type size and line lengths. Analysis of your ‘primary research: typeface design’ examples would have shown you that what is being discussed/described in the text should be illustrated with images, a publication of this type needs to be both visual and informative. Why did you decide not to illustrate the text? Reflection: Review you work against research examples, learn from best practice. The refining of outcomes is a craft in itself requiring time and attention to detail, which you suggests you clearly understand. You have learnt a great deal about type throughout part 4, how central type/ typography is in context to graphic design. Overall well done.
Things to be considered
Evidencing of critical analysis writing to demonstrate how and what has informed my work
Using actual magazines next time
Using Harvard references for all the examples have shown
Sketchbooks Research and idea development, Context. Practice drawing letterforms, character spacing and leading; select three typefaces with similar characteristics to compare and contrast such as Baskerville, Times, Garamond, Palatino, Bodoni, Perpetua etc (refer to page 87 of student handbook) print off full alphabet, choose a sentence and trace each character, do not rub out to adjust spacing just lay another sheet of trace over what you have done and correct this way. This way you can check through and see all amendments made until confident with a final trace. When designing: thumbnail sketch your designs, scale up to actual working size, lay tracing paper over and develop ideas. Resolve all the design decisions on paper first. Select best solution, transferand refine using InDesign. If you work from thumbnail sketches straight to InDesign the fine detailing can get lost in translation. It is difficult to see the size, scale and relationship of the typography in context to the whole when working on screen, often at a much smaller size than actual production. Doing printouts in BW as you work on a project is a good way to test what you are doing is working successfully. Learning Logs or Blogs / Critical essays Research and idea development, Context. Your research points asked to find out more about an area of typography that interests you, as well as documenting some vernacular typography. Your history of type research appears to have come from just one source and therefore provides a good general overview of the history of type, interjected with different aspects of calligraphy often associated with different cultures. This has helped to underpin your general understanding of calligraphy within the overall history of type. Next time use a range of resources to seek research examples, in addition to writing historical facts write in your own words analysis of examples chosen and show images of what you are discussing. Next analyse of letterforms in context to graphic design to demonstrate understanding of how type and type, letterforms and typography communicate a visual as well as written language. So collect your own examples of type, analyse and distinguish between font styles and application such as fonts for shop fronts or packaging or road signage etc. Your alphabet identifying type research, I agree with you that using an online type identifier isn’t easy especially at this early stage of your studies. When analysing a font first scan/photocopy an enlarged section of the text then use tracing paper to trace a line of text as before. This will give you an overall feel for the typeface set in text, such as the character shapes and letter spacing. Next is to repeat the process tracing just the characters that have distinct shapes, such as the ‘a, o, e, u, m, h, y, w’ in lower-case and upper-case. Really analyse the shapes of the bowls, the stokes of the characters ‘thicks and thins’ the shape of the serifs, the height and length of the ascenders and descenders. A book I previously recommended The Thames and Hudson Manual of Typography by Ruari McLean is the best bible about type to use. Identifying magazine tittle typefaces are always difficult to identify as they are often specifically drawn just for that publication such as Vogue which is called the ‘masthead’. McLean’s book would however help you to identify the style of serif font it has be drawn from, by the names of the strokes and feet, see chapter 5 Letters for printing. Your vernacular typography research, you have shown a few examples collected online. As you recognise type is everywhere, now we are able to get out and about a bit more, carry on building a visual collection of examples that you find on the street. Look out for ‘ghost signs’ which are particularly interesting. You may also find it interesting to look into another culture that has low technology such as areas of India or Brazil, where many street signs and advertising is still painted by hand. Generally you need to write-up more fully your reflection of learning for each exercise (better in places than others): what you learnt, what went well, what you could do differently next time, how the exercise will help when doing the assignment project. Could you please title and number each post same as in course handbook to make navigation of blog a bit easier 🙂
It would be worth reading books that help you to develop your graphic design creative process further. Preferably see if you can access the following through library or online. Type as visual image you may be interested in Art and Text by Black Dog Publishing and for hand lettering Hand Job: A Catalog of Type by Michael Perry. David Jury is a writer about typography and books, About Face: Revisiting the Rules of Typography is in particular is a great read. A great handbook about type is Thinking With Type 2nd Ed: A Critical Guide for Designers, Writers, Editors, & Students by Ellen Lupton. Understanding grids Grid Systems in Graphic Design … by Josef Muller-Brockmann. You can also access St Bride Library online https://www.sbf.org.uk Pointers for the next assignment The final part of the course focuses on layout by exploring how to design leaflets, flyers and posters. This is an opportunity to thoroughly investigate the best designers, analyse their work and how they craft excellent design, learn by example and apply what you have learnt when exploring, developing and refining your own work. Refer to feedback provided throughout the course to date, to help you now make better informed design decisions. Use recommended resources to develop your understanding of creative thinking and production of graphic solutions. Always critique your work with comparable professional designs to help you recognise where improvements can be made.
Choose a magazine, newspaper or journal and work out the grid or grids they have used. You will probably need to look at least four pages to get a feel of the layout. Measure the size of the pages, the margins, the text columns and the gaps in between them. How many columns do they use? Is it the same on every page? Can you identify the fonts they use? Do you have it or one with similar properties? How do they use photographs and illustrations? How much ‘white space’ on the pages is there? Draw up a two page spread using the same grid as the magazine. Indicate text using Lorum Ipsum and indicate images by either filling a picture box with a 10% tint or using a picture from your collection. When you have done this see if you can develop the grid further. Select a title and images and see how many variations you can come up with. What happens when you alter the body font or headline font? Do different kinds of images change the ‘feel’ of the publication? Do you think the readership for each of your variations would be the same? Does the image you choose suggest a different design? Which ones work best and why? Make notes in your learning log.
What is a grid?
In design, a grid is a system for organizing layout. The layouts could be for print (like a book, magazine, or poster), or for screen (like a webpage, app, or other user interface).
There are a lot of different types of grid, and they all serve different purposes. Here are some of the main examples:
Baseline grid. A baseline grid is a dense grid of equally spaced horizontal lines that determine where text will sit. Baseline grids are often used in combination with column grids, to make sure that the lines of text in each column align uniformly across a spread. A simple example of a baseline grid is a sheet of ruled paper, like you probably used at school!
Column grid. This is the most common type of grid used by graphic and web designers. It involves taking a page and splitting it into a number of vertical fields, which objects are then aligned to. Newspapers and magazines use column grids extensively.
Modular grid. Kind of an extension of the column grid, a modular grid involves taking a column grid and adding rows to it. The intersecting rows and columns create “modules” that can then be used to govern layout decisions. Magazines and corporate reports often use modular grids.
Manuscript grid. This is a one-column grid that simply determines where in a page the text will sit. Classic, “traditional” books use a manuscript grid, with the layouts of facing pages mirroring one another.
Pixel grid. If you’ve ever zoomed in close to a Photoshop document, you might have seen a pixel grid pop up. Digital screens are made up of a microscopic grid of millions of pixels, and sometimes designers get in close to edit images pixel-by-pixel.
Hierarchical grid. This refers to any irregular grid that accommodates specific content needs. A hierarchical grid may be completely freeform, or it might be composed of two superimposed grids, or other additional grid elements.
The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.
—Josef Müller-Brockmann
Magazines:
I normally read the magazines digitally, but found these three architectural magazines to examine.
I have chosen the third spread for analysing it in depth.
I have used font finder website to find the fonts. For the headline, the closest font l could find is Helvetica and for the body is Baskerville.
The Max word in each column is 7 words, so I will use that to set the font size.
Based on my measurements, I have made a document in InDesign.
Variations:
For the first version, I used 3 columns and the same title similar to the original layout. But just made a change to the image position, which put it in the middle of the sheet. The font type and size is the same as original.
This layout is clean and simple and I think that this layout looks like an article that would be seen in an academic or an engineering magazines.
I used a full size image to cover the whole sheet for the second version. The number of the grids are 12 and 4 columns on each page. To make the texts stand out, l have used a blue box with less transparency.
I think this article due the full bleed picture is more likely to be seen in a travel brochures or home magazines.
The number of the grids are 12 in this version. The first page has got a different layout compare to the second page. Again the title is the same here.
This layout is my favourite one, because of the mixture of different layout for each page. I think it can be found in beauty or home magazines.
For my last version, I wanted to have my layout very different from the rest. I have used a full bleed picture and used a green box underneath and blending mode to make the colours more vibrant. Put the text inside the hexagons.
This article because of its unusual layout probably would suit specialist magazines or corporate brochures.
Mockups
Self-reflection
It is interesting to see how a layout of the page can change the feeling of it. I understand that the elements to change in each article is quite a lot; the number of the grids, the image, the typeface, the size of the font and number of the words. Changing in each element can have a dramatic effect to the look and feeling of the article and the purpose of using them. I just concentrated on the grids and image mostly for my variations.
Maryam: OCA Graphic Design 