This is one of my final 5 type specs. I have made 5 as there are numerous different page styles in the book, so I created a few to try and demonstrate all aspects of the book.
This is a screen shot of my main paragraph styles. The quote also has numerous character styles set up to go with it so that each quote will have the same settings other then the font size. These are all shown in the bottom image.
Project Evaluation before design
Final spread Evaluation
I am happy with how my final piece has come together, and think it is really effective in portraying my original message. I do believe that there are some areas that could be improved, but as a whole, I am happy.
I really like the colour choice as I feel it is quite a relaxed colour, similar to Kris’ personality. I do feel that the combination between the colour and font has caused a few issues though. Because the font is small and quite thin, some of the printers I have tested it on have made the text illegible as the colour just bleeds into the background. This is something the printers managed to solve for me as the decided to print the blue background in an overlay format which made the text clearer, and stand out. This really demonstrated to me the importance of a good relationship with your chosen printers, and how vital communication is.
Another area that could be improved is the alignment of pages. Some of the double page spreads haven’t lined up perfectly. It is still readable, but could be improved. I would need to look into this further to find out the best way to lay it all out to ensure that this doesn’t happen if I wish to pursue a similar design in the future.
There are also a few little consistency errors that I have noticed once looking back through the book. For example, not all of the quotes have the little speech marks. This is a very small error, and hard to notice, however I have seen this issue, and is something I would need to ensure is corrected next time. These are very basic errors, and I believe that just the size of the document made it a bit overwhelming and sometimes hard to ensure consistency.
I think the final issue that I have noticed once receiving my prints back is the font selection. It is perfect on the large quotes, as is what I would want to use for the body of text, but because of how small it is, and how delicate the font is, it has become ever so slightly distorted. I think that if i were to make the book slightly large, and could increase the size of the body of text, then it would be perfect.
However, with these small issues, I am very happy with the design. I like the use of white space, and how simple I have managed to keep it. I struggled a lot with trying to keep it simple, and not fill it with un-necessary details, but I feel that I have managed to keep what is needed. I feel it is a professional outcome, clean and simple.
Overall unit evaluation
The task of this project was to help Type Radio expand their website by producing supplement publications of certain interviewees. The publication had very broad specifications, as long as it included all of the written text. After looking through the choice of the 6 designers, and listening to their interview, I decided to look further into Kris Sowersby. He was the one that interested me the most as I felt I could relate to what he was saying more then the others, and to be completely honest, he was the most interesting to me.
I have struggled though-out this project as it is something new to me. I enjoy print based design, but I am more familiar with single page work, rather then having to deal with a whole body of text. I used my enjoyment of the subject to help overcome this issue, which helped to create my final design. I have tried to keep my work simple, and believe that I made a good starting point. I believe my issue is that I try and cram too much on a page, instead of simplifying and developing it. Having the critiques with the visiting lecturers was an invaluable experience, and helped to progress my work into areas that I wouldn’t have considered. I found that this is the first project that I have actually been willing to experiment a bit more into the areas I tend to avoid such as Illustration.
I wanted to design my book based upon one aspect of his life and work. From his interview, I really liked his sense of humor, and how upbeat he was about what he does. I wanted to take this aspect and incorporate it into my design. I used a simple layout, and wanted to take what he said as the feature to my design. I also wanted to keep the book small as what he does is delicate. My final design choice was to make a sleeve for my book. I chose to do this because he as a character is almost robust, and protects his delicate designs; hence the protective sleeve. I am glad I chose to design it this way as I feel it represents what I wanted to take from the interview, and shows the character that is Kris Sowersby.
Indesign was again a new experience to me as I haven’t done a lot of work on it before. However, as it is part of the adobe packages, it didn’t take me long to get used to it. I think, like all adobe software, there are many aspects I need to develop on, and this project has helped me make a start. However, I believe, through the use of the tutorials etc, I have a firm grasp on the basics of Indesign.
Overall, I am happy with how this unit has gone, and how it has developed my skills. I feel it has helped me to better understand print layout and the importance of grids and structure. It has shown me the areas I need to develop such as my skills with Indesign, and my understanding of print layout. I feel this project has been very helpful, and will be a great help when making my next print based design.
My final booklet
One of my 5 type specs. I am going to stick to this style throughout as it is using a structure to keep it all in line. I want to keep it simple and clear, because ultimately, they are instructions if someone else wanted to make my work.
The final designer I have looked into is Rosario Florio. They are a swiss graphic designer, with the majority of work based around typographic styled book design. I really like how they have again, used a grid effectively to portray such a simple image, and they have divided the double page spread into 2 in the way I would like to do mine. They have the feature piece on one side, with the body of text on the other. I am going to use this in my design, but I want a bit more colour on mine rather then just the Black and White, so I may choose to use a single feature colour.
The designer Loz Ives created this piece. I want my cover to be similar to this. It is a very basic design, with little on it bar the need to know details. I feel that this type of design will fit in very well with the rest of the book, and how it uses the simple grid structure. I need to ensure when I do create my front page, it has the details it needs, and that is all.
This is one of the artists I have been looking at for my current book project. This piece of work is by a designer called Sanderson Bob. I like this because of their use of structure and grids. There isn’t really much on the page, however its use of white space is very effective, and makes whats there stand out.
