Category Archives: Exercises

Exercise: Chance Housing Association

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise: Chance Housing Association (Graphic Design One: pg. 119)

The Chance Housing Association has been set up to try and help first time buyers get onto the housing ladder and they want 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 welcome to young people wanting to buy a home.

They want to use their logo on their letterhead 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.

mindmap for a housing association logo

Chance Housing mindmap

I started the process by mind mapping and doing some research. Research into first time buyers brought up a number of characteristics:

  • 65% of first time buyers come from the top 40% of earners (2015/16)
  • First time buyers tend to be older as a result of the rising costs of housing
  • There are a range of schemes on offer to help first time buyers:
    • Shared ownership: Household income of less than £80k
    • Help to buy: starter homes (under 40s), get a minimum discount off market price
    • Rentplus: rent to buy

The brief for Chance Housing Association (CHA) suggests their client range is likely to fall within the Help to Buy age range. Younger buyers who are probably struggling to get on the housing ladder.

The mind mapping threw up two areas that I wanted to think about – the physical structure of buildings and the emotional aspects of buying your first home. A time of excitement but also of anxiety, marking a milestone. This reflects CHA’s brief about wanting to be seen as supportive and helpful.

I also researched the logos and brand identities of other housing associations and organisations involved in social housing, and several characteristics emerged:

  • Many use acronyms, usually where they do their name in full is also included
  • Some are just text but most include a symbol
  • Most are sanserif
  • The most common symbols seems to be a house or roof structure
  • The predominant colours are blue and green
  • Some include three or more colours, particularly if they are concerned with diversity

The colour schemes are interesting; I think the dominance of blues and greens is about projecting an image of safety, security and trustworthiness.

To be different the CHA logo perhaps needed to include:

  • Bright and warm toned colours
  • Not to include a building structure
  • Serif typeface
  • Be within a bounding box or frame of some sort

I did a lot of sketching, playing with type layout and exploring different symbols. Some of which conform to the sector characteristics and some that are less conventional. There were a couple beginning to emerge for a shortlist, I particularly liked the idea of some the symbols being the shape of arrows and houses, symbolising moving up as well as pointing to CHA.

I wasn’t sure I quite had what I wanted and went back to the mind map, from which I picked up the notion of architecture and structure. I then did some sketches developing the letters into what could be blueprints or floor plans.

That led me on to thinking about square typefaces and I found several that I thought could work that I downloaded from Dafont.

I then moved on to developing some of the sketches in Illustrator. I was really pleased with the ‘Cubic’ typeface (Logo set 1) but felt that ‘Squared Display’ probably looked too much like a nightclub logo. It was interesting to note at this point how much more comfortable I am now with scrolling through lots of typefaces and seeing them as a source for inspiration as much as images and layouts.

Logo set 2 is based on my own designs using the idea of a floor plan. I was pleased with how they developed and that the idea could be worked up. I think they look quite contemporary and are different to other logos in the sector but in the end I wasn’t sure how legible they would be.

Logo set 3 played on the house/arrow idea using strokes and fill and different colourways. Although they are very clean I am not sure these are distinctive enough and perhaps don’t have quite the right tone.

Logo set 4 were just experiments with different decorative typefaces, again playing on the notion of architecture and buildings.

I decided that Logo set 1 was the approach I would develop into the stationery and publicity materials. I was a bit concerned about the yellow and it was problematic when I photocopied the stationery so I added a grey stroke which seems to work fine. I like the way the ‘h’ of CHA echoes a house and they resemble a honeycomb, the hive as a home. I also think it is distinctive against the other housing association logos I looked at.

Chance Housing Association Stationery

 

CHA and other housing association logos

As I developed the stationery it really highlighted the issues that you need to address, the nature of the information to be included, legibility and readability, setting the tone and so on. I knew using yellow might be an issue so I photocopied the results at different points. This led to adapting the logo (without the box) so that it still works when printed or photocopied in black and white.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Exercise: Poster and flyer

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise: Poster and flyer (Graphic Design 1: pg. 116)

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. They have very little money so want to print these posters on their black and white photocopier. You can use coloured paper if you want.

They have provided the information to include, consider if you need anything more, and the information hierarchy. Critique your work and reflect on your design choices.

I was quite looking forward to the constraints of this exercise and working with a monochrome palette. Online research suggested that images associated with singing are quite gendered and tend to focus on women. They also quite often include microphones, particularly the old square, 1940s type mic.

I was concerned that a female focused poster might limit the audience so wanted to try something else. I sketched a few ideas on the tablet and then started experimenting in Illustrator. I find it much easier with text based work to play on the computer rather than hand sketching, mainly because of the ease that things can be moved around and occasionally happy accidents happen as something might crossover, or be dragged into a place that created an effect I hadn’t anticipated.

I started with two versions that were quite sketch based, I thought if they were going to print them on a photocopier I would play on the handcrafted look. The third version was quite different in that I went for simplicity. I wasn’t sure if it might sit counter to their point about not having to read music but I think the shape of a note is a reasonably well understood symbol. The final version did include a woman’s head as a stylised line drawing and I decided on headline typeface that echoed the old Jazz style posters.

Having printed all four versions I felt the simple grid layout worked best, it was still eye catching but easy to reproduce at low cost. From this one I developed the flyer. It was interesting, and probably not surprising, to note that in moving between the two sizes simply scaling the larger version down did not work.

On the side with the main details it simply made the text too small to read and I was conscious it had gone below the RNIB recommended 12pt. While I was using the same elements they had to be reworked for the design to be able to impart all the necessary information. I like the simplicity of the design and think it would be noticeable, it also photocopied without any problems.

 

Exercise: Birthday List

  By | |
Leave a comment
Birthday planner for the month of january

Exercise: Birthday List (Graphic Design One, pg113)

Make a birthday list poster to keep on your wall. It is likely to be there for a while so 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.

I’m not sure I entirely got the point of this exercise. I think this is partly because I tend not to use these sorts of things, so I had trouble getting past the ‘I’d just use an app’ thought! I started with a few sketches and looking online at other examples. The online research suggests this is seen as predominantly a female or young children market so the designs very much reflect this. Lots of bright colours, cupcakes, dinosaurs and stickers.

After making a few sketches, primarily to think about layout, I decided I would work on a perpetual version that could be downloaded as a PDF. It would have a hole in one corner to put a loop through for hanging, and each one can then be recycled after use. I wouldn’t put the month on but leave a space for the user to fill it in themselves.

I also decided I would use a pastel type palette, with an informal feel for everyday use. In terms of the information to include I decided on:

  • Date
  • Name
  • Card
  • Phone call
  • Present
  • Text
  • Make a cake

I created a landscape grid and added balloons and bunting.

Birthday planner for the month of january

Birthday list design

In terms of the need to contain certain information I think the design works well and it could easily go on a pinboard, fridge door or hang from a kitchen hook. The design is probably not the most inspiring in the world because of my feelings about the task and the nature of the output. I was definitely more engaged with the infographic, which is useful learning in terms of how I might deal with a design task that doesn’t excite me in future.

Rework

My tutor was right when he suggested this had gone clip art in design, and that was because I didn’t care about it and couldn’t find a way in to the exercise. Having talked it through I revisited it with more of an app approach in mind. I could envisage a series of screens, taking you from the months to the individual birthdays. It would be flexible enough to allow you to add your own categories, but I have included the most obvious. I am much happier with this approach and could imagine it being useful. Moreso than a poster or wall chart!

Save

Save

Save

Save

Exercise: Giving Information

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise: Giving Information (Graphic Design 1, pg. 112)

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.

I approached this exercise with a little trepidation because I wasn’t sure how best to get started or if I was going to have the skills to complete it. There are great examples of infographics around but they all look incredibly accomplished!

I did some research online, which helpfully coincided with a paper I have just written about the role infographics played in developing a cultural education programme. This was all really useful and gave me an insight into the history of the form and helped me understand the difference between information visual and infographics.

There seems to be a reasonable consistency to the history of the form, which some suggest goes back to cave painting. Florence Nightingale’s infographic of mortality rates, Otto Neurath’s Isotype project and Edward Tufte are also generally included. It was fascinating to see how something that I probably regarded as quite a modern phenomenon has actually had such a long development period.

In order to address the skills issue I have continued to use Illustrator as much as possible and to take some online courses. The Creative Live course was especially useful and helped set out a few parameters:

  • Tell a story
  • Keep it simple
  • Use icons
  • Don’t mix dimensions – 2D and 3D
  • Use a grid structure
  • Use the best fonts (think of them as actors on the stage)
  • The best fonts are generally sanserif
  • Make it cool!

I’m not sure I achieved all of these but they helped me feel more confident in approaching the task. I knew from the outset that I didn’t want to do a straight floorplan of my desk or the house, I thought with that approach there was a danger it could be little more than a map, so I started to look at the activity in the spaces. This made me think about where I do my creative work and the factors that help or hinder it. I may have moved outside of the brief a little but I decided to do the infographic on my creative process.

I started with some sketches but was a bit concerned my early ideas were too complicated and that I’d struggle to achieve them. I then stripped them right back to just look at the spaces but this seemed too simplified.

On flicking back through my learning log and other exercises I came across the light bulb and thought that might be a useful form to play with, it is often associated with innovation or ‘bright ideas’. So that was the design I developed. I divided the process up into stages and layered them down the light bulb. The final element of the bulb containing the things that underpin my process like time out, food, sleep, nature, other people etc.

I had been building a library of icons from my online tutorials and started applying these where appropriate. By the time I came to creating the infographic I had most of it worked out in my mind’s eye  and on paper, so it was more a process of construction. It didn’t go through too much iteration once I had the layout organised.

My Creative Process Infographic

It may not be a perfect infographic, and I am finding myself having to resist the urge to explain all the icons but I am quite proud of myself for having got it this far, I created all the icons from scratch and have discovered the joys of the Illustrator Pathfinder tool. The process I went through definitely shows what can happen if you work through your anxieties and just give something a go. Looking at it now I think there are a few things I might revisit like a more consistent stroke weight, but overall I am pleased and a little surprised by the result.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save

Exercise: Judging a book by its cover

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise: Judging a book by its cover

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.

The hardest part of this exercise was choosing which book to work with! After a couple of false starts I decided to use ‘The Third Plate’ a book by Dan Barber. It has been published by Little Brown Book and Penguin in different editions.

The book that, perhaps more than any other in recent times, laid out the urgent imperative that to look after the land we grow our food on is to eat as best we can and vice-versa. It redefined nutrition, agriculture and flavour, and established Barber as the preeminent voice in food that is as ethical as it is excellent (The Guardian)

The book documents the research of Chef Barber as he explores the state of food production and the options we have going forward. He had been a proponent of the Field to Fork food movement (the second plate) but realised this was not a fundamental enough shift as it replaced high meat based diets with better meat rather than a more balanced diet which in turn creates more sustainable production methods. The third plate refers to the need to completely rethink our diets and move towards a more plant based focus. It is a fascinating and at times funny read, laying out the issues but doing so in a gentle tone. The book is divided into four sections – soil, land, sea and seed.

In terms of the brief I worked on the following parameters:

  • Non-fiction title
  • Paperback version
  • Based on the dimensions of the existing book
  • House styles of the published editions vary
  • The readership could be quiet varied – young people with an interest in environmental sustainability and food (probably 18-25yrs), chefs with an interest in the future of food, vegetarians/vegans, generalists with an interest in the future of food (probably 35yrs+ and female)
  • Sold online and in major bookshop chains

As usual I did a few sketches to start the design process.

Based on the above assumptions and sketches I created six designs:

  1. Literal representation of three plates against a wheat field (wheat is covered in detail in the book). Contemporary font against a photographic background. I decided to colour the title “Third’ green to reflect one of the premises of the book about moving towards a more plant-based diet. I took the colour of the sky and used that across the spine and back. (n.b. the black lines either side of the spine are just place markers and are not part of the design concept). I took the three plates and echoed them under the title on the back cover. Typeface: Myriad Pro (12,24,18,36,120 pt.).
  2. Same basic concept as version one but I wanted to make the ‘Third’ more prominent. I changed the typeface and extended it across the page. I shifted the plates down so more of the wheat is shown and added some drop shadow under the top plate (I suspect this might be a design crime from comments I have read online but I wasn’t sure how else to bring the plate forward!). I also used a lighter tone of blue. Typeface: Modern No 20 (150, 28 pt.) and Myriad Pro Regular (36, 18, 15, 12pt), Myriad Pro Regular semi bold (24pt)
  3. One of my sketches suggested a layered text approach to signify the three plates. I struggled to get the effect I wanted in Illustrator so ended up with a tiered version of different size characters in a chunky typeface to catch attention. They are red (meat based), white (farm to fork, to me a more neutral approach), and green (plant based diets). I used a lighter grey colour for the typeface on the back so it is a bit gentler. Typeface: TW Cent MT (12,18 pt.), TW Cent Condensed (48, 24 pt.), Rockwell Extra Bold (117pt)
  4. Another tiered typeface version, this time they are stacked like plates and I have added some drop shadow. I changed the cover to green and reversed out the rest of the text. I also added a large ‘Third’ on the back cover which might attract attention if the cover were face down on a table or shelf. Typeface: Rockwell Extra Bold (130pt), TW Cent MT Condensed (48, 30,15 pt.), TW Cent MT (24, 18, 12)
  5. This version was taken directly from one of my sketches. I wanted to make it quite loose so added watercolour effects in Photoshop to give the impression of falling soil and water. I initially used a san serif typeface in dark grey but wasn’t sure it worked very well so I went back to a serif font for the main title. The illustration is repeated on the spine. Typeface: Modern No 20 (24, 80 pt.), Source San Pro (12,15, 18, 24, 36 pt.)
  6. I changed the typeface for a more contemporary feel and ran the type in a circle as a metaphor for the plate. This was then set against an orange background to make it stand out. I took the circle as a motif and added it on the spine and on the back page. Typeface: TW Cent MT (12, 18, 24, 28, 75), TW Cent MT Condensed (28)

This was a great exercise for thinking about how design elements work together. Although I have noticed it elsewhere in the course working on this exercise really highlighted a need for attention to detail, which I am not always good at! It also showed me that small changes, different point sizes, adding tints etc, can have a big impact.

While I am still building my Illustrator and InDesign skills I am pleased to recognise that I am getting more comfortable with the programmes and have a better sense of what I can achieve with them.

For me versions 5 and 6 are probably the most successful because of their simplicity. Feedback suggested others preferred version 2 on the basis it was more likely to make them pick it up. I feel this one is a bit too ‘busy’ but could be wrong!

After some initial feedback I approached the Visual Communications Facebook Group. Their preferences were for both the image versions, and as ever they gave me some useful improvements. Suggestions included:

  • Reducing the size of the plates
  • Changing the plates
  • Lining the text up on the spine with the plates
  • Changing the font size of the sub heading on the illustration version
  • Making the green text slightly darker over the illustration
  • Rotating the spine text so it is more in keeping with convention!

These are the amended versions:

Rework

After the feedback from my tutor I have looked again at the relationship between the text and the images. Looking back I’m not entirely sure why I chose to centre everything, I think it was about the title being part of the plate but I don’t think it has been as successful as I had hoped. So I worked on several versions using the type in different ways.

I definitely prefer rework 4 because it gives the illustration room to breath and to attract readers. This has reinforced my learning about the value of feedback and creating different iterations. It has also shown the value of leaving something for a while and coming back to it. I found in doing this I was no longer so committed to the original versions and could more easily make changes. On a more challenging note it has also reconfirmed what seem like almost infinite choices (layout, colours, typefaces) and this can only be addressed by creating some boundaries (which I guess is usually fulfilled by the brief).

Exercise: Magazine Pages

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise: Bike Magazine (Graphic Design One page. 107)

For this exercise I looked at ‘Bike Magazine,’ which seems to be based predominantly on a two-column format. Where there are exceptions these are full-page images, full-page data tables or three column reviews. I was surprised to see the prevalence of quite large images, although given that much of it is about different bike models, I probably shouldn’t have been. The typeface throughout is serif, and variation comes from different weights and sizes.

I took the two-column grid and large photograph format and created five variations based on the headline, ‘You are what you eat.’ Although I had already noticed it in other exercises it was fascinating to see the different tones set by the layout, images and typeface choices.

  1. Fruit image, Sanserif heading and body text: Has a slightly neutral tone, and I would imagine the article to give me some broad information about the benefits of a healthy diet
  2. Fruit image, Serif heading and sanserif body, three column layout: gives a more formal tone and I would imagine would probably contain a science based approach to diet
  3. Burger image, sanserif heading, subheading and body text: I think this one is interesting in that I can imagine the article could equally be talking about the issues of junk food and obesity, or promoting veggie burgers, or gourmet burgers
  4. Burger and Filo parcel, text all sanserif: this could be a comparator piece between junk food and fine dining, or extoling the virtues of the variety of English cuisine. I could imagine this in something like Good Housekeeping
  5. Filo parcel, script and serif heading, subheading and body: lots of white space and the cool blue tones speak to me of fine dining. I could see this as an article talking about a particular restaurant, dish or ingredient in glowing tones

It is really helpful to see how even small changes can change the tone and possible message a design is communicating. This is both rewarding and a little daunting, in that it can feel a bit overwhelming when faced with so many possibilities. I suspect this highlights the importance of a clear brief and good relationship with a client.

Exercise: Hierarchy

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise:Hierarchy (Graphic Design 1, pg. 99)

Design three different pages:

  • An interview with a TV actor in a listings magazine entitled: Will Sheila tell the naked truth?
  • A review of a new piece of hardware or software in a specialist computer magazine
  • A book review in a newspaper’s weekend edition

Research these types of publication and identify three different combinations of typefaces appropriate for each magazine. Set these combinations so that your header is above 12pt in size, your body text is 12pt or below and subheadings sit in between in your hierarchy.

Naked Truth

Looking at the listing magazines there is a reasonable variation in format. Most of them seem to include blocks of colour and images. Some are based on a very standard grid with up to three columns. I decided to go for two columns with san-serif body type, (Lato, 12pt). I added a large header (Futura PT 36pt) in bold within a colour block to grab attention. The sub headers are Lato Bold in 18pt and I added a callout box in 24pt. I find the listings magazines quite busy in format so I wanted typefaces that would be reasonably clear amongst the other elements. I also adjusted the leading and tracking to try and even out the ragged end a little. Justified text using the three columns seemed to have too many rivers making it harder to read. Overall, I think it was reasonably successful in replicating the format of listings magazines, but I’m not sure it is a very creative interpretation.

Technology

Technology magazines vary in their typeface use from very contemporary to quite traditional, but many seem to favour serif with justified paragraphs so I decided to use Museo Slab with Minion Pro. The main heading is 60pt (Museo Slab), the call out boxes are 18pt with body text at 12pt. I wanted to wrap the text around the mobile phone image rather than keep it in columns and this took me a while to sort out. After some persistence I finally made it work and decided to tilt the image so it carried across all three columns.

I ran the header into one word because it is still readable as a sentence but I liked the way it lined up on the page. It makes a clear statement about the content of the article. I didn’t use subheadings because they would break the flow but added highlight boxes with larger point size for emphasis instead. I was quite pleased with this layout because I think it fits in its genre and is clear and readable. It also forced me to keep improving my InDesign skills.

Book Review

Having looked at the format of some different newspaper book reviews it seemed to me they all had a fairly clean grid layout. Most included an image but these were relatively small. They were either all san-serif or a mix of serif and san-serif. I decided to set myself a challenge and use three typefaces for this layout – heading in Corbel (60pt), subheading in Roboto Bold (20pt) and body in Merriweather regular (12pt).

After trying both formats I decided to go without hyphenation even though it makes the right edge more ragged. The format is very plain but I think it does what is expected of a book review. My sense is that the focus has to be on the review and that the design should not get in the way.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Of all the exercises and projects in this unit this is the one I probably found the most difficult, and not necessarily because of the design requirements. It was more about the frustration of feeling I didn’t have the level of skills I needed. I am sure there are improvements I could have made but it seems there are so many variables to change in terms of point size, paragraph layout, weight, leading, kerning and so on. I found the more I fiddled the worse it got. So in some ways it feels like each design is a compromise where I have achieved the best I can given my current level of expertise. I hope that each is at least recognisable as an appropriate format for its genre.

Exercise: Lorum Ipsum

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise: Lorem Ipsum (Graphic Design 1, pg.99)

Select one of the designs from your research that you think works. Using Lorem Ipsum dummy text try and copy the layout and design as closely as possible. Having completed your first example try another one. Make notes in your learning log.

I looked at two examples from my research so far; the Time Magazine article ‘Two Hermiones’ and My Cat ‘A Changing Nature.’ I don’t think I was complacent about this exercise but it certainly seemed more difficult than I had imagined. Given the number of variables, from font size and typeface to alignment and leading, it took some time to try and get something resembling the original article. I’m not sure I was entirely successful in achieving absolute copies (for example, I couldn’t find the right typeface for ‘A Changing Nature’s’ header) but it did give me a valuable insight into layout choices.

Having achieved an initial copy for both articles I then experimented with different layouts and it was very interesting to see how even subtle differences can have an impact on legibility and readability.

Two Hermiones:

 

I created several versions from the copy:

  1. Justified all lines including heading
  2. Justified all lines, hyphenated, with adjusted leading
  3. Left aligned, ragged and hyphenated

The justified all lines with adjusted tracking initially looks very orderly and legible however it is not very easy to read, and in design terms the header doesn’t look right. I think the similar version but without adjusted tracking is harder to read because of the lack of white space. The left aligned version is for me the most readable, but again the heading and subheading do not work in design terms.

Changing Nature:

I also created three versions for this article:

  1. Justified all lines
  2. Left aligned leading adjusted
  3. Centred

The left aligned version is quite close to the original but the subhead and text box items are justified. It is interesting to see that the different tracking makes this look more ragged and less legible. The justified larger text doesn’t work because of the additional white space it introduces. The justified all lines again looks neat but is harder to read, it is also easy to see the ugly white rivers that run through the middle of the columns. I did the centred version just for fun but it definitely highlights the issue of how layout can affect legibility and readability.

 

Exercise: If the face fits 2

  By | |
Leave a comment

Exercise: If the face fits 2 (Graphic Design 1 pg.94)

Identify which fonts you might use in each of the following commissions:

  • A short story in a woman’s magazine entitled ‘I thought I loved him; now I’m not so sure.”
  • An advertisement in a Parish magazine asking for more helpers on the flower rota
  • A poster to advertise an after-school club for boys aged 13 – 14
  • Your friends’ engagement party

I started the process in a way that has now become familiar, a few sketches and some online searches. This helped me identify the kinds of messages and tone I wanted to deliver for each commission. It was particularly useful for the Parish magazine and the After-school club because these are not things that are very familiar to me.

I thought I loved him:

Having looked at a number of womens’ magazines in an earlier exercise I decided this article was likely to have at least one image included and would be two or three columns in format. The heading sounded like quite a personal story and it made me think of love letters, or scribbled notes left for a partner. I then worked up four versions with the following combinations:

  1. Header – Brush Script 40pt; Body – Lato 12pt
  2. Header – Segoe Script 56pt; Body – Lato 12pt
  3. Header – Montserrat 60pt; Body – Mr.Eaves XL Mod OT 12pt
  4. Header – Segoe Script and Montserrat 56pt; Body – Lato 12pt

I decided to use a script header that looked like it had been written across the page, possibly something like a quick journal entry.  In version one this was paired with a san-serif Lato as I thought it was quite readable and contemporary. I don’t think the  Brush script worked especially well as it is possibly a bit clichéd and not that easy to read.

In version 2 I moved onto to Segoe Script because it looked like a more believable handwritten script. I dropped the opacity in the image and went to a black typeface that stands out more. I stayed with Lato for the body because I thought it had some echoes in the ‘t’ and ‘u’ shapes.

Rather than just stick with script I did try a san-serif header in version 3 which I paired with another san-serif typeface that looks slightly more formal that Lato but to me shared some of the shapes of the Montserrat. My view on this version was that is does not look very appealing and is unlikely to encourage someone to read it.

Version four shows a mixed header combining script and a san-serif typeface. I wondered if it might help convey the change of tone from the ‘I was in love’ to ‘maybe I’m not’. I don’t think this works as I had hoped because the san-serif has become too dominant. I went back to Lato for the body as I thought it worked with both header typefaces.

For me it is the second version with the Segoe Script that is most effective, I think the header text draws attention and  suggests a personal story.

Parish Magazine:

I tried three approaches to this poster – all of which I realised on rereading the brief to post the work are wrong because I did them portrait rather than landscape! Anyway, I decided that the emphasis for this commission should be something eye catching, a clear ‘call to action,’ with an emphasis on the ‘artistic’ element of the volunteer role.

  1. Header – Myriad Pro 107pt; Body – Century Schoolbook 60pt/21pt
  2. Header – Perpetua Titling MT Light 80pt; Body – Palatino Linotype Regular 60pt/21pt
  3. Header – Perpetua Titling MT Light 80pt; Body – MS Ref San Serif 56pt, Palatino Linotype Bold 24pt

I decided to start with a clear san-serif header and a serif body text that lends itself to a ‘church’ type identity. Artistic is italicised for emphasis, and coloured to match the church interior. The more detailed information is combined in a box at the bottom, working on the basis that the earlier layout will have attracted enough attention to encourage the reader to read down.

Having originally just put the header in place on its own I added the cross to underline the ‘can you’ – reinforcing the ‘we need you’ message. I wasn’t sure if it was a bit clichéd but it seemed to add some balance.

In version two I added a serif header and made ‘artistic’ regular. Version three uses a san-serif body and a larger point size for the footer text, which is also reversed out in a different colour box. I think the second version has a more ecclesiastical feel but in terms of an advertising poster I think the third version would probably be clearest to read at a distance.

After School Club:

I used three approaches to the typography:

  1. Header – Eras Bold ITC regular 98pt; body – Century Gothic regular 36/27.5pt
  2. Header – Eras Bold ITC 110pt; body – Century Gothic regular 46/30pt
  3. Header – Most Wazted regular 136/67/62pt; Proxima Nova regular 48/34; body – Amsterdam Graffiti 96/102/129pt

I was a bit stumped with how to approach this one other than having the Manga character so my first version is very legible but a bit boring, the figure tends to dominate.

The second version I decided to play a bit more with the typography and used the ‘bored?’ in a vertical format as if it was weighing down on the figure. I used some colour accents to bring out the activities and the fact that they are free.

In the third version I went for graffiti types and created a more informal format, the text is run slightly behind the figure as if he is leaning up against the poster. I feel is the most successful of the three. This one also got the vote of my family!

Mandy & Josh:

I used three typeface combinations paying particular attention to the ‘club night’ part of the brief:

  1. Header – Techno Hideo regular 60/36pt; Body – Myriad Pro Condensed 18pt
  2. Header – Snap ITC 60/36pt; Body – Showcard Gothic 14pt
  3. Header – Fresno Black 60pt, Fresno Inline 45/36pt; Body – Agency FB Bold 17pt

This was the last design I worked on and I think it was the one I enjoyed the most. I wanted to create something that had a very strong club night feel and started by looking at a range of techno typefaces. Of all the designs this was the one where I experimented more with different typefaces, using colour and shape for emphasis. I think this was also the first time I started to see the typefaces as design shape as well as ‘words’ with particular meaning. I wanted the message to be clear but also wanted the typeface to create a particular tone and composition. I think the third design was the most successful in achieving this.