Postcard Front
Postcard Back
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Graduation Invite
Random! I was asked to design a graduation invite for one of our family friends. I won't go into detail, it was a fairly simple process. They wanted both pictures and the information they provided. Made it into a postcard for mailing connivence. Put this together in about 3 hours.
Postcard Front
Postcard Back
Postcard Front
Postcard Back
Typography II: Assignment III
Onto the final book! Assignment III was a lot like Assignment II, although it was a bit more intense. This time we were allowed all variables (including color and photos), able to create a new grid from scratch. Additionally we were able to type pair another typeface for our book as well. I choose not to do this because of Goudy Old Style's unique qualities. Our final book was to be bound perfectly (not accordion this time) and presented as a mock-up of what the designed book would look like after publication. Once done we would present our book to the rest of the class as if they were clients. The body text of our final book would be the paper we had already written on our typeface + history about the typeface and the typeface designer. We had to include photos this time (and that created a new challenge of its own), which could be found or our own (she encouraged us to use the images we made from assignment I). The book had to represent the typeface and designer in the best form possible.
Here is my thought process for Goudy Old Style. Goudy Old Style is elegant, organic, playful, timeless, one of the most legible typefaces to date, and perfect for both body text and display head (titles and such). After doing some research, I found a quote from Goudy himself explaining how he goes about designing typefaces. He says, "Well, it's very easy. You just think of a letter and draw a thought around the idea". This got me thinking. How could I incorporate the essence of his thought process? Initially I was focused on creating a design that would be elegant, legible, and playful.
Leaning away from my mistakes of my first grid I decided to have 6 columns per page (a total of 12 per spread) with generous margins on the side and a standard gutter. Here is how my grid turned out.
First step. Thumbnails. I went through many thumbnails, but these were the thumbnails I ended up with eventually.
I was having difficulties bringing elegance into the design at first until I looked over the picture I had gathered up from the web and ones of my own. From assignment I, I had created a couple images that were very elegant—many of them were large close-ups of letters. After some experimenting I found a way to bring elegance into the spreads by using those large images and intermingling the text among them. This created a sort of elegant playful design that I enjoyed. I chose letters based on their uniqueness to Goudy Old Style. The g's because they turned out the best and were so-very elegant and unique to the typeface. The Q because of its elegant form and unique double tail, the h's to hightly the slight italic difference and because of their elegant swish, the ampersand because of its beautiful nature, and the E because of its unique final. I chose to put the body text into yellow modules that would intermingle with the larger images. I chose the color yellow based on color theory: black lettering on yellow makes the text more legible (which is why you should always study with yellow legal pads and black ink). Here are my first results after translating the thumbnails into InDesign. First time around I went with two columns per page—later that'll change. The pull-out quotes I separated from the body text but didn't put much though into how the related too much with the body text. I periodically would save version for process work. Not everything is complete but I will point out the differences I made between each version.
I added the grey bars on the sides to add another color to the page and to structure the image in something. I later would get rid of these. They were last minute decisions that I decided I did not like. Here is the difference.
Something wasn't sitting right with the columns, I instead of having them at even proportions across the spread (which unintentionally made them more static), I increased the width of the left column and decreased the width of the right column to provide an asymmetrical balance to the spread. I also stretched one module per spread off the page to add an element of surprise on each page. Yes. More interesting. Additionally, I felt as if the headings were getting lost at the side of the page and added to the feeling that all the text was constrained in a lateral field (with margins above and below with exceptions of pull-out quotes). I moved the headings to the top of the page and included a grey box behind them. This really helped even out the stark black and yellow industrial feel I was getting—I even muted the yellow color too because it was becoming too bold and taking away from the elegance. I changed a few of the larger pictures out (that E) because it wasn't as cohesive with the design and replaced it with an uppercase P (which is unique to Goudy Old Style because of it's open counter). Additionally I began playing with the idea of incorporating the entire alphabet into the book somehow. I thought I could maybe tie it in with the page numbers but wasn't sure how to do that. The quote I mentioned earlier got me thinking about outlining certain numbers within the alphabet to indicate to the reader which page they would be on (based on their location within the alphabet). ie: (a b c) would be page 1, (d e f) would be page 2 and so on. I wasn't quite sure how to do it, but this was the beginning of my process.
During Process 4 I continued playing around with the alphabet idea with page numbers, trying it out on the side and such because it would work better page to page. Wasn't sure I was digging it yet. To clompy; not elegant.
By the time Process 5 rolled around I had figured out how to do my page numbers (which are one of my favorite aspects of the book), switched around a few spreads as I began to prepare filling modules with body copy, and decided where my images and pull-out quotes would be place. I also changed the headings a bit to fit within the grey module. Although I hadn't though of it, a good friend of mine pointed out that when I did that he read the headings as separate words because they were not all together. So it was.
In process 6 I really focused in the second spread's look (the first page of body text), feel, and layout so that I could replicate that same feeling with the other spreads. I changed the corners of the modules to be rounded because it reflected Goudy Old Style. If you look closely, none of the letters (with exception of the uppercase G and lowercase t and f) have outwardly sharp points. All around generously rounded to give a organic, calligraphic feel. Hence, I rounded off all my outwardly corners on my modules. I fine-tuned spread one and prepared pull-out quotes for the other spreads. Spread 2 was practically complete (with minor tweaks later) and the rest would be replicated to feel like this spread. Spread 1 was still undeveloped but would contain the title page and table of continence.
And now for the final book design! I had the most fun designing the cover and the table of continence page. Because I enjoyed my page numbering so much I decided to incorporate that into my cover design as well. On the back I wanted to sort of mimic a type specimen book by showing all the possible cuts of the typeface. I would then extract the letters of G O U D Y which would move onto the front cover to die cut circles that held the respective letterforms (actually on page 2 of the book). This tied in with my page number design and added an interesting detail on the front cover that would draw readers into the book. I found some beautiful lead type images of Goudy Old Style that said "i love typography" but I edited it to read "i love" and had Goudy Old Style below it. So the book reads "i love GOUDY OLD STYLE". The position of the title was very tricky to get right with keeping 3 pages in mind (cover for image, page 00 with the g, and page 01). In this case, form an function became one and I ended up with a fantastic result and cohesiveness. It took some brain power, but I made it happen! Also, I muted the colors even more to enhance the elegant feel for the book. Without further ado, here is the final book. After the computer images I managed to snap some pictures of the book before I had to hand it in for good.
Front and Back Cover
Spread 1 (pages 00 and 01)
Spread 2 (pages 02 and 03)
Spread 3 (pages 04 and 05)
Spread 4 (pages 06 and 07)
Spread 5 (pages 08 and 09)
Pictures of physical book (sorry for the bad quality, my camera phone was all I had on me):
I got my book printed at Alpha21 graphics in Southfield, MI. I ended up printing the book twice because I accidentally typoed my instructors last name. Opps. I wanted to fix some of the colors as well and location of some things on the first spread anyway. I HIGHLY recommend them for any other graphic designers or students. They are a little bit more expensive than Kinko's, but worth every penny. The colors are more accurate than Kinko's (Kinko's yellow was nasty),their imaging was smooth (not patterned and mushy like Kinko's can become) and they knew what I was talking about graphic designer to graphic designer (always a plus). They were very friendly and extremely helpful. When I went back to reprint my book (because I wanted a correct spelling of my professors name for portfolio reasons) they printed it a no charge. So very nice of them. If you are ahead of your game and have time—I highly recommend Alpha 21. If you're running behind and expect them to print your things immediately upon request (they have a lot of other projects they are doing as well) I would not recommend it. Don't go in their last minute and expect to become their number 1 priority. Patience and kindness go a long way.
Here is my thought process for Goudy Old Style. Goudy Old Style is elegant, organic, playful, timeless, one of the most legible typefaces to date, and perfect for both body text and display head (titles and such). After doing some research, I found a quote from Goudy himself explaining how he goes about designing typefaces. He says, "Well, it's very easy. You just think of a letter and draw a thought around the idea". This got me thinking. How could I incorporate the essence of his thought process? Initially I was focused on creating a design that would be elegant, legible, and playful.
Leaning away from my mistakes of my first grid I decided to have 6 columns per page (a total of 12 per spread) with generous margins on the side and a standard gutter. Here is how my grid turned out.
First step. Thumbnails. I went through many thumbnails, but these were the thumbnails I ended up with eventually.
I was having difficulties bringing elegance into the design at first until I looked over the picture I had gathered up from the web and ones of my own. From assignment I, I had created a couple images that were very elegant—many of them were large close-ups of letters. After some experimenting I found a way to bring elegance into the spreads by using those large images and intermingling the text among them. This created a sort of elegant playful design that I enjoyed. I chose letters based on their uniqueness to Goudy Old Style. The g's because they turned out the best and were so-very elegant and unique to the typeface. The Q because of its elegant form and unique double tail, the h's to hightly the slight italic difference and because of their elegant swish, the ampersand because of its beautiful nature, and the E because of its unique final. I chose to put the body text into yellow modules that would intermingle with the larger images. I chose the color yellow based on color theory: black lettering on yellow makes the text more legible (which is why you should always study with yellow legal pads and black ink). Here are my first results after translating the thumbnails into InDesign. First time around I went with two columns per page—later that'll change. The pull-out quotes I separated from the body text but didn't put much though into how the related too much with the body text. I periodically would save version for process work. Not everything is complete but I will point out the differences I made between each version.
I added the grey bars on the sides to add another color to the page and to structure the image in something. I later would get rid of these. They were last minute decisions that I decided I did not like. Here is the difference.
Something wasn't sitting right with the columns, I instead of having them at even proportions across the spread (which unintentionally made them more static), I increased the width of the left column and decreased the width of the right column to provide an asymmetrical balance to the spread. I also stretched one module per spread off the page to add an element of surprise on each page. Yes. More interesting. Additionally, I felt as if the headings were getting lost at the side of the page and added to the feeling that all the text was constrained in a lateral field (with margins above and below with exceptions of pull-out quotes). I moved the headings to the top of the page and included a grey box behind them. This really helped even out the stark black and yellow industrial feel I was getting—I even muted the yellow color too because it was becoming too bold and taking away from the elegance. I changed a few of the larger pictures out (that E) because it wasn't as cohesive with the design and replaced it with an uppercase P (which is unique to Goudy Old Style because of it's open counter). Additionally I began playing with the idea of incorporating the entire alphabet into the book somehow. I thought I could maybe tie it in with the page numbers but wasn't sure how to do that. The quote I mentioned earlier got me thinking about outlining certain numbers within the alphabet to indicate to the reader which page they would be on (based on their location within the alphabet). ie: (a b c) would be page 1, (d e f) would be page 2 and so on. I wasn't quite sure how to do it, but this was the beginning of my process.
During Process 4 I continued playing around with the alphabet idea with page numbers, trying it out on the side and such because it would work better page to page. Wasn't sure I was digging it yet. To clompy; not elegant.
By the time Process 5 rolled around I had figured out how to do my page numbers (which are one of my favorite aspects of the book), switched around a few spreads as I began to prepare filling modules with body copy, and decided where my images and pull-out quotes would be place. I also changed the headings a bit to fit within the grey module. Although I hadn't though of it, a good friend of mine pointed out that when I did that he read the headings as separate words because they were not all together. So it was.
In process 6 I really focused in the second spread's look (the first page of body text), feel, and layout so that I could replicate that same feeling with the other spreads. I changed the corners of the modules to be rounded because it reflected Goudy Old Style. If you look closely, none of the letters (with exception of the uppercase G and lowercase t and f) have outwardly sharp points. All around generously rounded to give a organic, calligraphic feel. Hence, I rounded off all my outwardly corners on my modules. I fine-tuned spread one and prepared pull-out quotes for the other spreads. Spread 2 was practically complete (with minor tweaks later) and the rest would be replicated to feel like this spread. Spread 1 was still undeveloped but would contain the title page and table of continence.
And now for the final book design! I had the most fun designing the cover and the table of continence page. Because I enjoyed my page numbering so much I decided to incorporate that into my cover design as well. On the back I wanted to sort of mimic a type specimen book by showing all the possible cuts of the typeface. I would then extract the letters of G O U D Y which would move onto the front cover to die cut circles that held the respective letterforms (actually on page 2 of the book). This tied in with my page number design and added an interesting detail on the front cover that would draw readers into the book. I found some beautiful lead type images of Goudy Old Style that said "i love typography" but I edited it to read "i love" and had Goudy Old Style below it. So the book reads "i love GOUDY OLD STYLE". The position of the title was very tricky to get right with keeping 3 pages in mind (cover for image, page 00 with the g, and page 01). In this case, form an function became one and I ended up with a fantastic result and cohesiveness. It took some brain power, but I made it happen! Also, I muted the colors even more to enhance the elegant feel for the book. Without further ado, here is the final book. After the computer images I managed to snap some pictures of the book before I had to hand it in for good.
Front and Back Cover
Spread 1 (pages 00 and 01)
Spread 2 (pages 02 and 03)
Spread 3 (pages 04 and 05)
Spread 4 (pages 06 and 07)
Spread 5 (pages 08 and 09)
Pictures of physical book (sorry for the bad quality, my camera phone was all I had on me):
I got my book printed at Alpha21 graphics in Southfield, MI. I ended up printing the book twice because I accidentally typoed my instructors last name. Opps. I wanted to fix some of the colors as well and location of some things on the first spread anyway. I HIGHLY recommend them for any other graphic designers or students. They are a little bit more expensive than Kinko's, but worth every penny. The colors are more accurate than Kinko's (Kinko's yellow was nasty),their imaging was smooth (not patterned and mushy like Kinko's can become) and they knew what I was talking about graphic designer to graphic designer (always a plus). They were very friendly and extremely helpful. When I went back to reprint my book (because I wanted a correct spelling of my professors name for portfolio reasons) they printed it a no charge. So very nice of them. If you are ahead of your game and have time—I highly recommend Alpha 21. If you're running behind and expect them to print your things immediately upon request (they have a lot of other projects they are doing as well) I would not recommend it. Don't go in their last minute and expect to become their number 1 priority. Patience and kindness go a long way.
Typography II: Assignment II
Ah, done with the first assignment. What could be next but an introductory assignment into THE GRID. Love it or hate it, I don't mind it. It helps me organize my thinking better. The more and more I work with the grid, the more and more I love it. Some think of it as restrictive, but I find you can really get crazy if you wanted to.
Anyway, on we go! In the second assignment we were gearing up to make four 8 page accordion fold books, the first one having very restricted specs, and consecutively allow more variables in design. We were to continue using the typeface we had chosen for our first assignment. We were given an article to use as body copy. We were instructed to create a simple grid with columns and a few flow lines. Our grid would be used on all 4 books. The point was to get the basics down first time around. Smart thinking. Here is my first grid. Looking back, I would not have created this grid the way I did, especially with such narrow columns. I struggled once I was allowed to bridge over columns. You'll see.
On a side note, I didn't realize it until now, but apparently I didn't get the best quality of pictures when I saved them from PDFs. The blurry smudgy stuff is not part of the design, just saving issues I will resolve next time.
The first book was everything being 9 pt. text. Only variables allowed were leading and tracking. Additionally we had to stay within the column of our grid design. Also, I don't know what I was thinking when I was accordion folding my book. Apparently I thought the first page should start on the outside instead of the inside which created Page, Spread, Spread, Spread, Page instead of 4 Spreads. The first book is the only book I messed this up on. After that I corrected the issue and things turned out better. Here is the first book, first an entire view of the layout to see how well the book flowed for the reader, and second postings to show what spreads looked like within the book.
Full Layout
Page 1
Spread 1 (pages 2 and 3)
Spread 2 (pages 4 and 5)
Spread 3 (pages 6 and 7)
Page 8
So, book 1 done. On to book 2! Here I had all variables from book one, but was allowed to use family members of Goudy Old Style (no more than 3 though). Thus, I could use bold, italic, and bold italic. Here are the results.
Full Layout
Spread 1 (pages 1 and 2)
Spread 2 (pages 3 and 4)
Spread 3 (pages 5 and 6)
Spread 4 (pages 7 and 8)
Hi ho! Off to book 3. New variations were ability to change size of type and being able to bridge paragraphs over columns. I was really looking forward to being able to bridge columns this time because I found out how difficult it was to read body copy with slim columns. Problem is, I only created 4 columns... which did not allow much flexibility in paragraph size. Boo! I found myself stuck compromising good design for the grid. This is the one book I hated that grid. I wish I could have started all over, but this was part of the learning process. I'm glad I struggled that much, really taught me things to avoid in the future! Additionally I was faced with creating a layout that was different from the first two. My grid didn't really allow for that either. Book three was a struggle and I even changed the layout a couple of times. Here are the results. Not sure I dig.
Full Layout
Spread 1 (pages 1 and 2)
Spread 2 (pages 3 and 4)
Spread 3 (pages 5 and 6)
Spread 4 (pages 7 and 8)
For book 4 we were allowed all of our previous variables and were now allowed to use shapes and shades of grey. I really enjoyed working with this one because I the shapes added a much needed color to the page that was lacking in book 3. I was quite happy on how book 4 turned out.
Full Layout
Spread 1 (pages 1 and 2)
Spread 2 (pages 3 and 4)
Spread 3 (pages 5 and 6)
Spread 4 (pages 7 and 8)
Although I didn't mention it earlier, each book had three steps of process. One was thumb-nailing, two was cut paste, three was computer stage, and four was making the book. I was on the line as to if I liked cut paste, I didn't find it necessary to do every time, but I would most defiantly go to it if I was stuck.
Let me know what you think of the books! I would post pictures of the physical books themselves, but sadly they are still in my process book which is with my professor.
Anyway, on we go! In the second assignment we were gearing up to make four 8 page accordion fold books, the first one having very restricted specs, and consecutively allow more variables in design. We were to continue using the typeface we had chosen for our first assignment. We were given an article to use as body copy. We were instructed to create a simple grid with columns and a few flow lines. Our grid would be used on all 4 books. The point was to get the basics down first time around. Smart thinking. Here is my first grid. Looking back, I would not have created this grid the way I did, especially with such narrow columns. I struggled once I was allowed to bridge over columns. You'll see.
On a side note, I didn't realize it until now, but apparently I didn't get the best quality of pictures when I saved them from PDFs. The blurry smudgy stuff is not part of the design, just saving issues I will resolve next time.
The first book was everything being 9 pt. text. Only variables allowed were leading and tracking. Additionally we had to stay within the column of our grid design. Also, I don't know what I was thinking when I was accordion folding my book. Apparently I thought the first page should start on the outside instead of the inside which created Page, Spread, Spread, Spread, Page instead of 4 Spreads. The first book is the only book I messed this up on. After that I corrected the issue and things turned out better. Here is the first book, first an entire view of the layout to see how well the book flowed for the reader, and second postings to show what spreads looked like within the book.
Full Layout
Page 1
Spread 1 (pages 2 and 3)
Spread 2 (pages 4 and 5)
Spread 3 (pages 6 and 7)
Page 8
So, book 1 done. On to book 2! Here I had all variables from book one, but was allowed to use family members of Goudy Old Style (no more than 3 though). Thus, I could use bold, italic, and bold italic. Here are the results.
Full Layout
Spread 1 (pages 1 and 2)
Spread 2 (pages 3 and 4)
Spread 3 (pages 5 and 6)
Spread 4 (pages 7 and 8)
Hi ho! Off to book 3. New variations were ability to change size of type and being able to bridge paragraphs over columns. I was really looking forward to being able to bridge columns this time because I found out how difficult it was to read body copy with slim columns. Problem is, I only created 4 columns... which did not allow much flexibility in paragraph size. Boo! I found myself stuck compromising good design for the grid. This is the one book I hated that grid. I wish I could have started all over, but this was part of the learning process. I'm glad I struggled that much, really taught me things to avoid in the future! Additionally I was faced with creating a layout that was different from the first two. My grid didn't really allow for that either. Book three was a struggle and I even changed the layout a couple of times. Here are the results. Not sure I dig.
Full Layout
Spread 1 (pages 1 and 2)
Spread 2 (pages 3 and 4)
Spread 3 (pages 5 and 6)
Spread 4 (pages 7 and 8)
For book 4 we were allowed all of our previous variables and were now allowed to use shapes and shades of grey. I really enjoyed working with this one because I the shapes added a much needed color to the page that was lacking in book 3. I was quite happy on how book 4 turned out.
Full Layout
Spread 1 (pages 1 and 2)
Spread 2 (pages 3 and 4)
Spread 3 (pages 5 and 6)
Spread 4 (pages 7 and 8)
Although I didn't mention it earlier, each book had three steps of process. One was thumb-nailing, two was cut paste, three was computer stage, and four was making the book. I was on the line as to if I liked cut paste, I didn't find it necessary to do every time, but I would most defiantly go to it if I was stuck.
Let me know what you think of the books! I would post pictures of the physical books themselves, but sadly they are still in my process book which is with my professor.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Typography II: Assignment I
For our first assignment we were instructed to choose a typeface off a list she had provided knowing that we were going to be researching and examining the typeface we had chosen in-depth. I decided to step outside of my comfort zone and pick a typeface I hadn't experience yet or used at all. My choice? Goudy Old Style. For the assignment we had to create 12 8x8 compositions that related to given terms. We were instructed to communicate the term in the most effective way by using only that typeface as shape. The areas we had to explore were: shape/mass, typographic color/value, texture, and structure/proportions. Each area required 3 compositions expressing those terms. In addition we had to write a paper about the typeface and our observation and use portions of our paper in the body copy for our solutions. I struggled the most (as did my peers) with differentiating texture from typographic color the most. I wasn't completely satisfied with all of my compositions. I was trying to stay away from obvious solutions and create something new (although some of these were destined to become so based on restrictions). Also some obvious solutions work, I was really pushing to solve the problem with new solutions. I tried to create solutions that were unique to Goudy Old Style by highlighting its features. I'll star the ones I think came out the best.
Here we go!
Shape/Mass
*
Value/Typographic color
Texture
Structure/Proportions
*
*
Here we go!
Shape/Mass
*
Value/Typographic color
Texture
Structure/Proportions
*
*
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