Brief 10_ Final Boards

10

Brief 10 - Art & design Evaluation

Adam Garbutt

Evaluation
Brief 10 – Art & Design Yearbook

Create the end of year show publication for Art and Design Interdisciplinary 2015 ready for print. The title and theme of the book is Precipice. The course is in it’s final year, the theme of precipice represents the ending of the course and new beginnings of the students.

This is probably one of the only briefs this year; I’ve really not enjoyed all to well. Although it was a collaborative, it wasn’t there that the problem laid, it was with the client. The tutors from Art & Design and their entourage of reps to discuss their ideas with where a inconvenience and a nuisance when things got busy. Such as the week we needed to hand in the proof copy,  we were still missing most of the work and it required a chain of command to get messages from one end to the other. This really put a dampening on the project, even though me and Sam are both proud of the outcome it’s just disheartening when we put so much work into something and we don’t get the same amount of work back from the people we are making it for.

It’s given me  a new perspective on client work, and how much of a hassle they can be when it comes to relying on them for the copy for a project, because without content the project can’t move forward. The outcome we came up with though, is really nice and I actually enjoyed making the front cover and designing the insides. I just didn’t enjoy the hassle of chasing up work and copy.

Interdisciplinary Yearbook Final (Pre-Proof)

Since the book won't be printed until after the submission point, here are mockups to contextualise what we have created. 

Yearbook - Format Mockup

We created the following book to take to a meeting to show Cheryl and the Team our new resolution we've come up with to get around the binding problem brought up with the meet with Jason. We want to still stick with the thick format, but we wanted to have a way to cover the fact we can't have a colour of choice matched to tape, and instead it's the other way around. Doing this allows us to avoid the limitation and work with a wider selection of papers. 

We took inspiration from a book sam had and worked it to the format we already had existing to make a mock up. I really liked the look of the blue on the grey board, it's a very fitting colour. 

A spine like this would be more appropriate because it doesn't bind the book to a certain colour.

I created a cover design, I'd had an idea earlier while doing the binding that the words could be on both sides of the front flap, the edge being the precipice. The word on its own is way to big to have a presence so splitting it onto the other side of the flap gives us a lot more real estate to work with.

Yearbook - Initial Layouts

With our new format, me and Sam decided to do our own takes on the yearbook's layout. What we had in mind was something that was thin, but didn't take up much space. The reasoning behind this was to allow as much room as possible for the imagery, this wouldn't have been the case if the students hadn't written so much. 

Inserts seemed the smartest solution to this problem, they wanted them in already however we would have to get a colour of paper that would match our highlight colour which may become a problem.

To fit to this, I created a grid to allow us to easily drop in the images once we had received everything. I wanted to make the process of creating this yearbook as smooth as possible and I didn't want to over complicate it. Due to them mostly sending landscape images, It made sense to go with this layout, It allows for the biggest visual impact.

Yearbook - Cover & layout development

Using the grid we created, I attempted to put together some example pages to show how the book would potentially look like. It's obvious here just how much text they've created for the pages and why the inserts are going to be necessary.

The below was for printing to create the spine cover and to show in the meeting with Cheryl how we intend for it to look.

The feedback from this meeting was VERY positive, they really liked the layout and the thickness of the book. However, the only thing they suggested that me and same are building on is for the inserts to use a tracing paper type of paper so to not cover the work behind it. However, the only things they noted where for the cover to have the Precipice extend onto the grey board with a spot varnish, however this will only complicate things and since we can't test the result of this. We won't be taking this idea forward, as well as that. Some of the team where a bit iffy over the blue been a 'tory' blue, but I guess that comes from reading into everything to much. We like the blue, so we're sticking with it.

Yearbook - 23rd April Layout ideas

Yearbook - Meeting with Jason

Our currently concept for the book was to make something similar to Craig Oldham's lecture book, however we weren't sure before on what the limitations would if and if a book like that is possible with Jason's print company.

However, It turns out we can, but we would have to match our spot colour to the colour of the binding tape. I think for technical reasons, It would be better to avoid this problem to allow me and Sam to get on with the work and figure out a different resolution/format. 

Also, I don't believe Jason can properly print onto the front cover how we would best want it. - So this is another limitation we will have to overcome.

Yearbook - 9th April Initial development

This is first time me and Sam worked together on creating a example. We had ideas but it wasn't till now we'd created something. We both created our initial ideas for how the cover would look, However I didn't really think they where all the good. But It was a starting point and it showed how we wanted to expand from here. We got feedback on these covers before we showed Cheryl and the Team and the most positive feedback was towards Sam's cover which is the one immediately below.                                                                                                       

     

The below was mine, I personally didn't think the idea of having the word all together got the concept of precipice across fully. I would have rather it have being split or to make it more obvious. Although I do like how Sam's cover lets you discover that on your own as a interactive device. 

We tried different sizes of dust covers to see how that would affect the format, I think we both agreed a cover covering the entire edge looked best, aesthetically.

Yearbook: (Format & Layout) Research for Meeting

These boards where created to show during a meeting with the Art & design to discuss the thoughts me and Sam had concerning the format and Layout for the book building on from what we had seen from previous years, such as the books being cheap, thin and grey. We wanted to create something that was the big, thick and colourful to make it stand out at the show and celebrate the course and the student's work.

The feedback was very positive, on all of the above. We want to run a colour throughout the book to act as a spot colour, although we don't yet know what colour that is, Cheryl was very excited about this idea. We just need to now develop this further till we have a format that is okayed with Jason and allows us to make the book appear more than it really is.

• They all loved the idea of a colour highlight
• Something that was thick would be best, due to the low amount of students. This would be the best way to present the yearbook to look more substantial then it actually is.
• We're currently thinking the use of screws would be a good way to give some tactility to the book, make it more a sculpture. They where all positive with this.

Yearbook - Previous Designs

The following are previous yearbook designs the Art & design team have had in the past. – the main issues they had with them, is that they where unspiring or didn't do the work justice.

The issues that me and sam picked up on from looking through these are the following:

• The yearbooks are all very grey with a lack of colour throughout all of them, black and white is primarily used.
• They feel cheap, the quality of the stock is okay, but they don't do them justice in any way.
• The layout for some is questionable.
• The profile pictures don't add anything to the yearbooks, they're very distracting.
• They don't look like something you'd want to pick up.
• They don't make the course look exciting, which is why I suppose it's ending.
• They don't give you a clear idea of what it's about from looking at them.