Brief 3 / Colour Choices

Pantone

I was feeling a bit stuck with what colour my graphic design guide book, as I'd originally chosen to do it CMYK to appeal to designers, but as I did this I realised it looked awful, and was too cliche anyway. So it was suggested to me to look on the Pantone website for some inspiration.

This is the colour of the year for next year, and I think it would be really appropriate to use this colour as it has an interesting reason for use behind it, and also because luckily this colour would be appealing to both a male and female audience.

The current colour, but I don't think this would really appeal to the male audience.

Lots of different colour combinations, any of which could potentially work.

Wikipedia

Here are the previous years colours of the year. I didn't know about this until recently, but the chosen colour can really effect trends for the year, so I think it would be really relevant to use the upcoming years colour.

Here are some colours which would work well with the emerald colour, if I decided to include a few different colours. I might decided to keep it simple 2 colours or could add these other shades.

Brief 3 / International Typographic Style

I was looking for a style of design that would appeal to the target audience, and decided to look at the International Typographic Style and Swiss Graphic design inspired work. This is to help me lay out the pages in my book as I just had no idea where to start with them. I am looking at the layout and grid and arrangement of type to inspire some design decisions of my own. Some of the designs reminded me a bit of David Carson's work that I have looked at previously. 

international typographic style / swiss design google search

http://www.aisleone.net/categories/international-typographic-style/

 

I'm going to have a play around with my layouts using these designs as an example of where to start. I need to be careful that I'm not going off topic with this style of design, and that the layout will still work with the quotes without looking too much.

Visiting Professional: Joe Gilmore / Publications (Brief 3)

As well as finding the invites shown to us by visiting professional Joe Gilmore from Quibk really inspiring and relevant to what I am doing, (see blog post), I also was impressed with his publication design. I'm a bit stuck with my publication design brief so seeing lots of examples of well designed, interesting pieces makes me more excited to get started, and gave me lots of ideas.

The publications are quite interesting because of a few factors, such as:

- a mix of different stocks in the same publication, sometimes to separate different sections, and to allow some pages to be printed with only one colour

- a mix of typefaces and styles can also keep things interesting and standing out from other publications

- a good quality cover can be simple but effective, especially the examples printed on to really nice quality textured fabric

- a subtle use of a print finish can make a really simple cover stand out

- don't just print on to paper, really consider stock choice and its relevance to the piece

- experiment with different types of binding, such as spiral bound books for a change

- people will love to interact with publications with fold out pages 

- the colour choice is really important and a special spot colour may be what makes a piece stand out

Brief 3 / Book Binding and Folds

For the book that I am creating, the actual binding of the book will be as important as the design of the book, to make a book that is interesting and stands out from other books with a similar purpose. I don't really know much about book binding, so I need to bare this in mind when choosing a way of binding my book together, but it is also a skill I plan to improve on. I want my book to look hand made in terms of being interesting and enjoyable to interact with, but I want it to be high quality and look professional.

Here are some of the folds that I would like to try (found via google image search)

French Folds

Here the binding is as good to look at as the design, and this unusual type of binding allows for something to be featured on the inside pages, which could allow for a creative outcome.

Concertina

This is an easy fold to do and one I have done before, but these examples show how it can look really good, especially if there is a particular purpose for it being a concertina book. These examples have also reminded me that I do need to consider how the cover will be made and how it will support the binding.

Stitched Binding

http://laurenkidner.tumblr.com

Book binding doesn't have to be boring, these examples show how very decorative creations can be made to suit the purpose of the design.

I don't know if this type of binding would be suitable for the purpose of the book, but it is something I do want to try at some stage, as the binding of the book makes what could otherwise be a plain cover interesting. 

Spiral Bind

I think this would be quite relevant to the product I am trying to create, and would look clean and professional. The possibilities of adding in envelopes and pockets could mean making my book interactive, so the students can add their own notes to it.

Brief 3 / Book Design

http://www.hat-trickdesign.co.uk

This is an amazing book of some projects Hat Trick have worked on that Andy brought in to show me which has completely inspired what I will do for this brief. I don't want to end up just copying this book but there are so many aspects of it that I like that it has really made me think of loads of ideas at a time when I was a bit stuck with my design ideas.

I love the A7 size, its quite unusual for a book to be printed this size, but makes it seem like a pocket keepsake you can carry around with to easily look at for inspiration, which is something that it would be useful if you could do with the rule book I aim to create. Although the book is tiny in size, it still contains a good amount of content to keep the reader interested.

The inside pages are printed on to thick glossy paper, which really helps the colours of the designs shown inside to stand out. I haven't printed on to this stock before so it might be a good idea to try this. Each project featured in the book has quite a few pages dedicated to it, so although it is still a small book, the information is arranged in a way that does not over crowd the page. The book contains minimal text to make the images stand out.

I also really like the cover, as it is so simplistic, and might even be considered boring if it wasn't for the spot varnish, which makes this book really appeal to the target audience of graphic designers. Because it is such a small area, I think anything else would be too much, so I think the design of this cover and book is spot on and will influence the design decisions I make for my book.

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This is a photograph of some of the books that I have, and I do think that a smaller size book works really well when the book is a keepsake to be treasured. The smaller the better I think for making it interesting, as you don't often get the smaller books, so it would be quite unusual. Stock choices and print finishes are also important, as well as how the book will be bound.

Brief 3/ Glyph Based Type

This is nice... someone found it for me in the crit.

This is the original poster that inspired this project

There isn't much glyph based type out there already, so there isn't much for me to research, but I think this is good in a way as it makes my design ideas stand out.

Brief 3/ Graphic Design Rulebooks

I am looking at existing Graphic Design rulebooks to consider their content and look at their design, and how my rulebook can stand out from what is already available. When I started doing this brief I didn't realise that there were already a few rulebooks available so its important I create something different.

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This book is more about business success in general rather than graphic design. I like the simplistic type only cover, that makes a dramatic statement with its bold text. I want my book to be mainly focused on type, so I think I will have a front cover also without an image.

The different coloured foils add a bit of excitement to the cover and stop it from being boring. I think I'd liked to include some sort of print finish to my book as I want to make it appealing and exciting.

Instead of just included a quote, it is usually backed up with a bit of a text and a relevant image. I think this is something I will need to do for my book, for it to make sense. While I do want it to look good, I need to make sure that it does have a purpose and is actually useful as its purpose is intended for.

I think this is just the right amount of text to include to give out useful advice but to keep it looking good and easy to read, as the target audience will be more visual learners.

The book cover is quite glossy and folds out. I like the idea of using different textured and weighted stocks in my book to make it a bit more exciting, and I think this will appeal to the target audience of graphic designers.

I like the mixture of simplistic pages containing only a quote compared to the pages with more detail and images and text.

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This is another example of a graphic design rulebook but I don't think its set out as well, as while it might contain a lot of relevant information, I think there is a bit too much going on. There are a mix of colours and many bright images and sometimes its like the different information is fighting for attention.

Again I think including text backing up what the rules are about is a good idea, and maybe including some examples of graphic design that are relevant to the quote instead of just a random image.

The rules are set out in to chapters which I think is a good idea as some of the rules I thought of for my book are quite similar, so I could do a chapter on time management etc..

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There are a few other books I want to try and get my hands on such as:

- Thou Shall Not Use Comic Sans and Other Graphic Design Sins and Virtues

- Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite