Yearbook proof-read

So yesterday we printed a first colour version of the yearbook off and had it proof read, there were a hell of a lot of mistakes to do with punctuation, grammer and spelling as well. Thats what you get when you just copy and paste text. nevermind.

so I went through and made the ammendments only to discover a few more. We are sending it off on monday and just need to make sure its tip top.

Library Branding

So in order to widen and deepen my grasps into the library signage brief, I spent a few hours coming up with a logo to which then could be applied to other media which the Library could use it for. I think this makes sense they had taken me off some of the panels and reduced the workload by a fair bit which left me rather unfulfilled. In return I got given the duty of doing some photocopier posters etc, and now I think it is appropriate to add this to the branding as it seems logical. Notices can have the logo on it, and it ties up a large (formerly looser) section of the project which I hadn't intended to partake. The library also has their own flyers and leaflets which I have re-designed and made more... suiting to the branding.

Above are the photos of my development with the logo. I selected a very simple 2 shape logo, the reasoning for this is that the library has a very distinct architectural build of an arched roof leading to a section with an upstairs (the mezzanine... hence the square section). It made sense as a visual representation. I saw no point in having to brand it with an actual name, although originally sought to but felt that the library is not a corporate organization and as it stands, exists within the knowledge of those within the institution and those in the local area. It is distinct enough for the population it currently reaches out to. Without sounding like a contradiction, a brand like Apple with their "apple" manages to be iconic without using the actual spelt word of the organization.

Its simple, it works, it can work on any scale, any colour, its versitile, it says enough without saying anything. Job done?

Design Context: Recieved with problems.

Well I recieved my books today, all 3. They look amazing, except there is no border/ outer margin. Basically, I set up a print document to their specification with full bleed, allowing them the required 3.13mm outer margin allowance for trimming. not only have they taken the liberty of trimming that 3.13mm, but the additional 10mm that I left for my margins. Thats a total of 13.13mm all around my book. Fantastic.

Except I didn't want that to happen.

I've emailed them, in hope that they will admit their wrong-doing and reprint them with no charge, within the time constraints that I have left (8 business days). Otherwise its the good old PDF jobby for me.

Yearbook: Foil/ Cover Decisions

Right, so the other thing to address with the yearbook is the cover. Me and Jimmy are kind of decided that it should be simple but in honesty Jimmy is in charge of this. He loves creative typography and title design which is his specialism, so he's leading this one. We're going for a serif number "1", its going to be foil printed... We got some samples sent to us by Duffield, and they are really nice, but because they haven't sent us the sample cover we re finding it hard to guess the tone of brown and which foil will work. Since we are the first year, we're thinking gold... makes sense right?

Yearbook: Done... well almost.

So this week me and Jimmy have been firing through the Yearbook, getting on course-mates backs about details and captions etc. We have finally collected everything we need and yesterday (saturday) was our last straw being that anyone who had not sent us their information was now getting our interpretations of their projects. There were only 2 cases of this, but I will not name those people.

Anyhow, the list was massive. But they were just little tweaks really. There was one major change to the yearbook which was that I moved the contact details underneath the student name/ photo, as this made more sense. Having 3 thin lines on each outer margin of the pages meant that we were effectively losing a large percentage of the spread and being that we were losing a little bit from the passive gutter (where the book opens, there is a little grey area in the gutter where people will not pay attention to). Therefore, decided that the best option was to eliminate one side of these sections and reduce it to 1 section on the left hand side. This allows so much more breathing space and gets rid of the aesthetic quality which I think me and Jimmy decided to do because we wanted to try different things, ie. vertical text lines. Which are hard to read and requires the reader to turn the book or tilt the head.

Anyway, the other major thing on the list was to actually choose a colour, a tone which was "now" yet "timeless". So... not grey, but still neutral in every sense of the word. It must not overpower the work and should suit the colour of the cover (brown board). We looked at Graffik and a couple of books on type, even looked at some fashion mags for colour trends. We thought a pale pink was a good idea but then realised that on matte, it looks beautiful. But on silk stock, it may give off other connotations... So now we're going for pale yellow... Which is friendly, neither masculine nor feminine, dark nor too light, suits brown and is essentially... an actual colour. Thank god. I love colour now, I really do, colour (when justified to use) has so much impact.

Research: Sign Systems

Before you read on, I just want to say that this is not a resource which I wish to add to my FMP. This is exactly the opposite.

I just don't get it. Why would a company try to sell themselves with such a horrible website? This post may get me in trouble if anyone finds it, I just can't believe how bad this website is. I genuinely started to feel a bit ill looking at it. The cropping of the images, the colours, the name and the flash embedded bubble banner... This is vulgarity.

http://www.signsystems.uk.com/SignSolutions.aspx

FINAL CRIT :(

Right so, this is just to sum up what was said in the final crit we just had, dare I say that it is quite sad that we may no longer have a major crit as a group anymore.

So anyway, was really useful. Put up some of my work which I kind of felt unsure about. IE the library stuff, I had put up some proposal boards which I thought were "okay" and I know when something is "okay" it obviously isn't good enough. So we had a discussion on what I should do from here on in, with 2 weeks left. Basically, turning the library thing BEYOND the what they asked me to do. So now I get to do whatever I want for it, within certain parameters such as the colour and type. I need to show the signs in the context they are in. I can mock up the panels on the sides and hope that when they see my work that they will take it on as it will be strong enough for them to not resist.

Also, if I am considering doing something large scale then perhaps for the 180 I could promote the publication. Immediate thoughts are that it would be difficult to publish something self-indulgent to a particular audience... Cept I think perhaps for a campaign to get people to read more perhaps? Not saying that my vocabulary was such a shamble that I am in dire need of re-immersing myself in the fundamental part of the educational system. Who knows, maybe I do!

Also, I am think going about furthering some of the testimonial stuff... If I have time. I think I could display the typeface in a nice way... but that again seems to lack a purpose other than to just... display it nicely. hmmm...

This also means that since my crit with joe gilmore last week where i proposed to promote some poetry will not be going ahead as it is not feasible in the time that i have left. I can persue this interest with greater consideration come post-hand-in where I am hoping to stay in Leeds for a while to complete some more work over the summer.

Got alot to do with the yearbook aswell, the list goes on.

We shall see.