OUGD404 Design Principles: Studio Brief 02 - Development

OUGD404 Design Principles - Development

From my research and critique I have decided to go with creating by book in a similar aesthetic of a magazine. I think it will be interesting have this aesthetic but with the content of this website as it isn't something you would expect to see within this. The book itself will have similar qualities therefore to a zine as it is its own independent publications raising awareness. I started off my creating initial sketches to how I want the page layouts to look informed by my research. For the images within the publications they had to be sourced from the internet due to the nature of the images. From previous experience I knew I had to get the same images but with good resolution so the PPI is high as from the past I had not known about this and had to change around my images. Therefore I made sure that each image had a decent PPI so it would print off to a good standard. As well as collecting the same images from the website, I also thought it would be good to collect more recent image that also fit the nature of these advertisements to keep the book up to date, for example using images from American Apparel who are known for their highly sexual campaigns.

 I decided to have the book A5 as lot of magazines and zines are this size so they are most accessible and easier to read. Once I started off digitising my sketches and started to put together the book, I found I made quite a lot of changes throughout. I changed my grid quite a few times to see what worked best but I stuck with a 2x4 grid, this helped me a lot to organise my structure and provide consistency. I used flush left for all of my type but controlling the shape of the rag proved the hardest thing for me. It was the most time consuming shifting text from line to line to obtain a better profile and in most cases I had to accept that the ruag was never going to be perfect and some - that an orphan was unavoidable for the best potential rag. I turned the hyphenation off in addition as within my text there seemed to be around three hyphens minimum in one block of text which would to tiring for the eye. I believe the shape of the rugged side is the best its going to be as I spent a lot of time working on it, overall I am happy with it and have tried to also keep the optimum 7-10 words across for reading.

My columns are all around 68mm therefore I chose to have a 10 pt font size. Although 8 pt is best and most common to use, I felt that 10 pt was a better size within this book as it allowed the optimum 7-10 words per line with no hyphenation and I believe as well its a good clear size. The heading, sub headings and page numbers are all aligned to the margins and grid so the page looks more balanced as well. I decided to repeat the layout of the pages to keep consistency also. I have also included a drop cap in the first page after the contents as from my research in magazines they are often used and I wanted to keep this same aesthetic. 

I have kept the idea of using full bleed and overlapping an image onto a double page spread as so. I have been shifting these images though with text to see how both can work together and create a balanced juxtaposition. I think the use of the line which I have included in all of the layouts helps to create this balance as it is an indication for for the text for all of the pages.  

This is a slightly different page within my book as it focuses on the statistics, therefore I wanted to use numbers as the main point of focus rather than images, and I thought it was good to break the balance slightly. I still used the same layout, font and grid however so there still is consistency within the layout.

These are the typefaces I have decided to go with. I wanted to limit myself for consistency. Therefore I have used Ratio Modern Small Caps for the title, Proxima for headings, Minion Pro Regular for Contents and numbers and Verdana Regular for body text and subheadings. After careful consideration, I believe these were the best choice as for the title, I wanted something similar to Bodoni or Didot as these are what's used for typical fashion magazines such as Vogue and Elle. While for the heading and body text I wanted a really clear and minimal typeface, and I found that Minion Pro Regular had the most aesthetically pleasing numbers and worked well within the contents page having a serif type. 

The front and back cover was the last thing that produced but I knew from the very start what I wanted to produce. I used Vogue as inspiration for the title typeface but from my initial thumbnail sketches I wanted to play around with the use of covering a woman's face. 

These are experiments I've used with just a photo I've taken from the internet to test how this idea would look. I've tried different variations of this but ultimately I think a block white box works best as it blocks the models face and gives more focus to the title as well. I wanted to use this box to cover the face as I think it relates to the content of the book as it signifies that advertisements place emphasis on the sexual nature of a woman and her body rather than her characteristics or skills. This emulates this as the box covers the face and covers the women behind the image just as advertisements do. 

I took my own photographs after deciding on a final design. I wanted use a close up head shot like the picture I took off the internet as I felt this effect was more striking for a cover as the box would clearly completely cover the face. I tried out different people and felt that Sophie worked best as her hair was so prominent, it would clearly capture that this was a women behind the box. I also felt that the colours worked better once I lowered the opacity of the picture to give the photograph a subtler effect, and place more emphasis on the title 'Women in Ads.'

This was the final design put together which I think works well as a whole. This then gave me the idea to put the back of her head on the back page to echo the back but also as you cannot see her face still, it carries on the idea of hiding her face to objectify her rather than see her for herself as advertising does.

From a critique that I held with my peers I good really useful feedback in that I should have an introduction, and also that my rag could be worked on. In terms of the rag and I then went back again and spent more time trying to shift text and editing it to work on it further. It was still a struggle however and I still had to accept in some cases, that there would have to be orphans. I think the best example of the rag within my book would be the introduction which I then added in. The introduction and the contents page work well for me as there are elements of the front cover mirrored in this such as Ratio Modern Small Caps for the title and a box around the contents. I think the box helps separate the two pages more so you can clearly realise that the first is an introduction which then leads onto the contents.

Once I was finally happy and felt that I didn't need to change anything more, I made mock ups to see how the book would look printed to see if anything further needed to be done. In addition I created four rough mock ups to experiment with the binding. I tried out saddle stitch, japanese stitch, pamphlet stitch and perfect binding. I felt that the saddle and pamphlet stitch worked best for these mock ups as the pages were easy to fold over, perfect binding left the pages more folded like you would find in a novel and the japanese stitch I found would not be appropriate to use as it requires single sheets of paper, and overall would not be appropriate for a magazine aesthetic. 

Pamphlet Stitch

Japanese Stitch

Perfect Binding

Saddle Stitch

Once printed, I was happy with the look overall although I printed my front cover out again as the colours from this and the back page were not quite matching. Unfortunately it still wasn't quite right on the second try but due to funds and time I decided to keep it how it is. From my research I have found that saddle stitch is often used for magazines and zines but from my understanding of the brief, it would be best to use another method of binding. I therefore thought that perfect binding would be the most appropriate for my book as it is often used for magazines, however due to the nature of this binding method I wasn't sure whether or not it would work as I would need a bigger gutter on my pages or else they would all fold in and parts of the images would not be seen. As I have not had an introduction to perfect binding I only found this out after I had printed unfortunately so I wasn't sure whether or not it would really work. My back up plan is to use a pamphlet stitch as I think it gives the book more of a zine feel to it and portrays that it is an independant book made by a student but still keeps this magazine aesthetic. Mainly though as a pamphlet stitch clearly lets you open out the pages so none of the images would be distorted and you can fold the pages over to read like you would with a magazine.