COP3 : design development

Book:

I have decided to definitely use the above colour scheme after experimenting with other contrasting colours I feel I now know that these colours are definitely  the right ones. There is a big enough contrast to give a striking look but at the same time not distort the other visuals like images and logo.

After experimenting with layout I decided that the book needed to have a different aesthetic quality to it but still maintain the colour scheme and logo as the constants for recognition. I much prefer this layout for the book. It looks more like a book then the other layouts due to the fact the image of the brain has been removed and just the line drawing remains and many books use the hand rendered quality so there is that association there.

 

These are the two possible version of the cover. I think the violet one works best as there is not as much contrast between the white and purple which makes the white line drawing and logo stand out more and more legible.

Magazine:

 

Inside the magazine I want to include break pages which will act as ways to get the brain thinking more creatively. This is an example of what one of them could be 'Deface the face'. This would be a break page where the audience is invited to deface the face of the man, altering it however there mind wants to, bringing the brain into the creative flow and fast moving spontaneous effect of the brain that occurs during moments of improvisation when jazz musicians play, or illustrators draw, which this task would be mimicking the illustrator drawing freestyle.

COP3 : Magazine practical research

Magazine research:

As I am creating a magazine I decided it would be wise to look at some magazines to decide what sort of visual style I want to achieve. I decided to look at my own collection of magazines rather than source online magazine as I think id get a better feel from looking at a primary souce magazine that is real life in front of me so I can see the actual point size of the typography and format, size stock of the magazine etc.

From looking at the magazine it became clear to me that the style I want to achieve is a minimalistic style take for example Cereal magazine I really like how clean the layout is and how much the text breaths on the page it makes it a lot easier to take in both the text and the imagery because there are no over complications , I really like this style of editorial design especially when I compare it to another magazine like creative review, which is full of interesting articles, but because they are so busy and sometime feature advertisement I find reading the magazine very distracting and often end up not soaking in the information or missing things or just giving up all together. Grafik magazine would be like a half way house between the two it has more visually going in it then in Cereal magazine but, the layout feels a lot simpler compared to creative review, maybe this is due to the format, Grakik is standard a4 size, where as Creative review is square. Grafik works well and holds my attention when reading it.

For my magazine I want to achieve the sparse look as I want my audience to face no distractions this magazine is about creativity and I don't want my audiences attention to wander whilst reading the interviews, but I do want their mind to freely wander the page. I want the actuall act of the audience to let their attention and mind wander freely together on the break pages where there will be creative tasks like inviting them to doodle on a person face.

I am going to really consider things like stock when it comes to the magazine as after looking at these magazine I can see how important it is, so I will purchase some decent print paper at 120gsm so that the images don't show through but it is still thin enough to work as paper.

Grafik -

Curious Iconic craft -

Creative Review

Cereal -

COP 3 : Design development

Magazine :

To make sure I have chosen the best colour scheme I decided to try out some different contra tong colours whilst experimenting with raw layout of the front cover.

Out of these different contrastive colours I think the Pink and lime green works well as a contrast but there is to much of a fight oh the page between the green and white logo, so it is a struggle to read it which means this colour will not be used. I will however use this layout for the front cover as I feel with the correct colours it will be quite striking.

Book:

For the book I want there to a distinct difference between the magazine and book, but at  the same  the still be easily recognisable as part of the same range,

This is the layout I have tried first whilst still experimenting with contrasting colours. I have used the same imagery as the magazine, but applied it in a different way which will allow the range to work visual as a whole. The lines have been added to represent the notion of ideas coming out of the brain.

This is an experiment to see if I could 'invert' as such the way the colours are appled to the magazine / book. I don't know think it works very well as the orange work well as binding tape but when it is the full cover colour it is quite over bearing and doesn't give off a quality aesthetic feel.

 

I don't think the full brain with lines is working very well on the book cover. Although I want the range to be recognised as a whole, I think the similarities are too close. If I apply and stick to colour scheme, plus use the logo that should be enough for the book and magazine to work as a set. So I will continue to experiment with the book cover layout.

COP3 : Primary research Questions for designers

Final Questions:

After speaking with Simon and John I had more of a clear aim of what I wanted to ask the professional designers and with further research into my subject and knowing the structure of my essay and which chapter I was going to use the answers for I was able to form questions which would benefit my research the most, these are as follows -

Is the process of creating an idea mechanical or is it more of a moment of inspiration what is your process for approaching a brief?

Do you think creativity is important within Graphic Design are there any specific areas of design where creativity is most necessary?

If you hit a a wall on a project do you have a specific method for untangling the problem and furthering your ideas, do you have any unusual methods of stimulating creativity, do you see any benefits in learning some? 


Does the design of your studio space influence the way you work?

I Decided to conduct my interviews in the format of email rather than in person / over the phone as due to being dyslexic and dyspraxic I know that I struggle with retaining information and find it hard to explain in words clear explanations so if I had conducting my interviews in person/on phone there is a high chance I would have wandered off subject / not noted the information down correct and as I didn't want to jeopardise my answers from the designers email was the best possible way. Bellow is the list of correspondence I have sent the interview out to. I aim to get at least 3 -4 back to give me a more rounded feedback which  I will be able to make connection between and draw conclusions.

COP3 : Test experiment for Illumination Book.

Test experiment for Illumination Book.

This is the format I have created for the illumination book I decided to test it before I started making the layout of the book as the both depend on one and other and due to the fact it is a complicated format for the book it is very interactive and breaks the natural flow of a book whilst sticking to the fundamentals of book binding, which is the same gist as Graphic design we are always told we should learn the rules of graphic design before we break them and through applying this to a different context I can definitely see why this is so important. Now that I have my book I will move on the creating what is actually going inside, which I have been doing inside this mock book, I just need to refine the layout and digitise it.