Brief 1 - Yearbook Evaluation

Brief 1 – Yearbook Evaluation

This Brief entailed designing the Yearbook for Printed Textiles and surface pattern. The aim of this brief, for me, was to work with a live client and produce a publication that would end up going to print. By the end of this brief I had managed to achieve this, whilst learning a lot about working with clients and the problems that can arise from this. Due to the fact that I was nominated as the project leader, this left me in charge of contacting the course leaders and arranging the meetings with both leaders and the design team. Initially this started out quite well but as the brief progressed through the module it was becoming very difficult to get the work from the course leaders, which was extremely frustrating. Originally I wanted to work alongside the students but was reassured that it would work best working with the tutors, in hindsight I wish I had stuck to my guns as when I started working with the students later it worked a lot smoothly. I had set quite big ambitions for this brief, creating mock-ups etc for the course, but due to the lack of co-operation on their behalf this brief had to be put to on hold while I focused on my other briefs. As I mentioned, this was a huge learning curve because once we did manage to get the information we needed, with the help from the students as opposed to the tutors, we had to turn the brief around extremely quickly. Which meant this initial stages I wanted to go through couldn’t be met, due to time frames.

However, with regards to the design team I feel we did work very well together. Bringing together our ideas and delegating roles so that we could produce the best yearbook we could, reflecting the concept we wanted and the style of book the course wanted. Working collaboratively is always a challenge and I think that 5 people was too many, but I think we managed to get a balance between what people wanted to achieve and what we could achieve. Playing to each others strengths, and working together to generate the design. I think with regards to my own skills, I learnt a lot about time management, patience and co-operation. As well as learning technical skills, such as; setting up documents to print, going through the stages of producing something on a mass scale and I have defiantly improved my skills in Photoshop and In-design which is something I was hoping to do.

All of these skills, working and communicating with clients and technical skills will defiantly help me with my future career.

Out of all my briefs this has been the most frustrating and challenging, I am also a little disappointed at the progression of it because it was so difficult getting the information and images and I was hoping to get more out of it. However, due to this I have learnt a lot and it makes me feel more confident about working with difficult clients in the future. 

Ougd303 Brief 1

Yearbook Development `Boards

I have collated a flipbook of stages mapping the yearbook from the initial concept created by my original team, to a selection of correspondents with the tutors. Then moving onto the development and design of the overall yearbook. Decisions made along the way and final production.

Yearbook Proof

We got the yearbook proof back and noticed two things were wrong, the bleed on one page and the pagination was all wrong. will and I spent time working it out and realised that when i sent the .pdf when i removed the cover pages in the document it took our page number down by two settling the pages wrong. We managed to fix it and send it, so its all resolved.

generally im happy with the appearance of the book it follows the concept and that was, in my mind, the main thing.

YEarbook re-szie

After seeing Duncan, we then broke up the book into its separate sections, i had the beginning of the book and the first section and i then went through and had to re-size all the images. This took quite a while, because we had a lot of crop shots. But i did mange to get it done, i then showed both Sai and Sam how to do it so that by the end of the day we could get it sorted and sent to Lorenzo.

Yearbook

We have finalised the yearbook, replaced the images with other work as the left over students didn't submit their work and now its too late. So we could finally send the proof through to duncan.

Dunacne went through it and then i went to see him this morning to clarify the changes and get it signed off so that we would then send it to print with the amendments. 

PHOTOS OF PROFF

Proof

Proof, and things we need to alter. 

Details

Names:
Robyn Russell www.redpixeled.co.uk redpixeled@hotmail.com
Sai Uennatornwaranggoon www.designbysai.co.uk designbysai@gmail.com
Will Duffy www. willduffydesign.co.uk whd1990@gmail.com
Sam Wallbank www.sam-wallbank.co.uk hello@sam-wallbank.co.uk
Paul Brandreth www.paulbrandreth.co.uk info@paulbrandreth.co.uk

Yearbook Layout

Had to change the type and images to for the new layout because the 3rd years have uploaded a load of new images which is great. Also had to change the style of the type so that it fits within the brand guidelines.
I replaced the images, with images that match up quite nicely so that the context of the text won't change that much. The images are of a much better quality which is great and brings the text and layout together well. I think the images from the 3rd years capture the essence of the printed textiles, and showcase the alternative layout and narrative we are trying to get across.

YB LAYOUT new

Names: Wanted a simple layout, no emails or contact details all are available on the website. Had to alter the type face to fit within the brand guidelines.

YB - Layout development

After the meeting, we worked out our responsibilities and part of mine was to begin trying out the typographic layouts for the book itself. After going through the book and highlighting what part would relate to what, it was a lot easier to start experimenting.
We had already agreed that the type face we would use, would be Avant Garde, with the different weights and sizes used to highlight different hierarchy of information.



All the above images, show the experimentation of the different layouts for different pages. We knew that we wanted to mix up the style of images and the way they would be laid out. We had previously been through and selected images that we thought best represented the catagorised disciplines within Printed textiles, so it was a case of just going through and experimenting.
For intro and content page, we wanted them to be minimal and simple, so as not to detract from either. I think the spread across the double page works better, because they eyes can focus on the elements individually but as a whole they balance.
After playing around with the type and the layout i tried adding a simple overlay effect to the type, to try and encompass the image because we want the image to be more striking than the text itself and by overlaying it knocks it back a bit. Im not 100% sure about the images now that they are being laid out but i think with some tweaking, we can get a stronger set. At least we know what style we want. I also decided to try injecting some colour into the text just to see the effect. I think that it works, but im not sure about the colours and this is something we will have to discuss as a group.

//BOOK AS IT STANDS NOW.

Yb - Dropox problems

There have been a few problems with drop box, it turns out if one person has been invited then they have to invite everyone else (news to me!) anyway, the third year textiles were struggling to log in and join the group so Becca emailed me, and since then she has formed a group on FB where everyone can send me their emails and i can invite them separately.

Yb - Email after meeting

After the metting i put an email together with all the information within it, as well as invites to the drop box and the layout of the book categorised properly so that we all had a copy of how the book would function.

// BOOK LAYOUT

YB - MEeting

We had a really successful meeting today, the agenda for it was:
Work out the pages in relation to info and images
Work out who's doing what
Work out images realting to disciplines
Work out initial deadline

So we started out by working out the main points of each discipline, in relation to the images that we have taken and how they can fit within the concept of the book:

1. Material culture - Physical process, contextualistation
2. Drawing and Colour - Drawing, process and Tactility
3. Historical and Conservation - Heritage of design, inspiration
4. Ecology and Sustainability - Sustainable design, inspiration
5. Slow crafting - Craftsmanship, production
6. Culture - space and abstract
7. Progressive technologies - Laser cutting, process, production

Now that we have these titles and overviews, its a lot easier to place the images in relation to the book,
We decided that we wanted all the disciplines outlined at the beginning of the book so that the rest followed the narrative, and it helped outline the way the book would be read and viewed.


We then went through the book and allocated page spread to each section, initially we thought a double page spread per discipline but soon worked out that would take up too much room, so we instead will do 2 disciplines per double page.

We worked out that excluding the information pages, each section (initial ideas, development and final) would have 22 double page spreads each. Which works out well to showcase their work. 

After working out this, i wanted to try and allocate the style of photographs within the disciplines so we went through all the photographs, from the ones we took and the ones that they had supplied us with. 

We also allocated who was working on what:

Sam and Paul - Images, working out the layout and style of photographs for the sections

Sai and Robyn - Brand imagery (Sai front cover) Typography, and layout of type (Robyn)

Will - Help with images and book cover designs.

YB - Dropbox

Duncan, as promised, emailed the third years with regards to the drop box and what he wanted them to do, which was good. I have also signed up to the account so hopefully we will start getting images through.

YB - Meeting with Duncan

I went over today to speak with Duncan about possible images that he may already have that we could use within the book. He gave me a lot of files that contained second and third year work, and i outlined that this was for 3rd year but he said that they wanted to use this work as well. So we now have an array of different images that we can use. Whether we use them all and mix in the images that we have taken im not sure, but once we have a meeting we can work it out.

My priority is to take the images and work out the different disciplines and the best shots to work with them.
We also discussed the idea of him sending out a drop box invite to all 3rd year so that they can put work in that they want in the year book. He said he would organise it and send me a link, so we shall see if that works.

YB - Information

I received an email from Duncan today, detailing all the information that i have asked for which was good. So finally we have something to work with.

Now that we have this info, we all need to get together work out the pages and break down, as well as delegating the jobs so that we can actually get on designing the book. I am also going to pop over to see Duncan to try and get some more imagery to use within the book.

Yearbook - Images

We went and took more photographs of their studio today, we got quite a lot of similar shots due to the fact that there arnt many 3rd years in at the moment. We are still waiting on the information as well.
So anyway, we went and took more pictures this time focusing on more close ups, more angles that we liked from the last images.
Here are a few more stylrs that we liked: