OUGD404 Studio Brief 2: What is a book?

For this brief we have had to use and create our own grids. As a starting point, we collected spreads from magazines or newspapers and drew the grid system over the top on to tracing paper.

This was quite difficult at first because not every edge counts as a line in the grid. I also realised that I haven't drawn in the gaps between the text boxes which should be done.

This first grid is very simple and has a gradient-like effect to it from top to bottom with the spaces between the lines. This is partly because of Headings and titles are near the top and so is the small print such as the newspaper name at the top of the page, or the name of the writers. Large advertisements usually go near the bottom of the page, also.

The second grid shows the features of the spread drawn over the top of the grid, so that I could learn how grids are put together in terms of image and text. This spread seems to have an equal amount of text and imagery, but each page is laid out completely differently. 

I have found that some newspapers have a very similar grid for every spread in the same paper to keep a theme. 

Next I created some small thumbnails of layouts using headers, text and image to get used to designing my own 6 column grids. I tried my best to balance them effectively.
After this we moved on to working with our 10 questions. We are using 10 spreads to hold the information, but one spread has to be dedicated to the list of contents and an introduction, so it is 10 topics over 9 spreads. Because of this I am using 2 similar questions on one page (additive colour and subtractive colour).

Below are the thumbnails I have created for my spreads based on my amount of information.

Sketching thumbnails makes the process much clearer and straightforward. I found I had to start again with a few when I found I hadn't taken into account the amount of information, which is hard with such small thumbnails.
I have tried to keep my layouts as simple as possible as that is what I think works best for the reader, and I don't want my spreads to be confusing.

I decided to use white space in a big way with this spread as it is just the opening to the book. I think the white space around the introduction gives it more focus. I used coloured boxes around the numbers to reflect the use of a grid, and also give the book it's own style, even if it is simplistic.

When designing it on Indesign I decided to take away the headers in the bottom right corner because they weren't needed for the information to be clear. The right page of this spread has text taking up two columns instead of three because it wasn't enough information; it would seem too sparse across 3 columns. A 6 column grid means that I couldn't make the text central without using just one grid so I made them on the left and right of the page to break it up and try something new. 

I changed this layout quite a lot because the information wasn't fitting in correctly, and was way too cramped. I think that making the information work in a zig zag design is quite interesting and more creative than a straightforward layout. It also makes it a bit more appealing to read because each text box only needs a short amount of concentration.

The information turned out to be too sparse to use three columns ('How to use Contrast in Colour') so I limited it to two to make it more compact. 

 I had more information than I first realised so I had to fill up the layout more when using Indesign. I made these pages matching and very simple because of the amount of text. There is a lot of information because this spread has 2 'questions' in one.

 I kind of regret not using images on this spread or samples of the classifications, but it was quite tricky to fit it all in and keep it neat and tidy as it is here.

I have used the 'handglovery' image on this spread because it has been very useful to me in the past with type anatomy. I then added the most important features and their definitions to the left page of the spread, and to the right I added more 'Did you know' kind of facts with images. I like the contrast between using 3 columns on the left for information and 1 column each on the right.

 I found it hard to break up the text so that less than 3 columns at a time were used so I kept it all 3 columns wide. This makes it less appealing overall to read but there is a good balance of images to help this, and break up the text.

I made the text frame the images on this spread, which I think works nicely. There is a nice mixture of columns used, and a good amount of imagery.

 

Using images for printing methods is quite vital to show what the process looks like. This spread is quite text heavy but there was no away around it. 

I found using a 6 column grid on a spread is very restricting, and I'd prefer to use a 12 column grid in the future. However I'm glad I used 6 columns because it has helped me learn how to work around difficulties with grids.

I chose to work the A5 size as it is a small booklet that covers the basics of each graphic design topic.

I used 10pt for most of the body text, except for some of the intro paragraphs. I think this is a good size for A5 as it fits in nicely and is still readable. I used around 45pt for the page headers, but made them smaller when they didn't fit on one line; I felt more than one line would ruin all of the spreads that are working as a set.