submitted boards

These boards were put on and handed in on my submission CD but I wanted to finish up by putting them up here as well. I had problems with issuu yesterday but should be working fine now.

Open publication - Free publishing

Open publication - Free publishing

Open publication - Free publishing

Open publication - Free publishing

Open publication - Free publishing

Open publication - Free publishing

Open publication - Free publishing - More graphic design

FMP Evaluation

This module has had some definite ups and downs for me but on the whole I feel pleased with the body of work I have produced. The biggest highlight I feel is my spatial calendar brief. I really enjoyed the process of thinking up ideas and creating the layouts for this brief. It was started as a purely experimental project and at the start I didn’t expect it to be as good as it turned out. I was also pleased the final end product looks great as well, as this has sometimes been my downfall: finishing off good ideas to high quality production. The other major success I feel is my design context book. This was another labour of love: I found researching this really interesting and enjoyed creating the page spreads for each typeface. I was also determined not to let the final production let this down, so I am pleased that quite a major effort I put into making the book paid off. The stock choice was perfect and the ring binding also worked better than I could have hoped. I wanted to create something I would like to keep and refer back too, and I achieved this… to such an extent I don’t really want to hand it over for marking!

On to things that went slightly less well, or ‘learning experiences’: A couple of briefs I wanted to do never really got going. The film posters brief fell by the wayside once I realised how much time the context book would take to design, this was purely down to bad time management, I put if off ‘till later until it was too late!  Also a few briefs I did could have been pushed further. My exhibitions brief worked fairly well, there were some good ideas behind the graphics I feel, but I found myself labouring over them for too long, and getting a bit sick of the project by the end, so it never really reached its full potential. Documenting decisions and blogging research and development has also again been something I haven’t really done enough of if I am honest with myself. I don’t enjoy writing or blogging so I never got into a good regular routine like others have for this side of the course.

I learnt a lot by tacking live briefs this module. The timeback brief was a two week live pitch which I am still pleased with, I worked in a slightly different way for this brief: I decided on a design style I wanted to use (ornamental typography) and the researched this and developed it into something more contemporary, this was very successful I feel as a design pitch. I am also pleased with my pitch for 2020, they wanted to updates the DVD packaging they use to hand over work to clients and I think I hit the right tone of creativity and professionalism that would serve the company well. (Its far, far better than the current design). I also learnt a lot from some live briefs that didn’t go quite as well; the Creative Networks flyer should have been quick and easy but wasn’t because I has to deal with a silly amount of emails cc’d all over the place and lots of revisions that I didn’t feel in a position to turn down –defiantly a learning experience: I cant let a client get in the way of the creative process to such an extent in future. The KTP brief was also a live brief that I decided to discontinue, I’m really glad I stopped this when I did because I would have been chasing my tail with this one if I had tried to take it further. The project wasn’t really at a stage where it would have been appropriate for a designer to be involved, and it didn’t really interest me.

All it all, I think the body of work produced for this module is (mostly) done to a high standard, quite a bit of this work I am happy to use in my portfolio, and I have now completely pushed out year one and year 2 work from this, proof I am defiantly still improving as a designer. My typography skills in particular have improved in this module, I think the context book layout especially is pretty tight in this regard.  

I am glad to say I am ending on a high for the degree with some work I can genuinely say I am proud of.

Paul Mitchell – 3/6/11

context publication research: books

Ok, this is going to be a large blog post, because books are such a pain to photograph/transfer from camera/resize images/upload images to blog, that I decided to do them all at the same time.

As my context publication is about typefaces, and using fonts in print, its unsurprising that the best source of research and contextulising has been from books that I could actually get my own hands on. I love books on type and type design and typography so making my own was a logical step. Here are the photos I took of the books that have been the most inspirational to me.



This first one is an old type specimen book I managed to get from an ebay seller in America, its undated but I think its from the 1940's or 1950's judging from the fonts in the book, this obviously was a major inspiration for my own context book, as mine too is ring-bound and a specimen book of sorts. The layout is really tight, and its a useful little book I tried to find out more about the business but google didnt have much at all. I really love this book, but I imagine not everybody will fine it as interesting, I knew my context book would need to be more accessible than just type specimens.

This next one is also a lovely vintage find: A book on typography from the 1930's, again I just love it, amazingly, almost everything in the book is still relevant to setting type that looks good on computer today. I didnt photograph the cover because the inside page is so much nicer:

This is another old one but a bit different, this book is about hand lettering and sign-writing so not exactly typography, but the lettering is fantastic.

All the lettering in the book is hand drawn, no-one today would draw an exact caslon like this when you can choose a caslon font and set it any size you like, but the skill in the book to be able to do this is amazing.

Next up is a newer book that was a massive help in researching the typefaces I wanted to go in my book, Its set out by type designer not by font, and is frustrating that there seems not enough info about each designer, but its a great resource to learn about something then find more on the net. Another bad cover design.

This next one is my type bible, yeah the cover is crap, again, but the contents of the book is first class. Its  also on lovely paper stock that the ink seem to just sit on rather than soak in, hard to explain but a great book.

This last one is the newest book. This is the most accessible book on type I have ever read, really interesting read and a great layout. The cover is nice as well which is rare for a book on typography!

final calendar photo shoot

Photos for my portfolio of finished calendar: I ended up not using any cover design as I felt the minimal graphics of the calendar worked better without: it forces the viewer to try to understand the calendar themselves rather than having it explained and I like this because each month is a puzzle in themselves so it fits with the whole design to just present it as-is and let people work it out.

finished printed and bound context book

After a lot of folding and trimming the book is now completed! I have to say i'm really pleased with the way this turned out, as apposed to a few of my other briefs, this actually turned out a lot better than I thought it might. This is defiantly a nice object that I will keep, and I guess I learnt a load more about typography and typefaces making it, which was the point.

The Cover, I decided to use some really minimal, but tight typography for this. I letter-spaced small caps with an EM dash in the middle, as with the contents page I used Eames as the typeface to give a modern but retro feel. I like the look of small caps like this and its something you don't see used much anymore, I think because its not as easy, you have to think about it, and you need some knowledge about how fonts work.

A page spread for example, you can see I tried to get the timeline to flow through the margins.

Folded out, again the line continues through. (each spread folds out like this)

cards have arrived!

At last, they came this morning,

They look good as well really pleased with the quality. The only slight issue is because they are matt laminated, they look like you should be able to write on them but the pen ink wipes straight off. Next time I might go with an uncoated stock, but these will be great for the show because they feel nice and are virtually indestructible!

making final calendar

This was slightly more tricky than I expected because I needed more space between the two perspex sheets than was originally intended so I had to go to the jewellery department and beg them to drill out the screw holes so I could fit in my thick spacer.

 I had to cut out two inserts from mount-board and one from printed paper (so I could have 2012 in white) then sandwich them together to get enough thickness.

Testing assembly, I was so pleased it works!