OUGD405: Brief 3- Layout

Brief 3: Layout thumbnails and sketches 

Below are my initial sketches and ideas for page layouts based on the 5 areas I must include:

Initially I thought about placing my photographs together similar to the page layout I had already looked at which just contained imagery, therefore I experimented with one photograph before using the rest of my photographs. I wanted to portray the idea of collections and a collection of information therefore I would also place the text in similar boxes.

 Photographs:

However from looking at the opinions of those who critiqued my work I found that I should merge my content together to create pages which are more flowing and do not contain as much white space. Therefore I will look at my original design ideas but try to merge them as one.

I began looking at different ways the text could align on my layout and contribute to merging my text and photographs together, however they were not successful and I felt they seemed too much like a traditional grid which would be used within a textbook. However I wanted to create page layouts that would appeal to a younger audience and create type and image that would be quite easy to view.

I thought about how the layout could work as I have seen in photography books that photographs are sometimes given a page to themselves, however I don't think my photographs would work on there own so therefore I will consider using them as backgrounds.

I found this slab serif font to download which I thought worked wonderfully with my imagery, I wanted to keep the print feel of it as if I had more time on this brief I would of screen printed these pages: I think the texture of the typography does work well trying to keep the work personal in terms of using opinions.

I chose baskerville to use as my body copy text as it is also a serif font however it is incredibly easy to read.

I had looked at the idea of grid and using two columns to split the text up however I think the amount of text needs to split further into small paragraphs which would be easier to read. I also picked out the pale pink colour within the keyring photograph which is incredibly similar to a lighter magenta. 

From earlier mentioning about using photographs as backgrounds I found that lowering the opacity of the photograph worked wonderfully and would allow for text to be over layed.

After editing the background photograph and splitting up the body text I found that it worked best in smaller columns.

From the typography I tried working with earlier (quote) I over-layed the text onto the photographic background I had experimented with, however I'm unsure on whether the pale pink still works on this page, I might consider using a darker tone from the photograph (lipgloss). 

The opacity of the grey text I feel doesn't work either so I might edit this to be a black tone, I also experimented with the background on the right hand side to create a contrast- therefore breaking up the double page layout and allowing for them to be viewed separately. 

I think out of all the designs this works best because the text works on a larger scale. However I still think that the pink is too pale to stand out from the background as these are the key words from the quote. 

I thought about how I might put my words into the page layout and decided that I would either blend the words into the background or list them. I tried blending some into the background however I thought that because the words are more significant the background this would not work and therefore below is pictured a screen shot of the white text which works far better. 

I began another page by wanting to use opinions and also words I had used within my research, therefore I thought it would be best to overlay the opinion on top of "key rings" as this is what all the page layouts are about- a general overview. I tried in initially in black however I felt that this didn't work properly.

I eventually changed the composition and shape of the background to create a large "I" which is the start of the sentence/ quote which I think suits the over all composition better than just a block of text. 

The light pink again didn't seem to be working on my page layout designs so I opted for a brighter and more pigmented colour which works perfectly in standing out against the black and white colour palette. I have seem this many times in layout design before as a limited colour palette allows for control on how things are read and what is viewed as important content. I then changed the colours of my other pages to match this to allow for consistency. 

For my facts I had already planned out to place these in an informal and slanted layout which could resemble much like a sketchbook instead of formal grids. which is similar to the photograph in the background as the key rings are at different angles.

I also followed my idea for statistics from my initial sketches and put them into circles (represents some of the shapes of key rings) however I felt these looked too flat so I added another layer as a drop shadow. For my last page I wanted to create a vector graphic of one of my keys I had collected to continue the idea of the book/ content. However my first attempt is too heavily detailed to contain typography and so I continued to remove content until I felt the line weight and space was right.

This was my most successful attempt however for my final page I will add more text to the top of the key ring as I feel this is empty and doesn't balance the composition. 

FINAL DESIGNS

Overall I am pleased with my designs and how they have turned out although I have found this brief incredibly challenging because I haven't used indesign before, the introductions to indesign were incredibly helpful and allowed me to understand how grids, text and images can be imported and placed within the software. If I had more time I think I would printed these at digital print and experimented with the type of stock I could of used as I think with the high pigmentations and black and white photographs thicker stock could of worked wonderfully.